Leisure Trips Research Articles

Assessment of weather-driven travel behavior on a small-scale docked bike-sharing system usage

Bike-sharing systems play a crucial role in encouraging sustainable transportation, and understanding their usage characteristics is essential for enhancing their contribution to urban mobility. This research seeks to investigate how weather conditions impact the utilization of a small-scale docked bike-sharing system. The study employed Generalized Linear Mixed Effects (GLME) models to analyze interactive events, using categorized weather parameters to represent various weather conditions. Several models were developed to comprehensively understand distinct travel behaviors and identify significant weather variables affecting the frequency of bike trips for transportation and leisure purposes. The findings reveal that rain had a significant deterrent effect on leisure cycling, particularly on weekdays. Cold and hot weather conditions exhibited a more pronounced impact on weekday bike trips, while weekend bike trips appeared to be less influenced by weather variables. The fall season was found to be the least favorable for leisure trips, while winter was determined to be the most unfavorable for transportation trips. Furthermore, hot days in the summer season negatively impacted bike usage only on weekdays. These insights have important implications for the development of a more resilient bike-sharing system, particularly in small-scale contexts. They provide valuable recommendations for tailored strategies to mitigate the impact of adverse weather conditions, thereby fostering an increase in usage of bike-sharing systems for both leisure and transportation purposes.

Creative puppet therapy reduces hallucinations in patients diagnosed with schizophrenia: Preliminary findings

Anomalous experiences and hallucinations characterize schizophrenia. This study aimed at determining the efficacy of creative puppet therapy (CPT; creation of a puppet with malleable DAS) to reduce severe anomalous experiences and hallucinations among patients diagnosed with schizophrenia. Double-blinded, controlled trials were performed on a convenience sample of 24 patients from a mental health center. The intervention group of 12 patients (who created puppets) and the pseudo-treatment group of 12 patients (who were involved in outdoor leisure trips) were compared to the control group of 12 control participants (who created puppets). Cardiff Anomalous Perceptions Scale (CAPS) assessed hallucinations; Emotional Expression Inventory (EEXI) assessed the emotional expression of one's own puppet. Puppet facial features were measured. Results showed that CPT effectively reduced (d = –4.00) hallucination frequency in patients. Hallucination reduction occurred across all sensory modalities, but touch and bodily interoception. Exteroceptive vs. interoceptive hallucinations was the most valuable classification in patients. Compared to controls, puppets created by patients expressed more negative emotions and had larger eye diameters, shorter noses, and larger whole face width. Eye diameter was correlated with fear, sadness, anger, and disgust, and whole face width with boredom. Fragmented-self integration of schizophrenia through CPT treatment might exploit aggregative dominance of the patient's own body.

The impact of Covid-19 road-space reallocation measures: Insights from the north of England

In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, governments around the world initiated a programme of temporary road-space reallocation measures. These temporary measures helped to create more space for social distancing and encouraged an uptake in active travel (including walking and cycling). This paper examines the impact of the pandemic on travel behaviour in two contrasting local authorities in the North of England, and specifically, examines the deployment and impact of the temporary road-space measures introduced. This research shows that, overall, there was a substantial degree of change in usual travel behaviours amongst the sample in both locations; and this included modest shifts towards active modes (which were more pronounced in Sheffield). Notably, awareness of the temporary measures was high in both Lancashire and Sheffield (77.7% across the whole sample). Yet, actual use of the measures was relatively low (33.0%), although those using them held largely favourable views of their experiences. Increases in cycling were seen across both those who were aware of the measures and those who were not, but notably, the highest increases in cycling (for commuting, shopping, and leisure trips) were across those who were aware and then went on to use the temporary measures. For  those  not  cycling  pre-pandemic,  there  appears  to  be  a  positive  relationship  between beginning to cycle and use of the measures. In contrast, the temporary measures appeared to have little impact on levels of walking.  

Effects of the built environment and sociodemographic factors on accessibility in the city of Valparaíso, Chile

The city of Valparaíso, Chile, presents a centralized urban environment with a compact plain area that concentrates most of the commerce and services and hills in its surroundings where most people reside. Within this context and in addition to complex sociodemographic and topographical conditions, it is possible to question how the built environment and sociodemographic factors influence the accessibility conditions in this city. In this direction, this study seeks to understand the effects of the abovementioned factors on accessibility, with particular attention on leisure and work trips. This analysis is based on different combinations of least square regression models. In general, results show that the built environment has more effects on leisure accessibility, while work accessibility is conditioned to sociodemographic factors. Thus, results show that the city does not present an urban environment that delivers reliability for work trips, which is pressured by time and costs. To promote a sustainable and equitable development of the city of Valparaíso, it is relevant to consider the adequation and improving the built environment for work trips. Regarding leisure trips, there is a need to promote measures to improve safety on streets and access to low-capacity public transport. These measures are vital for promoting sustainable mobility in the city of Valparaíso.

The role of trust and distrust in technology usage: An in-depth investigation of traffic information apps usage for mandatory and non-mandatory trips

Following the rapid pace of technological advancement and the continuous introduction of new technologies, the study of user acceptance has gained considerable attention. While previous studies have highlighted the role of trust in technology acceptance and adoption, the significance of distrust has received little attention and is often treated as the other end of the trust scale. This study aims to examine the separate roles of both trust and distrust in technology adoption by investigating the relationship between the usage of traffic information apps (TIAs) and the trust and distrust associated with them. To achieve this, a revealed preference questionnaire is designed, and data from a representative sample of 1028 Sydney residents is collected. The validity of treating trust and distrust as two separate constructs is empirically examined by contrasting a single-construct model versus a double-construct model. Both models are integrated choice and latent variable models with structural and choice components. The findings demonstrate that the model with trust and distrust as two distinct latent constructs outperforms the model with one latent construct. The results of the double latent construct model indicate that trust has a significant positive effect on using TIAs for both work and leisure trips, while distrust has a significant negative effect only for work trips. These findings underscore the importance of effectively managing distrust in technology, particularly in situations related to health and safety where individuals’ usage of the technology in these circumstances can save lives.

The travel behaviors before and after lockdown: Case study on Shanghai, 2022

From April 1 to May 31, 2022, Shanghai implemented a full lockdown in response to the rapid spread of COVID-19 to protect the vulnerable population. This paper aims to comprehensively assess the impact of this lockdown. Traffic data for March and June of 2022 were collected, including the vehicular traffic volumes from four typical intersections and metro ridership. Other important indicators, including COVID-19 cases, Baidu Index and Shanghai Stock Exchange Index, were also employed. The results show that: (1) In both March and June, except for the intersection near the major hospital, the ratios between the weekday and weekend traffic volumes were higher than those observed before the pandemic, which implies a significant drop in leisure trips during these periods. (2) The evolution of traffic volume in March was largely driven by some important COVID-19-related events, while the traffic volume in June showed a more spontaneous and stepwise recovery pattern. (3) The confirmed cases had a significant impact on the traffic volume in March, but the time lag of the confirmed cases was not found. The impact of confirmed cases on traffic volume in June was not significant. (4) The transfer from public transport to private ones could be observed during this period, but the recovery proportion of Shanghai metro ridership is higher than most other cities examined in this study, suggesting the importance of enhancing public confidence for public transport in the post-pandemic period. These findings can aid in refining potential pandemic measures for future scenarios.

Urban Physical Environments Promoting Active Leisure Travel: An Empirical Study Using Crowdsourced GPS Tracks and Geographic Big Data from Multiple Sources

Specific environmental characteristics can encourage active leisure travel and increase physical activity. However, existing environment-travel studies tend to ignore the differences in environmental characteristics associated with route choice and travel distance, of which the latter could be more important for health benefits, since longer trips are associated with increased exercise. Additionally, the most recent studies focus on leisure walking and leisure cycling, and activities such as hiking, climbing, and running are examined less frequently. This study, therefore, compares the similarities and differences of the environmental factors associated with route selection and travel distance through non-parametric tests and Cox proportional hazard models. The results show that two intersecting sets of environmental elements relate to both the route chosen and the distance traveled. Land use diversity and varied topography are appealing for both leisure trips and trip length. In addition, the differences in environmental characteristics among specific leisure travels may be attributed to variations in physical activity requirements, preferences for landscape viewing, and/or sensitivity to crowding. Therefore, conclusions drawn without considering the different types of leisure travel could be skewed. Whether particular surroundings may effectively increase physical activity remains uncertain. A more holistic perspective could be beneficial when studying the connection between the environment, active travel, and health.

Centralized multi-visitor trip planning with activity reservations in crowded destinations

We study the problem of centralized planning of leisure trips in congested areas for visitor groups with reservations for activities. We develop an algorithm that through a combination of customization and coordination can improve average happiness considerably. Extensive numerical experimentation with both synthetic and real-life data show that our algorithm strongly outperforms the classical First-Come-First-Served reservation policy, both in terms of visitor happiness and in terms of fairness among visitors. Moreover, our results show that our algorithm leads to good solutions for small-sized problem instances (with errors typically within 5%–10% from an optimal solution obtained via Integer Linear Programming). Finally, the computational effort with regard to number of visitors is bounded by the capacity and the number of activities, while the increase in computation time for the number of attractions is bounded by the average number of activities that fit into a trip. As a result, our approach leads to good solutions within minutes in realistic settings with more than 10 thousand visitors a day.

Understanding bike-sharing usage patterns of members and casual users: A case study in New York City

Shared bicycle travel has become an important travel mode for urban residents, and bike-sharing platforms are also booming in major cities worldwide. The bike-sharing platform provides users with systematic services: members refer to annual bike-sharing service subscribers and casual users refer to holders of a day pass or single ride ticket. Even though casual users account for a large share of ridership and revenue at bike-share systems in New York City (NYC), very little is known about the characteristics and preferences of casual users and how they compare to members. Based on the open-docked bike-sharing dataset from Citi Bike, we analyze the bike usage patterns of members and casual users in NYC, and how these patterns change in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic on a typical day level. We find that the COVID-19 pandemic has negatively influenced members' bike trip counts on weekdays; bike travel time increases for members during the pandemic and decreases for casual users after the pandemic. To make a profound study concerning spatial heterogeneities, we employ Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) to cluster the spatiotemporal changes of the station-level bike usage and obtain four clusters for each user type. Combined with the Points of Interest (POI) information, we find that member-related cluster with commuting POIs is significantly affected by the pandemic, while leisure trips are the most severely affected for casual users. Compared with the central area, peripheral clusters with residential and religious POIs are less affected by the pandemic. According to our findings, new operational strategies such as flexible subscriptions can be developed to attract more users, maintain their stickiness, and improve the bike-sharing level of services.

Value of travel time savings for leisure trip in autonomous vehicles: Case study from the Tokyo Metropolitan Area

This study estimates the value of travel time savings (VTTSs) in autonomous vehicles (AVs) for leisure trip, using data collected from a stated-choice survey in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area, Japan. The survey was implemented through an internet monitoring program from February to March 2020, collecting 1,224 responses to stated-choice questions from 204 respondents. The survey was designed to request that the respondents choose AV or non-AV under six hypothetical conditions of travel time and cost when they are assumed to be using a car rental service to travel alone for a leisure purpose trip. Simple binary logit models are employed with two types of specifications in the utility function. First, the estimation results of the models without heterogeneity in the utility function showed that the VTTS in AVs is lower than that in non-AVs by approximately 7.3 % on average; however, the reduction of VTTS is not statistically significant. Second, the estimation results of the models incorporating observable heterogeneity into the marginal utility with respect to travel time also revealed that the individual’s preference of in-vehicle multitasking, age, and gender do not significantly affect the reduction of VTTS in AVs. Finally, changes in preference of AV-unique multitasking may affect VTTS, which should be monitored for future updating the VTTS guidelines.

Walking in small cities case studies of two Iranian cities

Studies rarely have focused on small cities to figure out what prevent individuals from walking where distances are already short. After a data collection (857 respondents) in two small cities in Iran, this study reveals the influential factors on walking rather than motorized mode, and; as a marginal investigation, private car rather than taxi sharing. Results showed that men, 30 to 60 years old, higher educated, car owners and driving license holders are less likely to walk. Furthermore, comfort, a strong motivator along with entertainment and health and social norm are latent variables that influence on walking, however corresponding perceptions are different in leisure and working trips. Moreover, individuals expect safety and security as the minimum requirements for walking regardless of the aim of travel. Similarly pro-environmental behaving raise walking among urbanites, although slightly. Intriguibly; result clarifies that residents in small cities seek for the same factors in large cities, however priority, scale and complexity may differ in two types of cities which require more investigation as well as objective studies. Boosting build environmental characteristics, raising safety and security, informing individuals of personal and social outcomes of walking, advertising programs in order to motivate social support and pro-environmentally behaving, making urban spaces multifunctional, keeping travel distances short in city expansion plans by proper mixing land use, targeting work and leisure trips separately and informing individuals about the existing opportunities of walking are the key conclusions of the study that are recommended to be considered in future policy makings in small cities.

The effect of China’s travel purposes on Hungary’s inbound tourism

This paper conduct an empirical research and investigate the effect of China’s travel purposes on Hungary’s inbound tourism during a period of uncertainty. The study takes into account the influence of the Covid-19 and Ukraine-Russia war on inbound tourism. The short-run monthly sample from January 2018 to July 2022 has been utilzed to capture the uncertain period. A Poisson Regression Model has been applied to calculate the efficacy of China’s travel purposes on Hungary’s inbound tourism. This study finds that China’s leisure and business trips have positive and significant effect on Hungary’s inbound tourism. China’s business trips has a large contribution to Hungary’s inbound tourism than leisure trips. During the uncertain period, the Covid-19 and Ukraine-Russia war had a negative and significant effect on arrivals of tourists to Hungary. Inbound tourism from China to Hungary had contributed positively to the economic performance of Hungary’s tourism sector.

Unveiling the roles of public bike systems: From leisure to multimodal transportation

As bike-sharing systems gain popularity, understanding their roles in urban transportation, such as the first/last mile problem and the replacement of public transit, is crucial to comprehensively promote urban transport systems. Due to the Internet of Things (IoT) technique, copious data from public bike trips worldwide are available to urban researchers. In this study, we examine how public bikes function not just as a means of transportation, but also for leisure. The leisure function was ignored in previous empirical studies using data mining techniques, an oversight that could skew results in places like Seoul where leisure trips constitute a significant portion of the trips. We investigate when, where, and to what degree bike-sharing serves as a leisure tool and substitutes for, integrates with, or complements the public transit system. We propose an integrated data-mining approach to identify the above four categories of public bike trips. Our method combines multiple sources of real-world data, the distributed density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise (DBSCAN), and spatial feature engineering. The results reveal that the distribution of each category shows substantial spatial–temporal heterogeneity. Longitudinal analysis reveals that the use of public bicycles as a transportation mode primarily contributes to the growth observed from 2018 to 2021, compared to use for leisure. The determining factors and non-linear functions of each type of bike trip were interpreted by explainable machine learning methods, Shapley additive explanations (SHAP), and partial dependence plot (PDP). We discovered that lower slopes, higher residential densities, and more commercial neighborhoods consistently attract users across all categories. Additionally, rivers and green areas attract more leisure trips, while areas with denser transit routes see more substitution trips and fewer complementary trips. By understanding the characteristics, spatial–temporal distribution, and determining factors of public bike trips across these four categories, city planners and operators can tailor services to meet the diverse needs of citizens, fostering a more convenient, sustainable, and accessible urban transport system.

Travelling with pets… or not

Purpose- This study aims to evaluate a mostly overlooked part of tourism literature: the place of pets in pet owners' travel planning process and travelling. In this sense, the purpose of this qualitative study is to explore Turkish pet owners' perceptions of travelling with pets, and the reasons behind their willingness and unwillingness to take their pets on leisure trips. This exploratory study aims to examine factors affecting pet owners' willingness to travel with their pets, to understand their perceptions of travelling with their pets, to explore reasons behind the unwillingness to have holidays with their pets and to examine difficulties of making holiday plans as pet owners. Methodology- This exploratory research was conducted in the form of semi-structured and in-depth interviews with 52 pet owners in three big cities of Turkey (Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir). Participants of the study were selected according to the principles of criterion sampling and theory-guided sampling, which are purposive sampling methods. Conceptual analysis as a category of content analysis was employed to code the findings and identify emerging themes. Findings- The willingness and decisions about participating in leisure and tourism activities with pets are determined by the bond between pet and owner, the value attached to the pet, and the pet's role in the family. Pet owners' demographic profiles and characteristics of their pets determine the type of pet ownership and also affect all decisions made about pets such as participating in leisure activities with pets and travelling with pets. The participants with higher emotional attachment to their pets had more willingness to take their pets with them on holiday. Pet owners’ decisions about taking their pets on holiday with them are affected by some constraints stemming from their pets, themselves, or other conditions. Conclusion- The results provide an understanding of pet owners’ travel planning and travel experience including pet-related constraints, negotiation strategies of pet owners, and pet owners' willingness and unwillingness to travel with their pets. Keywords: Pets, travelling with pets, tourism consumer, constraints-negotiation model, attachment theory JEL Codes: D10, L83, M31

COVID-19 발생 이후 근린 내 상업 환경이 여가 통행 변화에 미치는 영향 분석: 거주지기반 여가통행을 중심으로

COVID-19 발생 이후 근린 내 상업 환경이 여가 통행 변화에 미치는 영향 분석: 거주지기반 여가통행을 중심으로

Measurement of Process-Performances of Turkish Airports Using Network Data Envelopment Analysis

The air transportation industry is continuously broadening by adding new airports operating with huge investments. Hence, increasing efficiency and productivity in this industry is becoming critical. At the same time, efficiency calculations are also an important tool used to identify weaknesses and contribute to the improvement of the performance of enterprises. Nevertheless, Classic DEA models are commonly insufficient to determine the efficiency of a system due to ignorance of its internal structure and the treatment of the system as a black box. Therefore, if a production system can be divided into subprocesses by using network DEA model, the results will be more plausible and satisfying. Within this scope, this paper aims to evaluate the efficiencies of 39 out of 56 airports in Türkiye from 2015 to 2019. The results indicate that less-populated airports managed by private entrepreneurs are more efficient than others. Moreover, another characteristic of these efficient airports is that they are both domestically and internationally preferred for leisure trips.

Why Fly? Prudential Value, Climate Change, and the Ethics of Long-distance Leisure Travel

We argue that the prudential benefits of long-distance leisure travel can justify such trips even though there are strong and important reasons against long-distance flying. This is because prudential benefits can render otherwise impermissible actions permissible, and because, according to dominant theories about wellbeing, long-distance leisure travel provides significant prudential benefits. However, this ‘wellbeing argument’ for long-distance leisure travel must be qualified in two ways. First, because travellers are epistemically privileged with respect to knowledge about what is good for them, they must look critically at their own assessment of the prudential benefits of a trip. Second, the wellbeing argument is unlikely to support prudential arguments for long-distance leisure trips made by frequent flyers.

An Education on the Importance of Comfort Sociology

Our society mainly consists of men, women and children and their various age groups. If these elements are not there, it cannot be a society. All these people together form the society. Our society responds differently to entertainment and leisure. All individuals play an important part in how they function in society and how they respond to recreation and leisure. The way we perceive our roles in society affects our recreational and leisure activities. We should consider the ways in which we as individuals and our society come together when it comes to recreation and leisure. As individuals we must ensure that our roles in society have a positive impact. Society in general does not consider how their roles affect their influence and leisure. As our society is constantly changing, so is the balance between work and leisure in society. Today All over the world there is a balance between rest and work in favor of work. The increased importance on work is a result of the influence of the Western world on the whole world. In all these global societies, we have adopted the mindset that work, which is a major aspect of human life, must be successfully completed before rest. This mindset has changed the way we view leisure in our society, leading to a dramatic decline in participation and participation in leisure activities. However, I believe I am inconsistent with this mindset, as my journey through life has taught me the importance of rest. This has made it my life’s mission to make leisure my work. How was my leisure trip? These are two different components but work together. This research paper is based on what are the factors that affect us as individuals in society and how it relates to our leisure time.

Potential of Bike Sharing During Disruptive Public Health Crises: A Review of COVID-19 Impacts

With public transport (PT) continuing to be negatively affected by the coronavirus pandemic and private car usage surging, alternative modes need to be considered. In this study, we review the available evidence (from academic and gray literature sources) on the performance of bike sharing systems (BSSs) during COVID-19 around the world, with the goal of assessing their potential contribution to improving the resilience of transport systems during pandemics and similar disruptive events. We found BSS usage followed a decrease-rebound pattern, with BSSs overall sustaining lower ridership declines and faster recoveries compared with PT. During lockdowns especially, the average duration of BSS trips increased, following a rise in casual users and leisure trips, while commuting trips decreased. Evidence has also been found for a possible modal shift from some PT users to BSSs, with a decline in the share of multimodal trips conducted between PT and BSSs. Bike sharing is perceived as safer than other shared modes (e.g., PT, taxis, and ride-hailing/sharing) but as having a higher infection risk than personal modes (e.g., private car, walking, and personal bike). Moreover, the BSS was an important transport alternative for essential workers, with several operators providing waivers especially to healthcare staff, leading to ridership increases near healthcare facilities and in deprived neighborhoods. Findings from this research support policies for promoting bike sharing, namely through fee reductions, system expansions, and symbiotic integration with PT, as BSSs can increase the sustainability and resilience of transport systems during disruptive public health events like COVID-19.

Users’ Preferences in Selecting Transportation Modes for Leisure Trips in the Digital Era: Evidence from Bandung, Indonesia

Leisure trips have become more important in an era where people are increasingly concerned with quality of life. Leisure trips are unique in that they are not as strict as mandatory trips, while, at the same time, they have wider characteristics because of their flexibility. Research on leisure trips from developing countries is still under-represented as there is still a focus on commuting trips. This study aims to identify factors that influence the mode of transportation choice for leisure trips by domestic travelers who live in cities surrounding Bandung, Indonesia. Data were collected using stated-preference self-report questionnaires distributed to locals who have the intention to travel for leisure in Bandung in the future. Based on responses from 305 respondents with a total number of 1220 observations, a multinomial logit model was estimated. It was found that trains and buses were selected more often by locals than other modes of transportation, including private cars, for leisure trips. Our model showed that locals considered travel time and travel costs as the most significant factors in selecting the mode of transportation for their leisure trips. Besides the existence of online transportation—hailing rides through mobile apps—as an alternative, this study also reveals payment method to be a unique consideration of locals when travelling leisurely in this digital era.