Transit Company Research Articles

DIGITAL MEDIA AND CIVIC ENGAGEMENT ON HEALTH RISKS OF SMOKING AMONG DRIVERS IN ANAMBRA STATE

Smoking is the inhalation and exhalation of fumes of burning tobacco and other dangerous nicotine substances that endanger health. It is also a learned behaviour capable of causing addiction. The study examined civic engagement through digital media on health risks of smoking among drivers in Onitsha, Anambra State. The study focused on drivers of registered Mass Transit companies: Eastern Mass Transit and Onitsha South Mass Transit. The study was anchored on two theories: grounded theory of smoking decision which explains pre-and-post effects of smoking quitting, and mediatisation theory which examines the long-term structural change in the role of media in culture and society. The study adopted a survey of drivers of select Mass Transit companies in Anambra State. This was to ensure that these drivers were studied in their varying work atmospheres concerning smoking. Findings of the study showed that drivers of both companies make effective use of digital media for information on the dangers of smoking while driving and erring drivers are adequately penalised. Based on the findings of this study, it is recommended that media messages on the dangers of smoking tobacco or other dangerous substances on the wheel should be sustained. It equally recommended psychological tests on drivers before recruitment.

Experience of Russian Companies in Transition to Remote Work in the Pandemic Situation

This article presents the results of a study of the experience gained from Russian organizations and enterprises’ emergency transition to remote work in the spring of 2020. The main objective of the study is to analyze the team management strategies used in the lockdown conditions in the spring of 2020: circumstances determining the effectiveness of joint work, organizational and communicative particularities, and properties of corporative culture. The transfer of employees to remote work entailed a decrease in the effectiveness of collective work with an increase in worktime. Stresses caused by concerns of people about the stability of their work proved to be justified and widespread. These concerns were partly alleviated thanks by employers’ efforts to retain workers. The authorities promptly adopted Law No. 407 on remote work. This also eased the fears of employees. Companies that managed to create workable IT systems and auxiliary services were able to quickly mobilize employees to accomplish production tasks. But teaming competencies such as problems of motivation, involvement, trust, mutual understanding and some others could not be promptly resolved. Accordingly, the crisis was surmounted successfully enough in those organizations that had these skills in the repertoire of their corporate culture. The lockdown experience shows that remote work can be a regular element of workplace relations. This requires algorithms of efficient work out of the office and the use of managerial decisions motivating employees for cooperation, trust, involvement, creativity, the ability to learn and adapt to change.

Digitalisation of oil companies in transition to networking business model

Digitalisation of oil companies in transition to networking business model

Finding the Subway Disruption Regimes of Switching Subway to Uber in Toronto

The evolving relationship between public transit and transportation network companies (TNCs), such as Uber and Lyft, is of great interest to government agencies and has seen much critical attention in the academic literature. In this paper, we focus on the demand for TNC trips (also known as ride-hailing trips) during the disruption of the subway service. We combined a detailed dataset of Uber trips made in Toronto, Canada during the period September 2016 to August 2018 and subway disruption data provided by the Toronto Transit Commission. These data were used to examine the question: how long are subway users willing to wait during a disruption before switching modes? This question was framed as a threshold point, and an innovative structural threshold regression model was used to obtain an answer. Controlling for environmental and location-specific factors in the model, it was revealed that subway users in Toronto tend to switch to Uber after a service delay of as little as 3 min, with an average result of 7 min and an upper bound of 12 min.

A business model perspective to understand intra-firm transitions: From traditional to flexible public transport services

Socio technological transition with respect to innovations is a broader concept and generally is theorized as such. It is, therefore, unclear how at the micro level, the business firms within an industry is restructuring internally to accommodate the technological innovations. Insights of this process management is uniquely valuable to understand how local technological niches and larger socio-technological transformations are being accommodated in industrial reforms. A business model perspective could provide insights of these innovation process management, in this context the mobility transition from fixed to flexible public transport (FPT) systems. Taking business models as the unit of analysis, in this paper we provide a framework to map the transition process. The framework is applied to a case study of a traditional public transport firm in the Netherlands. We map the evolution of the business models taking the local external developments into account. We define three phases for the business model mapping here – pre FPT, during FPT and the future of FPT. Findings suggest a complete shift in client orientation of public transport authorities with geared up efforts in digitalization and value creation during these three phases of FPT transition. Perhaps the most striking - yet not completely unexpected – outcome for transit companies is to gradually assume a role of facilitator as opposed to a provider of public transit, which potentially will have a thorough reform of the industry. This initial trace of internal transition, however incomplete, provides useful insights of the overall product and process management and the emerging business model configurations and contributes to the learning trajectory of FPT service organizations.

The Multichannel Challenge at Natura in Beauty and Personal Care

Faced with declining market share and sales, Natura, Brazil's second-largest brand in the cosmetics, fragrances, and toiletries market, expanded its customer reach by moving from a direct-sales company to a multichannel company. In 2014, Natura added online catalogs, physical stores, and drugstores to its well-established direct-selling model, but the results were disappointing. Between 2014 and 2016, three different Natura CEOs attempted to lead the company in the strategic transition to focus less on the direct sales consultants and more on reaching the end consumers directly with multiple channels and touchpoints. In October 2016, the company's board appointed its former commercial vice president, Joao Paulo Ferreira, as the most recent CEO. Ferreira's challenge was to find the right balance between the direct-selling and other channel formats to market Natura, thus enabling it to thrive in the face of intense competition in the beauty and personal care market in Brazil. Excerpt UVA-M-0943 Rev. Feb. 25, 2020 The Multichannel Challenge at Natura in Beauty and Personal Care Natura is headed for a big shake-up. We are sure that in 3 to 5 years our business is going to change significantly. —Alessandro Carlucci, Natura's former CEO, January 2014 The business of Natura, Brazil's largest direct-selling company with roughly 1.5 million independent door-to-door sales consultants (ISCs), had started to change in recent years. On August 19, 2014, the company had announced that board member Roberto Lima would replace Alessandro Carlucci as CEO. Carlucci had worked at Natura for 25 years and had held the role of CEO since 2005. This CEO transition occurred when Natura's position in the cosmetics, fragrance, and toiletries (CF&T) market was being challenged by other, nondirect-selling companies. . . .

Desegregating Birmingham’s Buses: African Americans’ Protracted Struggle and White “Civil” Resistance

Desegregating Birmingham’s Buses: African Americans’ Protracted Struggle and White “Civil” Resistance Sarah Frohardt-Lane (bio) Recounting his experiences as a part of the civil rights struggles in Birmingham, Alabama, James Roberson described the intense emotion he felt when he rode a city bus in defiance of segregation rules. As a teenager in the 1950s, Roberson participated in collective actions to desegregate Birmingham’s buses, knowing that he was risking his safety in doing so. Forced by law to sit or stand behind the white seating section, black riders potentially faced humiliation, verbal abuse, physical assault, and arrest if they refused to comply. “The first time I defied the segregation of the bus, there was fear,” Roberson recalled. “The only way I could describe it [is] if I had a brown bag and had something in it that was alive and told you it was a rattlesnake and sat it on your lap. You didn’t know if it was going to strike or what was in it. That’s the kind of fear that gripped me when I first violated the rules and sat up front.”1 Roberson was among hundreds of African Americans who took direct action in an attempt to bring about bus desegregation in Birmingham. On two occasions—once in 1956 and again in 1958—their efforts were coordinated attempts to bring attention to the issue of segregated buses and to provoke an arrest that could be used as a test case to challenge the legality of Birmingham’s bus statutes. At other times throughout the late 1950s, individuals’ decisions not to comply with municipal segregation statutes and bus company policies were personal initiatives rather than components of a systematic desegregation strategy. This article tells the story of black Birminghamians’ years-long fight to desegregate the Birmingham Transit Company’s buses and of the forms of resistance that white residents and city leaders pursued to prevent it. [End Page 283] As African Americans challenged bus segregation in Birmingham through lawsuits, pressure on officials, boycotts, and acts of civil disobedience, white Birminghamians responded with equally varied tactics to prevent the integration of the city’s buses. At first, white riders demanded, and public officials embraced, an outright defense of bus segregation as legal and moral. Then, in the face of mounting evidence that courts would interpret municipal bus segregation as disregarding federal law, the city’s leaders abandoned the explicit legal endorsement of racially segregated public conveyances and crafted a new statute intended to maintain white supremacy without explicitly invoking race. Even when civil rights activists successfully challenged the new coded statute in court, white opponents continued to undermine bus desegregation. Bus drivers harassed black riders, and city officials publicized the bus company’s right to discipline riders who were found to engage in “disorderly conduct.”2 By the time black activists successfully defeated the last legal vestiges of bus segregation, many white residents who were opposed to the idea of integrated buses in Birmingham could simply avoid the bus altogether. Far from being a decisive moment of integration, desegregating Birmingham’s buses, as this article argues, was a protracted struggle with an ambiguous end point as white rejection of black equal access to buses morphed into a rejection of the bus itself. The history of bus desegregation in Birmingham has been eclipsed by the dramatic bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, less than a hundred miles to the south. Scholarly attention to the thirteen-month Montgomery bus boycott of 1955–1956 has produced a rich understanding of the organizing and local conditions that made that boycott possible; of its gender dynamics, including the carefully crafted narrative of Rosa Parks’s involvement; of the rise to prominence of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; of police repression and economic backlash; and, ultimately, of the successful legal challenge that prompted the protesters to end the boycott when they could ride desegregated buses. Historians’ focus on this milestone in civil rights history and “formative turning point of the twentieth century” has overshadowed examination of how bus desegregation unfolded in other locales.3 In [End Page 284] this understanding, the Montgomery bus boycott suggests a watershed moment from which bus desegregation...

The key for success in enterprise information systems projects: development of a novel ERP readiness assessment method and a case study

ABSTRACTERP projects have a significant cost-share with high failure-rates. When the failure factors of ERP projects are evaluated, it is noteworthy that enterprises do not pay enough attention to ERP Readiness and moved directly to implementation. The literature lacks to explain ‘how and with which method’ an ERP Readiness assessment of an enterprise is made. Therefore, this study develops a novel ERP Readiness Assessment Model and Measurement Tool. The developed eight-staged methodology gives the ability for a holistic assessment of companies in transition to ERP systems. Besides, the results are in alignment with two MCDM methods for case company evaluation.

Key Success Factors and Benefits of Kaizen Implementation

The aim of this study is to identify the key success factors of kaizen implementation, as well as the most important benefits of its application, in companies in transition and in developing economies. Identified critical success factors are; initiating and evaluating changes and employees’ ideas, management and employee support, building an adequate evaluation system, developing internal communication system, and strategic orientation of employees to change. The most important benefits of kaizen implementation are employee empowerment, employee development, and improvement of company performance. Results should improve practice and enable more efficient general management and engineering management of future kaizen implementation processes.

Accessibility for All in Public Transport and the Overlooked (Social) Dimension—A Case Study of Stockholm

Sweden was early to develop legislation related to accessible public transport for disabled people in 1979 and can therefore be seen as a forerunner. However, recent findings reveal widespread barriers in the Swedish public transport system and large variations between different parts of the country. This paper draws on empirical material consisting of complaints regarding accessibility left by travellers in Stockholm to a local transit company and aims to provide an overview of the character of complaints and to identify common themes through a qualitative content analysis. The results show that the most commonly reported challenge relates to boarding or getting off the vehicles, where the drivers are mostly described as the underlying reason for those difficulties. The narratives describe how some drivers misuse (or do not use) the accessibility equipment or show an abusive or attitudinal behaviour. The results support the body of literature on the meaning of continuous work with accessibility issues in public transport. Varying views on disability may have had a substantial impact on the development of our societies and on how the issues of accessibility in the public transport system have been prioritised or handled. Thus, this study highlights existing social barriers and variations in individual capacities as important factors that influence the experiences of public transport users. The study recommends an increased focus on educating drivers and staff about how to accommodate different groups of travellers. The study also recommends that transport providers consider drivers’ working conditions (i.e., with the consideration of timetables and high time-pressure). Further research on how well accessibility adaptations in public transport actually work and how the users perceive them is necessary.

ОСОБЛИВОСТІ ОПОДАТКУВАННЯ РОЯЛТІ В КОНТЕКСТІ ВІТЧИЗНЯНОГО І МІЖНАРОДНОГО ДОСВІДУ

Відповідно до вітчизняних і зарубіжних нормативно-правових актів визначено поняття «роялті» як платежі будь-якого виду, які одержують як винагороду за користування або за надання права користування будь-яким авторським правом на літературні твори, твори мистецтва або науки, включно з кінематографічними фільмами, будь-яким патентом, торговою маркою, дизайном або моделлю, планом, таємною формулою або процесом, або за інформацію стосовно промислового, комерційного або наукового досвіду. Розглянуто методику розрахунку роялті за різноманітних варіантів придбання. Виділено найпопулярніші юрисдикції, які використовуються для податкового структурування володіння об’єктами ІВ, оскільки роялті — один із законних і зручних механізмів виведення прибутку великими корпораціями на користь транзитних компаній, зареєстрованих у вигідних податкових юрисдикціях. Проаналізовано ефективні ставки оподаткування роялті в найбільш популярних IP Box режимах і відмічено, що використання нових IP Box може мати особливий сенс лише в разі фактичного здійснення платниками у відповідних юрисдикціях діяльності з розроблення об’єкта ІВ і понесення ними витрат на R&D (наприклад, у разі створення повноцінного офісу, де зосереджується штат співробітників, які розробляють об’єкти ІВ). Здійснено аналіз ставок на оподаткування доходу від роялті для резидентів і нерезидентів у країнах світу. Обґрунтовано, що в Україні спостерігається лояльна політика щодо ставки на оподаткування доходу від роялті. Відмічено, що практика іноземних країн щодо застосування податку на дохід від роялті розвивається в бік зниження ставки процента для резидентів усередині країни. Розглянуто особливості оподаткування роялті в Україні. Так, податком на прибуток в Україні оподатковується той прибуток, який розрахований як різниця між витратами і прибутками підприємства. При цьому фінансовий результат може підлягати коригуванню (збільшенню або зменшенню) фінансового результату до оподаткування (прибуток або збиток) на різниці.

Finnish forest-based companies in transition to the circular bioeconomy - drivers, organizational resources and innovations

Forest-based businesses are the center of the transition to the sustainable and competitive circular bioeconomy in Finland. This study explores the transition of Finnish FBS firms to new business models, with a focus on the organizational resources and capabilities needed for transition. It also identifies the important elements in the business environment and the role of innovations in this process. The study uses thematic interviews with managers from various FBS firms and companies from interfacing sectors, all of which have operations in Finland. Despite the differences between firms, the study finds many common drivers and resources that FBS companies highlight as significant in the transition. The study results indicate that intangible and human resources are essential for the transition. An innovative, agile, flexible and encouraging organizational culture is a crucial resource. The culture should be supported by non-hierarchical top management and inspiring employees (so-called power people). Communication and marketing skills, and innovations developed by teams with diverse knowledge are essential. To successfully manage the transition, companies need a deep understanding of what the markets and society require, and they must develop long-term competiveness through future-oriented strategic thinking. Pursuing sustainability and innovativeness in internal as well as external organizational environment are essential factors. The study presents insights for the researcher community and many societal actors as well as recommendations for the FBS companies to facilitate the transition to new circular bioeconomy businesses. It also contributes to the resource-based perspectives literature, particularly the dynamic capabilities approach.

Job apathy and work engagement: Moderating influence of perceived leader integrity and spiritual intelligence in a Nigerian mass transit company

This study explored the direct and interactive roles of job apathy, perceived leader integrity, and spiritual intelligence on work engagement among 206 Nigerian employees of a leading mass transit company (females = 33%; mean age = 35.81years, SD = 5.04; mean organisational tenure = 6.27 years, SD = 2.26). Results following moderated hierarchical multiple regression showed that work engagement was lower with job apathy and higher with perceived leader integrity and employee spiritual intelligence. Moreover, employees with a high perception of leader integrity reported being more work engaged, regardless of feeling apathetic about their job, compared to those with a low perception of leader integrity. Perceived leader integrity and spiritual intelligence are important for work engagement in Nigeria’s transportation sector setting.

Clusters as an adaptable regional development measure to mitigate perceived competitive disadvantages

European public policy is intensively supporting clusters as instruments for regional development. Clusters seem to be ubiquitous across Europe. However, economic conditions and institutional constraints in European regions differ substantially. This paper analyses which competitive disadvantages local companies perceive and how the offered cluster services are tailored to address these perceived problems. With the value adding web perspective we analyse two groups of economically weaker regions: transition economies and structurally weaker regions in non-transition economies. We show that the perceived competitive disadvantages differ essentially. Companies in transition economies mainly face obstacles that are rooted in institutional voids. Companies in structurally weaker regions are confronted with blind spot disadvantages. The article demonstrates, that clusters are adaptable to perceived disadvantages and blind spot disadvantages are perceived as 'less important' local problems. This contributes to recognise clusters as a tool to spur regional development and to the debate on smart specialisation of regions.

Review of the Transit Accessibility Concept: A Case Study of Richmond, Virginia

This study reviews the transit accessibility concept and describes its empirical application in Richmond, Virginia, USA. The transit accessibility concept involves multiple components. Each component has several measures; the selection of which measure to use depends on unique local circumstances. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and statistical tools are utilized in this study. It has been found that, although the Greater Richmond Transit Company (GRTC) provides a reasonably good transit service inside Richmond City, its existing hub-and-spoke transit system is not aligned well with new and complex travel patterns (including suburb-to-suburb travel patterns), and thus needs to be restructured in the near future.

Artificial Bankruptcy of Credit Institutions and Illegal Withdrawal of Bank Assets Abroad

Since the early 1990 in the Russian Federation there is a continuous outflow of capital abroad, as a result of which the assets earned by Russian businessmen, instead of investing in the domestic economy, go to support the civilized existence of «developed» bourgeois countries. For these purposes, the developed organizational and regulatory legal infrastructure is used. The bulk of fictitious operations and non- return of funds is carried out through a network of «laundering» banks, offshore companies and «one-day firms». Stable, highly professional organized transnational groups have been formed, including notaries, consulting companies, credit organizations, trust funds specializing in the withdrawal of capital and its placement in offshore zones or in countries with which the Russian Federation has concluded treaties in order to avoid double taxation. Methods of capital withdrawal are diverse, demand for them is provided by a developed infrastructure, legal and illegal mechanisms are closely intertwined, which complicates their timely detection and suppression.The Bank of Russia is doing a great job of neutralizing the shadow money flows of brokers and microfinance organizations (MFI), as well as transit operations used to withdraw assets abroad, in the context of which about 300 banks operating on the domestic market lost their licenses, although they are involved in the transactions described not only credit organizations, but also other subjects of financial legal relations, related, including with the circulation of securities.In the light of the above, the problem of improving the regulatory legal regulation and departmental (bank), as well as prosecutorial supervision over the execution of laws by the subjects of the credit and banking sector of the economy, including credit and non-credit financial organizations (NFO), taking into account the nature, scope and specificity of their activities, is actualized. An analysis of the current situation shows that the majority of used, constantly modifiable schemes for the withdrawal of bank assets abroad, the transfer of cashless cash into cash is preceded by multi-way payment chains for accounts of all kinds of Russian organizations. In this case, the transit companies involved in them do not, as a rule, carry out real financial and economic activities. Taxes and other mandatory payments are paid by them on a minimal scale or are not paid at all, and the operations conducted do not have a visible economic meaning.The management of the Bank of Russia regularly monitors the banking sector of the economy in order to track them in time and take appropriate preventive measures. Attention of credit institutions is drawn to transit operations with the isolation of inherent characteristics, for which purpose the regulator prepared, in particular, Letter No. 236-T of December 31, 2014 «On increasing the attention of credit institutions to individual customer transactions».This article examines the factors associated with the illegal withdrawal of bank assets abroad, including the artificial bankruptcy of credit institutions, complicated by the current state of the institution of bank secrecy.

Fairness in optimizing bus-crew scheduling process.

This work proposes a model considering fairness in the problem of crew scheduling for bus drivers (CSP-BD) using a hybrid ant-colony optimization (HACO) algorithm to solve it. The main contributions of this work are the following: (a) a valid approach for cases with a special cost structure and constraints considering the fairness of working time and idle time; (b) an improved algorithm incorporating Gamma heuristic function and selecting rules. The relationships of each cost are examined with ten bus lines collected from the Beijing Public Transport Holdings (Group) Co., Ltd., one of the largest bus transit companies in the world. It shows that unfair cost is indirectly related to common cost, fixed cost and extra cost and also the unfair cost approaches to common and fixed cost when its coefficient is twice of common cost coefficient. Furthermore, the longest time for the tested bus line with 1108 pieces, 74 blocks is less than 30 minutes. The results indicate that the HACO-based algorithm can be a feasible and efficient optimization technique for CSP-BD, especially with large scale problems.

Risk factors for unintentional occupational injury among urban transit bus drivers: a cohort longitudinal study

PurposeAlthough many studies have focused on bus operators' occupational diseases, work-related injury and associated risk factor data are limited. The purpose of this longitudinal study was to investigate unintentional injury and exposures that may affect injury risk among metropolitan bus operators. MethodsDemographic, work-related, and injury data obtained from a metropolitan transit company for a 5-year period, enabled estimates of rates per 100 full time equivalents (FTEs) and adjusted Hazard Ratios (HRs), with 95% confidence intervals (CIs), using Generalized Estimating Equations and Cox proportional hazards models, respectively. ResultsThe 2095 bus operators, included in this study, had an unintentional injury rate (95% CI) of 17.8 (16.1–19.7) per 100 FTEs. Multivariable analysis identified increased risks for operators who were female, compared to male (HR = 2.4; 2.0–2.8); worked less than 7 versus 7 to less than 12 hours per day (HR = 4.6; 3.8–5.5); and drove less than 7 versus 7 to less than 12 hours per day (HR = 3.2; 2.7–3.8). Suggestive increased risks were identified for operators working split versus straight shifts (HR = 1.2; 1.0–1.4) and for driving limited versus regular bus routes (HR = 1.36; 1.0–1.8). ConclusionsResults serve as a basis for further studies and inform the development of targeted intervention strategies to reduce bus operators' occupational injuries.

The Multichannel Challenge at Natura in Beauty and Personal Care

Faced with declining market share and sales, Natura, Brazil’s second-largest brand in the cosmetics, fragrances, and toiletries market, expanded its customer reach by moving from a direct-sales company to a multichannel company. In 2014, Natura added online catalogs, physical stores, and drugstores to its well-established direct-selling model, but the results were disappointing. Between 2014 and 2016, three different Natura CEOs attempted to lead the company in the strategic transition to focus less on the direct sales consultants and more on reaching the end consumers directly with multiple channels and touchpoints. In October 2016, the company’s board appointed its former commercial vice president, João Paulo Ferreira, as the most recent CEO. Ferreira’s challenge was to find the right balance between the direct-selling and other channel formats to market Natura, thus enabling it to thrive in the face of intense competition in the beauty and personal care market in Brazil.

Real-time rescheduling and disruption management for public transit

ABSTRACTThis research is motivated by the operations of a public transit company in Hong Kong. We investigate how real-time information can be utilized in combination with historical data to improve routing and scheduling decisions practically. A dynamic integrated vehicle and crew scheduling problem is studied where travel times are stochastic and time-dependent. The objective is to maximize the route frequencies and mileage to provide good passenger service and simultaneously minimize crew overtime and meal-break delays. To mitigate unexpected delays due to uncertainties in operations, various mathematical models are proposed for revising the schedules in real time under a rolling-horizon framework. Their efficiency and effectiveness are evaluated via simulation using real-world data. The simulation results also identify the potential benefits of revising the schedule dynamically in real time using optimization models. The results show that the proposed approaches can significantly reduce motormen overtime and meal-break delays while maintaining coverage and route frequency requirements.