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A Bayesian hierarchical framework with a Gaussian copula and a generalized extreme value (GEV) marginal distribution is proposed for the description of spatial dependencies in data. This spatial copula model was applied to extreme summer temperatures over the Extremadura Region, in the southwest of Spain, during the period 1980–2015, and compared with the spatial noncopula model. The Bayesian hierarchical model was implemented with a Monte Carlo Markov Chain (MCMC) method that allows the distribution of the model’s parameters to be estimated. The results show the GEV distribution’s shape parameter to take constant negative values, the location parameter to be altitude dependent, and the scale parameter values to be concentrated around the same value throughout the region. Further, the spatial copula model chosen presents lower deviance information criterion (DIC) values when spatial distributions are assumed for the GEV distribution’s location and scale parameters than when the scale parameter is taken to be constant over the region.

As of March 2021, the State of Florida, U.S.A. had accounted for approximately 6.67% of total COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus disease) cases in the U.S. The main objective of this research is to analyze mobility patterns during a three month period in summer 2020, when COVID-19 case numbers were very high for three Florida counties, Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties. To investigate patterns, as well as drivers, related to changes in mobility across the tri-county region, a random forest regression model was built using sociodemographic, travel, and built environment factors, as well as COVID-19 positive case data. Mobility patterns declined in each county when new COVID-19 infections began to rise, beginning in mid-June 2020. While the mean number of bar and restaurant visits was lower overall due to closures, analysis showed that these visits remained a top factor that impacted mobility for all three counties, even with a rise in cases. Our modeling results suggest that there were mobility pattern differences between counties with respect to factors relating, for example, to race and ethnicity (different population groups factored differently in each county), as well as social distancing or travel-related factors (e.g., staying at home behaviors) over the two time periods prior to and after the spike of COVID-19 cases.

Mobility patterns and lifestyles have changed in recent years in cities worldwide, thanks to the strong rise in modes of travel commonly referred to as micromobility. In this context, e-scooters have experienced a great rise globally which has led to an increase of crashes involving this type of micromobility vehicle in urban areas. Thus, there is a need to study e-scooter users’ behaviour and their interaction with cyclists. This research aimed at characterizing the meeting manoeuvre between micromobility users along diverse typologies of two-way bicycle track by using an instrumented e-scooter. As a result, bicycle tracks having concrete or vegetated curb presented lower clearance distance (≈0.8 m) than those without edge elements (>1 m), with no statistically significant differences found between the interaction with bicycles and e-scooters. Additionally, an online questionnaire was proposed to assess users’ perceived risk during the meeting manoeuvre, concluding that micromobility users feel safer and more comfortable riding on pavements away from parked or moving motorized traffic, and on protected bicycle tracks.

The main purpose of the paper is to determine changes in transport behaviour of users of the public bike-share (PBS) scheme in a large Polish city, Łódź. By tracking GPS signals for individual trips taken by PBS users, it was possible to analyse their changeability (time and spatial) for periods before the implementation of statutory Sunday retail restrictions (2017) and after their partial introduction (2018). The study also took into account weather conditions, namely maximum and minimum daily temperatures and daily totals of precipitation recorded by a weather station in Łodź. In order to determine the correlations between certain weather conditions and PBS trips, the authors applied regression analysis. The results of the study showed that weekend cycling is less susceptible to the impact of weather than cycling on weekdays. At the same time, a comparative analysis of trading and non-trading Sundays proved that, during Sundays with retail restrictions, public bikes were used for longer, farther, and slower trips. These observations were confirmed by analyses of maps of traffic structure.

During the last decade, the use of free-floating carsharing systems has grown rapidly in urban areas. However, little is known on the effects free-floating carsharing systems has grown rapidly in urban areas. However, little is known on the effects free-floating carsharing offerings have on car ownership in general. Also the main drivers why free-floating users sell their cars are still rarely analysed. To shed some light on these issues, we carried out an online survey among free-floating carsharing users in 11 European cities and based our analysis on a sample of more than 10,000 survey participants. Our results show that one carsharing car replaces several private cars – in optimistic scenarios up to 20 cars. In Copenhagen (followed by Rome, Hamburg, and London) one carsharing car replaces about two times more private cars than in Madrid, the city with the lowest number. The main non-city specific influencing factor of shedding a private car due to the availability of the free-floating carsharing services seems to be the usage frequency of the service. The more kilometres users drive with these cars, the more likely it becomes that they sell a private car (or they sell their car and, therefore, use this service more often). Further memberships of bikesharing and other carsharing services, users that live in larger buildings as well as users that own several cars are more likely to reduce their number of cars, too. Finally, our findings are highly valuable for carsharing operators and (transport) policy makers when introducing free-floating carsharing systems in further cities. According to our results, all 11 cities show a reduced private car fleet due to members’ access to free-floating carsharing.

This paper proposes an innovative shared scooter service whereby scooter owners can authorize the rental of their scooters to others through a mobile service platform. It constitutes a public short-distance mobility service for travelers and increases the efficient utilization of each private scooter. The study examines the adoption of scooter-sharing services by travelers and adapts the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology, attitude, and user experience (UX) to investigate the factors that may influence traveler acceptance of scooter-sharing services. The data were collected from Taiwanese travelers who used the shared scooters provided in this study and completed pre- and post-use subjective ratings of the scooter-sharing service (n = 99), analyzed using a hierarchical multiple regression analysis. The results indicate that the model constructs of habit, social influence, and environmental protections may positively affect users’ behavioral intentions toward shared scooters, while performance expectancy and effort expectancy may negatively affect intention to use. Attitudes and UX had no direct effect on intention to use. In light of the findings, recommendations for improving the design of scooter-sharing services, implications for service providers, and a reference basis for the development of future shared micro-mobility services are provided.

The advent of electrified, distributed propulsion in vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft promises aerial passenger transport within, into, or out of urban areas. Urban air mobility (UAM), i.e., the on-demand concept that utilizes eVTOL aircraft, might substantially reduce travel times when compared to ground-based transportation. Trips of three, pre-existent, and calibrated agent-based transport scenarios (Munich Metropolitan Region, Île-de-France, and San Francisco Bay Area) have been routed using the UAM-extension for the multi-agent transport simulation (MATSim) to calculate congested trip travel times for each trip’s original mode—i.e., car or public transport (PT)—and UAM. The resulting travel times are compared and allow the deduction of potential UAM trip shares under varying UAM properties, such as the number of stations, total process time, and cruise flight speed. Under base-case conditions, the share of motorized trips for which UAM would reduce the travel times ranges between 3% and 13% across the three scenarios. Process times and number of stations heavily influence these potential shares, where the vast majority of UAM trips would be below 50 km in range. Compared to car usage, UAM’s (base case) travel times are estimated to be competitive beyond the range of a 50-minute car ride and are less than half as much influenced by congestion.

At present, conflicts between urban development and the climate environment are becoming increasingly apparent under rapid urbanization in China. Revealing the dynamic mechanism and controlling factors of the urban outdoor thermal environment is the necessary theoretical preparation for regulating and improving the urban climate environment. Taking Hangzhou as an example and based on the local climate zones classification system, we investigated the effects of land cover composition and structure on temperature variability at the local scale. The measurement campaign was conducted within four local climate zones (LCZ 2, 4, 5, and LCZ 9) during 7 days in the summer of 2018. The results showed that the temperature difference within the respective LCZ was always below 1.1 °C and the mean temperature difference between LCZs caused by different surface physical properties was as high as 1.6 °C at night. Among four LCZs, LCZ 2 was always the hottest, and LCZ 9 was the coolest at night. In particular, the percentage of pervious surface was the most important land cover feature in explaining the air temperature difference. For both daytime and nighttime, increasing the percentage of pervious surface as well as decreasing the percentage of impervious surface and the percentage of building surface could lower the local temperature, with the strongest influence radius range from 120 m to 150 m. Besides, the temperature increased with the SVF increased at day and opposite at night.

Substantial research is required to ensure that micro-mobility ride sharing provides a better fulfilment of user needs. This study proposes a novel crowdsourcing model for the ride-sharing system where light vehicles such as scooters and bikes are crowdsourced. The proposed model is expected to solve the problem of charging and maintaining a large number of light vehicles where these efforts will be the responsibility of the crowd of suppliers. The proposed model consists of three entities: suppliers, customers, and a management party responsible for receiving, renting, booking, and demand matching with offered resources. It can allow suppliers to define the location of their private e-scooters/e-bikes and the period of time they are available for rent. Using a dataset of over 9 million e-scooter trips in Austin, Texas, we ran an agent-based simulation six times using three maximum battery ranges (i.e., 35, 45, and 60 km) and different numbers of e-scooters (e.g., 50 and 100) at each origin. Computational results show that the proposed model is promising and might be advantageous to shift the charging and maintenance efforts to a crowd of suppliers.