City Streets Research Articles

Fusion of Multiple Basic Element Features for Airborne LiDAR in-house Surveys

When using airborne LiDAR point clouds for city modelling and road extraction, point cloud classification is a crucial step. There are numerous ways for classifying point clouds, but there are still issues like redundant multi-dimensional feature vector data and poor point cloud classification in intricate situations. A point cloud classification method built on the fusing of multikernel feature vectors is suggested as a solution to these issues. The technique employs random forest to classify point cloud data by merging colour information, and it extracts feature vectors based on point primitives and object primitives, respectively. In this study, a densely populated area was chosen as the study area. Light airborne LIDAR mounted on a delta wing was used to collect point cloud data at a low altitude (170 m) over a dense cross-course. The point cloud data were then combined, corrected, and enhanced with texture data, and the houses were vectorized on the point cloud. The accuracy of the results was then assessed. With a median inaccuracy of 4.8 cm and a point cloud data collection rate of 83.3%, using airborne LIDAR to measure house corners can significantly lighten the labour associated with external house corner measurements.This test extracts the texture information of point cloud data through the efficient processing of high-density point cloud data, providing a reference for the application of texture information of airborne LIDAR data and a clear understanding of its accuracy.

Assessing the extinction risk of the spontaneous flora in urban tree bases.

As the spatial arrangement of trees planted along streets in cities makes their bases potential ecological corridors for the flora, urban tree bases may be a key contributor to the overall connectivity of the urban ecosystem. However, these tree bases are also a highly fragmented environment in which extinctions are frequent. The goal of this study was to assess the plant species' ability to survive and spread through urban tree bases. To do so, we developed a Bayesian framework to assess the extinction risk of a plant metapopulation using presence/absence data, assuming that the occupancy dynamics was described by a Hidden Markov Model. The novelty of our approach is to take into account the combined effect of low-distance dispersal and the potential presence of a seed bank on the extinction risk. We introduced a metric of the extinction risk and examined its performance over a wide range of metapopulation parameters. We applied our framework to yearly floristic inventories carried out in 1324 tree bases in Paris, France. While local extinction risks were generally high, extinction risks at the street scale varied greatly from one species to another. We identified 10 plant species that could survive and spread through urban tree bases, and three plant traits correlated with the extinction risk at the metapopulation scale: the maximal height, and the beginning and end of the flowering period. Our results suggest that some plant species can use urban tree bases as ecological corridors despite high local extinction risks by forming a seed bank. We also identified other plant traits correlated with the ability to survive in tree bases, related to the action of gardeners. Moreover, our findings demonstrate that our Bayesian estimation framework based on percolation theory has the potential to be extended to more general metapopulations.

MDTGAN: Multi domain generative adversarial transfer learning network for traffic data imputation

Accurate, real-time, and efficient traffic data, crucial for intelligent transportation systems, which is often disrupted in the real world due to the influence of weather, interference, and equipment failures. Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), have achieved significant results in image restoration, providing insights for traffic data imputation. Recent research has focused on developing more effective and reasonable model by learning transferable common knowledge from different cities or different scenarios, which is also an excellent idea for improving the data imputation performance. In light of, we contrive to design a GANs based transferable traffic data imputation model, namely Multi Domain Generative Adversarial Transfer Learning Network (MDTGAN). Firstly, the model consists of two stages. In pre-training stage, the model utilizes the source domain datasets (Similar cities road network datasets) to update parameters and transferred them. Then, the model parameters are optimized using the target domain dataset (Target city road network dataset) in fine-tuning stage to avoid the issue of insufficient samples caused by data missing. Secondly, to adapt the model to different dataset topologies, MDTGAN models the node-level data by taking node time series as input, enabling the model to autonomously learn the prevalent spatiotemporal correlations inherent in nodes. Additionally, we introduce a domain discriminator module that guides the spatial encoder in learning domain-invariant features of network node spatial information, enhancing the model generalization ability. The experiments conducted on three publicly available datasets, in which one dataset is regarded as the target dataset, while the others serve as source datasets. The experimental results demonstrate that the MDTGAN model consistently outperforms the baseline models. Specifically, the MDTGAN model can transfer valuable knowledge from the source domain datasets to improve data imputation performance on the target domain dataset, providing practical significance for cities lacking historical traffic data.

Factors Affecting the Waiting Time of Pedestrians at Unsignalized Crosswalks of Kathmandu: A Case Study of Bagbazar and Jamal Crosswalks

Unsignalized crosswalks are the most common pedestrian crossing facilities on the city roads of Kathmandu. This sharing of the road between pedestrians and vehicles can be very unsafe for walking. To demur such conflict, analyzing pedestrians' waiting behavior and designing pedestrian signals considering different factors is the most efficient way. The degree to which pedestrians adhere to signals depends largely on their patience while waiting. Thus, it is crucial to account for pedestrian waiting tolerance when planning pedestrian signal timing. A study at unsignalized crosswalks of Bagbazar and Jamal were taken into consideration for this study. This research delves into analyzing the factors that impact the waiting time, a key indicator of pedestrian patience at unsignalized crosswalks in Kathmandu. Using SPSS, binary logistic regression is conducted with the waiting time of a pedestrian before crossing as the dependent variable and road width, the gap between vehicles, speed of accepted vehicles, pedestrian size, gender, crossing pattern, and the presence of a carried object as predictor variables. The article encountered that gender, crossing pattern, carrying any object, size of pedestrians, road width, and time gap between the vehicles at the nearer lane of a pedestrian are the significant factors that affect the waiting time. The results could be employed by planners to coordinate the design of pedestrian crossing facilities with the behavioral patterns of pedestrians at unsignalized crosswalks.

A Sustainable mHealth Intervention to Promote Physical Activity for Healthy Aging: A Pilot Study of the “Every Walk You Take” Citizen Science Initiative

The objective of the Every Walk You Take initiative was to co-design and test, in a pilot study, a sustainable mHealth intervention prototype (mobile app) to promote physical activity. This prototype would help to identify the barriers to and facilitators of active living in individuals older than 55 years. A prototype of the intervention was co-designed by a community of stakeholders in Barcelona who were familiar with the social and economic burden of aging in high-income societies. The app’s functionalities included recommendations for healthy routes in the city (parks, pedestrian lanes, and streets) according to environmental variables (air quality and climate) and personal preferences (route difficulty, distance, and geolocation), and ecological momentary assessments (pictures and voice notes) were collected to identify the barriers to and facilitators of performing these routes. To test the app, a pilot study was conducted over two 7-day cycles with citizen scientists recruited at the life-long learning centers of two deprived neighborhoods in Barcelona. A total of 21 citizen scientists (mean age = 67 (standard deviation = 7)), 86% of them female, collected 112 comments and 48 pictures describing their perceived barriers to and facilitators of active living. Every Walk You Take is a new, validated, and sustainable mHealth intervention that is directly involved in health promotion, as it empowers the citizens of Barcelona to play an active role in their own healthcare. This intervention has the potential to be implemented in different cities around the world to collect information on the community determinants of health and health assets.

Spatial quality measurement of commercial streets in old cities of medium-sized cities in China

ABSTRACT Chinese urban development has entered the stage of stock planning, and as an important part of urban public space, the construction of street space has a direct impact on urban development. High-quality street space contributes to sustainable urban development.High-quality street spaces are highly important for constructing vibrant and sustainable cities. Taking Jiaozuo city, a medium-sized city, as an example, this article establishes an evaluation index system for commercial street space quality from the aspects of external characterization and objective material space and uses the Pearson correlation coefficient to explore the influencing factors of urban commercial street space quality. This study finds that (1) crowd activities on commercial streets have different temporal and spatial patterns on weekdays and days off; (2) the external characterization of urban street space quality has a significant positive correlation with objective material spatial elements such as the density of public transportation stops, functional density, functional mixing, interface continuity, and spatial green visibility rate; (3) the enhancement of street accessibility and fine-tuning of functions are key to improving the spatial quality of commercial streets.This study provides theoretical basis and ideas for improving the spatial quality of commercial streets in medium-sized cities in China and promoting sustainable urban development.

SPATIAL SYMBOLS OF A. BÖCKLIN’S THE ISLE OF THE DEAD IN ANDREI BELY’S PETERSBURG

The paper attempts to explore the structural elements of the landscape of Andrei Bely’s novel in correlation with the spatial coordinates and symbolic images of A. Böcklin’s painting The Isle of the Dead. The Swiss artist’s techniques used in the novel are highlighted: color and light painting, the technique of inverse and combined perspective. In addition, microplots of fog, sails and the Bronze Horseman are presented in the novel as ‘pictures with motion’, due to which the visual images-symbols smoothly ‘flow’ into each other, forming a single whole, which meets the author’s desire to reproduce a three-dimensional mythopoetic model of the world based on the unity of macrocosm and microcosm, nature and man. From Bely’s point of view, gloomy rocks, the sky, white clothes, cypresses are a kind of coordinate axes of Böcklin’s painting - they set the horizontal and vertical levels of the universe. In the painting The Isle of the Dead, the horizontal is the Styx and the sky that seems bright; the vertical is shaped by the cypress and the rock. In the novel Petersburg the spire(s) acts as a vertical. The spire is not only a connecting line stretching from the city to the sky, but also a component of the symbolism of the cross: the Neva and the city streets, Petersburg lines, primarily act as a horizontal line. In addition, the image of the spire also fulfils a psychological and compositional function by drawing attention to the climaxes of a particular storyline: as a rule, the moment of the highest psychological tension (whether we are talking about the senator, the terrorist Dudkin, Anna Petrovna, or others) is marked by the mention of the ‘needle’, and extended introspection is often replaced by a ‘point’ indication of this detail of the city panorama, which turns out to be the focus of the character’s perception.

The influence of road network topology on street flooding in New York City—A social media data approach

Urban road network is crucial stormwater infrastructure as city roads serve as paths for stormwater runoff and urban flooding. However, it remains unclear how different road networks influence urban flooding. While past studies have examined high-magnitude and high-intensity flooding events at the large river basin scale, they neglected smaller and more frequent street flooding events (SFEs) which could have a higher cumulative cost. Hence, this study used urban road network topology (RNT) factors and social media big data related to street flooding to investigate their associations with data-driven methods for 557 sewer catchments across New York City (NYC). 11,042 SFEs were taken from raw street flooding complaints (SFCs) recorded on the NYC 311 sewer complaints platform between January 1, 2010, and April 28, 2022. We then used generalized linear mixed models to identify the relationship between RNT factors and street flooding risk (SFR) and found that the characteristics of SFR periodically changed with spatial–temporal heterogeneity. While impervious factor was previously found important, RNT emerged as a new significant factor influencing SFR, with the effects being larger in combined sewer systems and heavy precipitation events. We discerned that planning a dendric road network pattern, increasing RNT connectivity in downstream areas, and having wider roads with more intersections could reduce SFR. Decreasing RNT connectivity in upstream areas, road length, the number of roads, and sewer catchment area also mitigated SFR. Our analysis provided informed street flooding mitigation and adaptation strategies to promote a more resilient, healthy, and sustainable urban environment.

Analysis of the potential for increasing water retention in road pavements on public roads in cities: a case study based on the Old Town of Płock

Współczesny rozwój miast wymaga zastosowania nowoczesnych systemów, szczególnie w zakresie odprowadzania wód opadowych i roztopowych z powierzchni pasów drogowych. W związku z dużą ilością nawierzchni utwardzonych na obszarach zurbanizowanych niezbędne jest szukanie rozwiązań pozwalających na zatrzymanie wody w miejscu jej opadu. Bardzo ważnym zagadnieniem są tu powierzchnie biologicznie czynne. Projektując konkretne rozwiązania, w pierwszej kolejności należy dokonać przeglądu obowiązujących przepisów wodnych i drogowych. Na ich podstawie przeprowadzono analizę możliwości zwiększenia retencji wody w pasach buforowych drogi dla pieszych na obszarze Starego Miasta w Płocku.

Kajian Ulang Perencanaan Geometrik Simpang Simpang Tak Bersinyal Berdasarkan Highway Capacity Manual

Simpang Empat Jeuram Nagan Raya is often mentioned by local people as “Simpang Peut” is the main route of the city's arterial road serving traffic movement between districts or between provinces, which is located in Kuala District, Nagan Raya Regency. The intersection has four arms, serving the flow of 4 lanes of the main road with a median and 2 lanes of minor roads connecting the route for offices, residential residents, trade and as a route to the city center. The problem that is raised and also the purpose of research is how the performance of the intersection to traffic volume occurs in the four arms and distinguishes the difference between the current calculation and previous research. The limitations of the discussion are the research location at Simpang Empat Jeuram, the performance of the intersection based on the 1993 HCM method, side barriers and not predicting previous research. Based on the results, the current volume is 3,310 pcu/hour with a composition of 2,789 pcu/hour. The capacity of 4,009 pcu/hour is above the existing volume which is categorized as not jammed or not saturated. Side barriers 1,328 events are categorized as commercial areas and roadside market activity is very high. The degree of saturation is 0.70 < DS (DS < 0.80 - 0.90) with an average delay of 7.95 seconds/pcu and a queue length of 40% - 20% with a service level D where the current is unstable and sometimes has to slow down the speed of 43 km/hour. Previous research has shown significant results, because the increase in vehicles has continued to increase by 75% in the last 3 years.

Studi Kapasitas Dan Tingkat Pelayanan Jalan

Mr. Muhammad Hasan is street one of the entrance gates to Banda Aceh City. The condition of the road is in steady condition, with a two-lane, two-way type divided with a median of 1.5 m wide. The role of this road is very strategic, considering that if a tsunami occurs, this road is one of the community's escaped roads. The results of initial observations of this road are still in a comfortable condition to drive, but it is necessary to research the level of service to anticipate its role as an escape road. Based on that, we want to know how the level of service on Jalan Mr. Muhammad Hasan. The purpose of this study was to determine the level of service Jalan Mr. Muhammad Hasan using the 1997 MKJI method. Data were collected through a survey of traffic volume and speed for 3 (three) days, namely Thursday, Friday and Sunday. The duration of the survey is 07.00-18.00 with 8 (eight) surveyors. The traffic volume is multiplied by the number emp, so we get the amount of flow at peak hours in the morning, afternoon and evening. The result of recording speed in m/second is converted to km/hour. Furthermore, the capacity of city roads, free flow speed and degree of saturation is calculated. Based on the value of capacity, speed and degree of saturation, the value of road service level is obtained. Based on the calculation results, the highest peak hours on observation day occurred in the afternoon, namely Thursday at 15.45-16.45 (2144 p.m./hour), Friday at 16.15-17.15 (2295 p.m./hour) and Sunday at 17.00-18.00 as many as 1698 smp/hour. hour. The capacity of the road on the three observation days was 6178 pcu/hour and the speed was 53.01 km/hour. The lowest degree of saturation occurred on Sunday afternoon at 0.18 and the highest occurred on Friday at 0.54 and overall it was still below 0.75 so there was no need for a scenario. The level of service in the morning and afternoon (Thursday, Friday, Sunday) still shows a value of A, while on Monday afternoon it becomes C and on Friday and Sunday it slightly decreases to B.

Study of the correspondences distribution of vehicle traffic on the road network of cities

The problems of traffic management in large cities are complicated as the increase in traffic volume far exceeds the road network capacity. It leads to saturation of the road network, which negatively affects its functioning. This article analyzes the state of the art of improving the quality of road traffic by predicting the size of traffic after the implementation of traffic management measures. While the issue of modeling traffic flow parameters based on technological factors has been sufficiently studied, the problems of considering the human factor need to be clarified. The object of study is traffic flow on the city's road network. The criteria used by drivers to compare the characteristics of alternative traffic routes were identified based on the field study results. Based on the data obtained, the parameters of alternative routes that drivers choose when driving on the road network are formed. According to the survey results, the most significant factor is the minimum mileage along the route. Deviations from the shortest route were determined to determine the patterns of distribution of correspondence of non-route vehicles along alternative routes. It made it possible to define the distribution of transport correspondence along alternative routes. Since the process under consideration is probabilistic, the law of distribution of a random variable was determined. After having determined the law of distribution of a random variable for the data obtained, the calculations showed that the change in the random variable is well described by the gamma distribution. It was determined that the share of transport correspondence that will be carried on them decreases as the length of the route deviates from the shortest one. The obtained results make it possible to predict road network congestion by modeling the distribution of traffic flows. In further research, it would be advisable to analyze the distribution of transport correspondence by other criteria.

Studying the effectiveness of project solutions using the transport modeling

One of the factors that lead to an increase in congestion on the road network is the growth of motorization levels in the city. Under such conditions, the number of private vehicles on city streets is increasing as delays at intersections and queues. As a result, the passage of the intersection is delayed, as drivers are forced to wait longer for their turn. When reconstructing a street or road, it is proposed to change the traffic management, the number of lanes and the configuration of some intersections to solve the problems described above. However, after the project is implemented, traffic flows are mostly redistributed, and the proposed changes may not be effective. It is imperative to conduct transport modeling, which allows checking the effectiveness of decisions and adjusting the project in the early stages, but not after implementation, to prevent the negative impact of such situations. When performing transport modeling, unnecessary investments that may arise after implementing the project can be avoided, or the feasibility of its implementation can be checked. The object of research is a section of the road network located in a settlement. It is worth noting that all approaches to intersections have high traffic volumes, which should be taken into account when creating project documentation. This article presents a design solution that includes reconfiguring the intersection, increasing the number of lanes, and conducting transport microscopic modeling of the existing and projected conditions to determine the effectiveness of changing the traffic management on the studied section of the road network. According to the results of the microscopic modeling, delays and queues on the approaches to the intersection have been reduced, which indicates that the decision was correct. PTV VISSIM software was used to perform transport modeling. After testing the simulation model and analyzing the results, it is possible to assess the impact of design decisions on the road network and, if necessary, make adjustments.

Organization of parking space in the central part of Volgograd

An increase in the level of motorization of the population, changes in the density of residential and commercial and office buildings, the functional use of buildings and structures in areas adjacent to urban roads contribute to an increase in the intensity of motor transport and require measures to increase the capacity of the city's road network. Unauthorized parking of personal vehicles on the carriageway of streets and roads leads to a decrease in capacity, and during rush hour to an increase in accidents, which largely necessitates the organization of paid parking space, especially in the central areas of large cities. The authors analyzed the methods of calculating the cost of using paid parking in the cities of the Russian Federation, and justified the feasibility of using the methodology to calculate the cost of using paid parking in the central part of the city. Volgograd based on a comparison with an alternative tariff calculation method based on calculating the cost of creating and maintaining paid parking lots and existing tariffs for parking in large cities of the Russian Federation. The justification of the required number of parking spaces and the minimum fee for parking vehicles, depending on the size of the cars, the axial load of vehicles, the intensity of vehicle traffic in parking areas, has been carried out, the need for parking spaces has been determined. The proposed methodology is quite simple and understandable to users of highways.

Summer Magic: Creating a Sense of Welcome Back to Performance

This article explores the welcome created by the immersive movement work, welcome, we’ve been waiting, by Rodney Diverlus. As the first show back in the theatre for many, welcome, we’ve been waiting is a performance in three parts that takes place pre-entrance on a city street, in the stairwell at the building’s entrance, and on stage in the theatre. The community built through audience engagement meant that the theatre space felt more like a community reunion or kiki than a traditional theatre. Through planning for how we would feel, Diverlus created a welcome that lingers long after the performance. Considering the mechanics, dynamics and aesthetics video game design method, Ware explores how designing for feeling created a space where we all felt welcomed back into theatre in a deep and lasting way.

The presence of fear: How subjective fear, not physiological changes, shapes the experience of presence.

When we become engrossed in novels, films, games, or even our own wandering thoughts, we can feel present in a reality distinct from the real world. Although this subjective sense of presence is, presumably, a ubiquitous aspect of conscious experience, the mechanisms that produce it are unknown. Correlational studies conducted in virtual reality have shown that we feel more present when we are afraid, motivating claims that physiological changes contribute to presence; however, such causal claims remain to be evaluated. Here, we report two experiments that test the causal role of subjective and physiological components of fear (i.e., activation of the sympathetic nervous system) in generating presence. In Study 1, we validated a virtual reality simulation capable of inducing fear. Participants rated their emotions while they crossed a wooden plank that appeared to be suspended above a city street; at the same time, we recorded heart rate and skin conductance levels. Height exposure increased ratings of fear, presence, and both measures of sympathetic activation. Although presence and fear ratings were correlated during height exposure, presence and sympathetic activation were unrelated. In Study 2, we manipulated whether the plank appeared at height or at ground level. We also captured participants' movements, which revealed that alongside increases in subjective fear, presence, and sympathetic activation, participants also moved more slowly at height relative to controls. Using a mediational approach, we found that the relationship between height exposure and presence on the plank was fully mediated by self-reported fear, and not by sympathetic activation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

METHODS OF TRANSPORT MODELLING AS RESEARCH TOOLS IN CREATING TRAFFIC SAFETY MODELS IN URBAN AREAS

In a modern city with heavy traffic and increasing complexity of transportation systems, the issue of traffic planning to minimize the number of road accidents becomes particularly acute. Transport modelling is one of the tools used in the research and development of traffic models in urban areas. By using transport modelling, it is possible to identify potential hazards and evaluate the effectiveness of proposed safety measures that reduce accident risks and improve traffic safety in urban planning. Existing transport modelling methods, including microscopic, mesoscopic, macroscopic, dynamic, and static, have been examined. An analysis of the main characteristics of each method was conducted, along with the software that supports their implementation, evaluating the advantages and limitations of each method as research tools in creating traffic safety models in urban areas. As a result of the study, the simulation micromodelling method was proposed for assessing safety levels when analyzing existing solutions or during the design phase of new elements of the street and road network in cities. Key factors have been identified that justify the use of micromodelling when forming a traffic safety model. Based on the research, it was found that for assessing the safety level of existing solutions for street and road network elements and during the development of a traffic safety model in urban areas, the simulation micromodelling method is the most appropriate. At the same time, applying a set of measures to adapt the chosen implementation of this method to a specific type of street and road network element significantly improves the accuracy of traffic safety assessment results in cities.

Mobilitas dan Survival Penjual Mie Ayam dan Bakso di Kawasan Pinggiran Kota Surakarta

This research examines the mobility and survival strategies of the informal sector in urban areas, particularly chicken noodle and meatball vendors, amidst the pandemic. The research method employed a survey with 158 respondents in the outskirts of Surakarta city. The results indicate that the high economic growth influences the consumption patterns of society and the growth of the informal sector, such as meatball and chicken noodle vendors. The Covid-19 pandemic imposes significant pressure on the informal sector, yet most vendors continue to operate with different strategies. The mobility of informal sector workers is not only from the surrounding areas of Surakarta but also from outside the province, driven by the attractiveness of the destination city, good accessibility, and adequate road conditions. Almost 27% of vendors stopped operating during the pandemic, but the majority persevered with adaptive strategies depending on their situation and creativity.

A Road Behavior Pattern-Detection Model in Querétaro City Streets by the Use of Shape Descriptors

In this research, a proposed model aims to automatically identify patterns of spatial and temporal behavior of moving objects in video sequences. The moving objects are analyzed and characterized based on their shape and observable attributes in displacement. To quantify the moving objects over time and form a homogeneous database, a set of shape descriptors is introduced. Geometric measurements of shape, contrast, and connectedness are used to represent each moving object. The proposal uses Granger’s theory to find causal relationships from the history of each moving object stored in a database. The model is tested in two scenarios; the first is a public database, and the second scenario uses a proprietary database from a real scenario. The results show an average accuracy value of 78% in the detection of atypical behaviors in positive and negative dependence relationships.

“Spectral Gateways” and the “Horror of the City Road”: A Surreal Connection between The Great Gatsby and The Rainbow

“Spectral Gateways” and the “Horror of the City Road”: A Surreal Connection between The Great Gatsby and The Rainbow