Inbound Trips Research Articles

Spatiotemporal Variations in PM2.5 Concentration in Different Areas of Bus Cabin: A Case Study in Shenzhen, China

Inhalable particulate pollution has adverse effects on human health. Many studies have been conducted to investigate levels and risks of exposure to particulate pollution in public transit, but scant attention has been paid to variations in the pollution levels among different positions inside the cabin. Differences can be observed among different positions inside transit vehicles, like passenger density and activities, which may lead to differentiated exposure risks between different positions. Therefore, this study investigates the level of PM2.5 concentrations and the spatiotemporal variations among three different positions (front, middle, and rear) inside the cabin during bus travel. The three positions represent the three areas inside the bus cabin, i.e., front area (FA), middle area (MA), and rear area (RA). We developed a portable monitoring system for in-cabin measurements, which consists of a mobile device with the designated app, a PM2.5 collecting device, and a temperature-relative humidity monitor. Surveys were carried out on buses of a route in Shenzhen, China, which include inbound and outbound trips during both morning and evening peaks of two working days. Based on spatial and temporal information embedded in data collection devices, PM2.5 concentration data were spatially and temporally referenced. Comparative and descriptive statistical analyses were employed to examine the differences and variations in PM2.5 concentration among the areas inside the bus cabin. There are three major findings. First, for all of the surveyed trips, FA showed the highest and RA showed the lowest PM2.5 concentration. Second, concerning the average pollution level of route segments along the routes, the PM2.5 concentrations in the three cabin areas were higher during inbound trips than during outbound trips. Third, within route segments, PM2.5 concentrations in FA and MA increased rapidly after the bus stopped at stops, and then gradually decreased, while in RA they were relatively stable. In general, a higher level of passenger density increased in-cabin PM2.5 concentration. The findings of our study could provide insight into improving the bus in-cabin microenvironment, such as the seating arrangement for vulnerable passengers.

STUDY ON TRAVEL HABITS AND LEISURE ACTIVITIES IN THE LIGHT OF COVID-19 TRIGGERED CHANGES IN ROMANIA AND HUNGARY

Tourism is a widely known concept as it is part of our modern lifestyle that we opt for useful and quality free time that provides us with the opportunity to relax and boost our energy. Our research focused on travel habits and the leisure activities people undertake during their trips, relying on answers provided by respondents aged 18-55. Most of the respondents said that they quite like to go on recreational journeys /tourism trips, with the most popular activities being nature walks, hiking, visiting places of historic interest, and viewing architecture and buildings. A quintessential role during these trips is played by relaxation and recharge, as well as restoring capacity for work. The most popular destinations in descending order were domestic attractions, neighboring countries, and other countries in Europe. Covid-19 had a major impact on destination choice; the number of outbound trips decreased, and beside the lowering frequency of inbound trips their length also shortened. As traveling is a popular holiday activity, it is particularly important to pay due attention to tourists’ travel motivations, assess their needs and habits so that they can be provided with the best possible experiences during their trips, and can return well rested and with renewed vigor to face their everyday challenges.

The benefits of autonomous vehicles for community-based trip sharing

This work reconsiders the concept of community-based trip sharing proposed by Hasan et al. (2018) that leverages the structure of commuting patterns and urban communities to optimize trip sharing. It aims at quantifying the benefits of autonomous vehicles for community-based trip sharing, compared to a car-pooling platform where vehicles are driven by their owners. In the considered problem, each rider specifies a desired arrival time for her inbound trip (commuting to work) and a departure time for her outbound trip (commuting back home). In addition, her commute time cannot deviate too much from the duration of a direct trip. Prior work motivated by reducing parking pressure and congestion in the city of Ann Arbor, Michigan, showed that a car-pooling platform for community-based trip sharing could reduce the number of vehicles by close to 60%.This paper studies the potential benefits of autonomous vehicles in further reducing the number of vehicles needed to serve all these commuting trips. It proposes a column-generation procedure that generates and assembles mini routes to serve inbound and outbound trips, using a lexicographic objective that first minimizes the required vehicle count and then the total travel distance. The optimization algorithm is evaluated on a large-scale, real-world dataset of commute trips from the city of Ann Arbor, Michigan. The results of the optimization show that it can leverage autonomous vehicles to reduce the daily vehicle usage by 92%, improving upon the results of the original Commute Trip Sharing Problem by 34%, while also reducing daily vehicle miles traveled by approximately 30%. These results demonstrate the significant potential of autonomous vehicles for the shared commuting of a community to a common work destination.

Reliable facility location design with round-trip transportation under imperfect information Part I: A discrete model

In this paper, we propose a discrete model to investigate reliable location design with round-trip transportation under imperfect information. The unique feature of this problem is that under each disruption scenario, a customer’s outbound and inbound trips are different when she travels to obtain a service. The discrete model is formulated as a compact non-linear integer programming problem and solved efficiently by a customized Lagrangian relaxation algorithm. Numerical experiments find that the discrete model performs well for small and medium-scale problem instances. Sensitivity analyses reveal the impacts of several parameters on both the cost components and the optimal facility layouts.

US hotel industry revenue: an ARDL bounds testing approach

Purpose This study aims to develop a parsimonious model to estimate US aggregate hotel industry revenue using domestic trips, consumer confidence index, international inbound trips, personal consumption expenditure and number of hotel rooms as predictor variables. Additionally, the study applied the model in six sub-segments of the hotel industry – luxury, upper upscale, upscale, upper midscale, midscale and economy. Design/methodology/approach Using monthly aggregate data from the past 22 years, the study adopted the auto-regressive distribute lags (ARDL) approach in developing the estimation model. Unit root analysis and cointegration test were further utilized. The model showed significant utility in accurately estimating aggregate hotel industry and sub-segment revenue. Findings All predictor variables except number of rooms showed significant positive influences on aggregate hotel industry revenue. Substantial variations were noted regarding estimating sub-segment revenue. Consumer confidence index positively affected all sub-segment revenues, except for upper upscale hotels. Inbound trips by international tourists and personal consumption expenditure positively influenced revenue for all sub-segments but economy hotels. Domestic trips by US residents added significant explanatory power to only upper upscale, upscale and economy hotel revenue. Number of hotel rooms only had significant negative effect on luxury and upper upscale hotel sub-segment revenues. Practical implications Hotel operators can make marketing and operating decisions regarding pricing, inventory allocation and strategic management based on the revenue estimation models specific to their segments. Originality/value It is the first study that adopted the ARDL bound approach and analyzed the predictive capacity of macroeconomic variables on aggregate hotel industry and sub-segment revenue.

ИМИДЖ ТЕРРИТОРИИ КАК ИНСТРУМЕНТ ПОВЫШЕНИЯ ТУРИСТСКОЙ ПРИВЛЕКАТЕЛЬНОСТИ РЕСПУБЛИКИ БАШКОРТОСТАН

In the conditions of intensive development of the tourism industry, the rise of the attractiveness of regions as the tourist objects becomes relevant. The increase of tourist attractiveness of the region is very important for the development of the inbound tourism as foreign tourists decide on a trip to any country based on emotional preferences which directly influence the number of inbound trips and money receipts. It is accepted that favorable territory image is one of the most effective tools of increasing tourist attractiveness of a region; therefore, many countries spend significant means for creating and sustaining a positive image. The author analyzed various approaches to the assessment of the efficiency of territories marketing, and namely, the relative and quantitative indicators of efficiency. Based on the identified indicators of assessment of the efficiency of territories marketing, the author carried out the analysis of foreign and Russian experience of creation of tourist image of territory to increase the attractiveness of regions for foreign tourists. Based on the obtained data, the author carried out the analogous analysis of the current state of the tourist image of the Republic of Bashkortostan. The study identified current problems: low degree of recognition of the republic as a region, attractive for tourism in the territory of Russia and abroad, as well as the lack of certain associations with the region. The author defined the prospects for improving tourist image of Bashkortostan, such as the development of marketing measures programs of the recognized brand of the republic “Terra Bashkiria” and other actions which can be used as a tool of increasing the tourist attractiveness of the region.

Landmark learning, cue conflict, and outbound view sequence in navigating desert ants.

Mobile animals need to reliably find goal locations and animal navigators acquire and use multiple cue sets within their environment designating direction and distance estimates of these locations. Foraging ants use multiple navigational tools including path integration and the learning of the landmark panorama. During landmark-based navigation, foragers first acquire the landmark cues around the nest through preforaging learning walks, and then learn non-nest site cues along their foraging routes. Here, we explore both foragers' ability to extrapolate views from around the nest to local displacement sites and landmark learning during the first foraging trips away from the nest area. During Experiment 1, foragers were given variable amounts of exposure to the nest area before being displaced 8 m away where their return trips were recorded. In Experiment 2, foragers' return trips from a site 8 m from the nest were recorded with the surrounding landmarks during either the outbound or inbound trip obstructed from view and with/without the aid of a homeward vector. Foragers were unable to correctly orient or return home efficiently regardless of the exposure level to the nest panorama, suggesting an inability to extrapolate views from learning walks and supporting recognition-based navigation. Foragers were able to use experience of either the outbound- or inbound-view sequence to initially orient home, yet were unable to quickly return to the nest when only exposed to the inbound route. Our results suggest that exposure to the outbound foraging path is critical for efficient homeward route formation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

How do foreigners perceive? Exploring foreign diners’ satisfaction with service quality of Chinese restaurants

ABSTRACTChina has received 138 million inbound trips in 2016. The purpose of travel may vary but these international travelers visit Chinese restaurants as an integral part of their travel experience. Our study tries to comprehend their dining experience and regional differences in service quality (SQ) perceptions. The findings indicate that food and process quality significantly influence satisfaction and behavioral intentions. More importantly, the results reveal that international travelers roving through all the six continents hold significantly different perceptions regarding SQ attributes of Chinese restaurants. Additionally, we found proficiency in Chinese language as a significant contributor in generating dissimilar perceptions.

Spatial variation in diesel-related elemental and organic PM2.5 components during workweek hours across a downtown core

Capturing intra-urban variation in diesel-related pollution exposures remains a challenge, given its complex chemical mix, and relatively few well-characterized ambient-air tracers for the multiple diesel sources in densely-populated urban areas. To capture fine-scale spatial resolution (50×50m grid cells) in diesel-related pollution, we used geographic information systems (GIS) to systematically allocate 36 sampling sites across downtown Pittsburgh, PA, USA (2.8km2), cross-stratifying to disentangle source impacts (i.e., truck density, bus route frequency, total traffic density). For buses, outbound and inbound trips per week were summed by route and a kernel density was calculated across sites. Programmable monitors collected fine particulate matter (PM2.5) samples specific to workweek hours (Monday–Friday, 7 am–7 pm), summer and winter 2013. Integrated filters were analyzed for black carbon (BC), elemental carbon (EC), organic carbon (OC), elemental constituents, and diesel-related organic compounds [i.e., polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), hopanes, steranes]. To our knowledge, no studies have collected this suite of pollutants with such high sampling density, with the ability to capture spatial patterns during specific hours of interest. We hypothesized that we would find substantial spatial variation for each pollutant and significant associations with key sources (e.g. diesel and gasoline vehicles), with higher concentrations near the center of this small downtown core. Using a forward stepwise approach, we developed seasonal land use regression (LUR) models for PM2.5, BC, total EC, OC, PAHs, hopanes, steranes, aluminum (Al), calcium (Ca), and iron (Fe). Within this small domain, greater concentration differences were observed in most pollutants across sites, on average, than between seasons. Higher PM2.5 and BC concentrations were found in the downtown core compared to the boundaries. PAHs, hopanes, and steranes displayed different spatial patterning across the study area by constituent. Most LUR models suggested a strong influence of bus-related emissions on pollution gradients. Buses were more dominant predictors compared to truck and vehicular traffic for several pollutants. Overall, we found substantial variation in diesel-related concentrations in a very small downtown area, which varied across elemental and organic components.

Visual discrimination, sequential learning and memory retrieval in the Australian desert ant Melophorus bagoti

Bees, wasps and ants--so-called central-place foragers--need potent homing strategies to return to their nest. Path integration and view-based landmark guidance are the key strategies for the ants' navigation. For instance, they memorise different views in a sequence (sequential memory) but also have a step counter that informs them about the covered distance during each foraging trip (odometer). The sequential memory and the odometer information can act as contextual cues during travel for retrieving the appropriate stored view. When and which cue is used at different stages and lengths of the foraging trips is still unknown. In this study, we examined how the Australian desert ant Melophorus bagoti uses sequential memory and odometric information to retrieve visual memories. Using a set-up made out of channels and two-choice boxes (Y-mazes), we demonstrate first that M. bagoti foragers are able to learn and discriminate a variety of visual stimuli in a sequence of views along the inbound trip back to the nest. We then forced the homing ants to encounter a fixed sequence of two visual patterns during their inbound trips. By manipulating the position and distance of the visual stimuli and decision boxes, we could set the two contextual cues (sequential memory and odometer) into conflict. After the short 4-m outbound distance, a preference for odometric information as a contextual cue was found, but after the long 8-m outbound distance, ants relied primarily on their sequential memory retrieval. Odometer precision deteriorates with increasing travel distance, and accordingly, our findings imply that desert ants may be relying on the most reliable contextual cue for retrieving visual memories.

Northern gannets anticipate the spatio–temporal occurrence of their prey

Seabirds, as other marine top predators, are often assumed to forage in an unpredictable environment. We challenge this concept and test the hypothesis that breeding Northern gannets (Morus bassanus) anticipate the spatio-temporal occurrence of their prey in the English Channel. We analyzed 23 foraging tracks of Northern gannets breeding on Rouzic Island (Brittany) that were recorded using GPS loggers during 2 consecutive years. All birds commuted between the breeding colony and foraging areas located at a mean distance of 85 km and 72 km (in 2005 and 2006, respectively) from the colony. Mean linearity indices of the outbound and inbound trips were between 0.83 and 0.87, approaching a beeline path to and from the foraging area. Additional parameters (flight speed, and number and duration of stopovers at sea) for the outbound and inbound trip were not statistically different, indicating that birds are capable of locating these feeding areas in the absence of visual clues, and to pin-point their breeding site when returning from the sea. Our bearing choice analysis also revealed that gannets anticipate the general direction of their foraging area during the first 30 min and the first 10 km of the trip. These results strongly suggest that birds anticipate prey location, rather than head into a random direction until encountering a profitable area. Further investigations are necessary to identify the mechanisms involved in seabird resource localization, such as sensorial abilities, memory effects, public information or a combination of these factors.

Modelling and forecasting tourism from East Asia to Thailand under temporal and spatial aggregation

Tourism is one of the key service industries in Thailand, with a 5.27% share of Gross Domestic Product in 2003. Since 2000, international tourist arrivals, particularly those from East Asia, to Thailand have been on a continuous upward trend. Tourism forecasts can be made based on previous observations, so that historical analysis of tourist arrivals can provide a useful understanding of inbound trips and the behaviour of trends in foreign tourist arrivals to Thailand. As tourism is seasonal, a good forecast is required for stakeholders in the industry to manage risk. Previous research on tourism forecasts has typically been based on annual and monthly data analysis, while few past empirical tourism studies using the Box–Jenkins approach have taken account of pre-testing for seasonal unit roots based on Franses [P.H. Franses, Seasonality, nonstationarity and the forecasting of monthly time series, International Journal of Forecasting 7 (1991) 199–208] and Beaulieu and Miron [J.J. Beaulieu, J.A. Miron, Seasonal unit roots in aggregate U.S. data, Journal of Econometrics 55 (1993) 305–328] framework. An analysis of the time series of tourism demand, specifically monthly tourist arrivals from six major countries in East Asia to Thailand, from January 1971 to December 2005 is examined. This paper analyses stationary and non-stationary tourist arrivals series by formally testing for the presence of unit roots and seasonal unit roots prior to estimation, model selection and forecasting. Various Box–Jenkins autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) models and seasonal ARIMA models are estimated, with the tourist arrivals series showing seasonal patterns. The fitted ARIMA and seasonal ARIMA models forecast tourist arrivals from East Asia very well for the period 2006(1)–2008(1). Total monthly and annual forecasts can be obtained through temporal and spatial aggregation.

Spatial Heterogeneity and Nestmate Encounters Affect Locomotion and Foraging Success in the Ant Dorymyrmex goetschi

AbstractThe spatial structure of habitats contains physical barriers that restrict the performance of diverse behavioural tasks. In heterogeneous habitats, information acquisition may allow animals to improve the performance of diverse activities such as foraging and locomotion. Nonetheless, changes in locomotion performance and their effects on the foraging success of animals have been scarcely studied. We examined these relationships in the harvester ant Dorymyrmex goetschi (subfamily Dolichoderinae) under laboratory conditions. In an experimental arena, we offered a food patch located at a fixed distance from the nest entrance. Landscape heterogeneity was created using wooden cubes arranged in different types of spatial distribution. We video recorded the behaviour of different colonies and quantified the number of active foragers, number of head contacts per capita per inbound trip, path length by workers that transported a food load from the resource patch to the nest, time invested in inbound travels, and the number of prey captured per colony. During the initial phase of patch exploitation, the number of foragers and prey captured were significantly lower than during the half and final phases of the experiment. Landscapes with greater spatial heterogeneity increased travel time and diminished locomotion velocity. A multiple regression analysis revealed that greater antennal contacts and locomotion velocities increased prey removal. Therefore, in this study, we documented a formal link between variables that characterize the movement paths of individuals and the foraging success of a colony. Information transfer between individuals generated a collective work with a concomitant improvement of food exploitation.

Airline seat management with round-trip requests

Consider a multi-period multi-fare class airline booking problem related to a two-leg airline network. Travel requests include outbound, inbound trip, and round trips. The round-trip refers to a journey comprising both outbound and inbound trips. To develop a dynamic-nested booking decision-making system for the airline network, this study designs a dynamic model that enables the airline reservations system to devise a set of dynamic decision rules for any given booking status. The booking process is found to be controlled by some set of booking thresholds.

Intercolonial differences in raiding activities in the Japanese slave-making antPolyergus samurai

Intercolonial differences in raiding activity were investigated in the field on 9 colonies of the slavemaking antPolyergus samurai. Duration of raiding season, the mean start time of the first raiding trip in a day, the mean speed of outbound and inbound trips, and the mean distance to target nests varied significantly among colonies. The variance in start time of raiding was correlated with that in soil temperature and diurnal change pattern in soil temperature at the nest sites. The speed of trips and the first day with trips in the season also correlated with soil temperature at the nest site. Simple environmental factors well explained the observed variances in raiding activity among colonies. Therefore, raiding behaviour ofP. samurai seemed to be a stereotyped behaviour that is regulated through simple environmental factors.

Downtown Population Growth and Commuting Trips: Recent Experience in Toronto

Abstract In Toronto in recent years, commuting trips to the Central Area have not risen as rapidly as would be expected from the growth in downtown office space. Various explanations have been suggested. In this article, we show that the rising residential population in the Central Area has served to reduce inbound commuting trips below what they otherwise would be. For reasons discussed in the article, it is normally difficult to quantify the effect on commuting of downtown housing growth or population intensification. By recognizing these difficulties and testing our results in various ways, we have been able to estimate that, on average since 1976, for each 100 additional dwelling units in the Central Area there has been a reduction of approximately 120 inbound trips during the morning three-hour rush period. This finding indicates the potential for the use of housing policy as a land-use planning instrument, one that could help mediate the conflict between continued commercial office growth downtown a...