Mobility Style Research Articles

Machine learning approach of multi‐RAT selection for travelling users in 5G NSA networks

AbstractThe rapid increment of mobile device usage and the corresponding huge data volume generated afterwards, necessitated the utilisation of the 5G network spectrum. This is deployed today in terrestrial communication in a non‐stand‐alone (NSA) architectural mode; where 5G networks are supported by 4G LTE networks. Hence, the current 5G implementation with the gargantuan number of mobile subscribers, poses challenges to the choice of network Radio Access Technology (RAT) selection between 4G and 5G networks, among available multiple base‐stations to mobile (travelling) users, with respect to their location, bandwidth requirement, and mobility style. Hence, to address the scenario presented above, the authors record live signal measurements of 4G and 5G networks by a travelling user, that transversed multiple 5G NSA base stations. RAT selection implementations were carried out with support vector machine (SVM), deep neural network (DNN), and eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) algorithms to select an appropriate RAT between 4G and 5G RATs, for effective resource allocation for travelling users’ requirements. Evaluation of results with standard classification metrics shows XGBoost with overall outstanding accuracy performance at 99.64%.

Shifting to more sustainable mobility styles: A latent transition approach

Cities around the world make efforts to reduce car use and its negative consequences but even in cycling cities, mobility behaviour is still dominated by car use. This paper examines the effect of life events, changed resources and attitude-behaviour incongruency on changes in people's mobility style. The paper is based on a longitudinal survey including people who participated 2–3 times within a 2.5-year period. Applying latent transition analysis based on participants' mobility attitudes and behaviour, we identified 5 distinct mobility classes: one functional and one enthusiastic car user class; one car-prone and one car-aversive cycling class and a public transport class. Free-floating car sharing subscription had an effect on initial class membership but not on transition probability. However, shifts were significantly related to age and gender, changes in income and place of residence. Yet, most effects disappeared when car ownership was included in the latent transition model. Once people end up in car-centred mobility styles, a voluntary transition back seems difficult to achieve.

Mobility Styles and Car Ownership—Potentials for a Sustainable Urban Transport

Decision-makers in cities worldwide have the responsibility to contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in urban transport. Therefore, effective measures and policies that allow for a change in people’s mobility towards sustainable mobility must be derived. To understand how different people respond to measures and policies, and to increase the effectiveness of such policies, individual mobility needs and mobility determinants have to be considered. For this, the definition of individual mobility styles as holistic descriptions considering travel behavior, attitudes, as well as life stages is useful. This study presents a segmentation approach that identifies eight urban mobility styles by using data from a multidimensional survey conducted in Berlin and San Francisco. We applied a cluster analysis with both behavioral and attitudinal characteristics as segmentation criteria. By analyzing the characteristics, we identified a mobility style—the Environmentally Oriented Multimodals—that is environmentally oriented, but not yet all people in this cluster are sustainable in their mobility. Thus, they are the group with the highest potential to accept and use sustainable mobility. Additionally, we found that within the Environmentally Oriented Multimodals, the change from one life stage to another is also likely to be accompanied by a car acquisition.

Understanding stated neighborhood preferences: The roles of lifecycle stage, mobility style, and lifestyle aspirations

Stated neighborhood preference is informed by a host of factors describing an individual’s socioeconomic condition, current environmental context, recent transportation decisions, and future aspirations for certain housing and accessibility attributes. To date, travel applications and behavioral models investigating the residential location choice process have been parsimonious in differentiating decision-makers and the available neighborhood supply. This Portland, Oregon study used stated preference survey data and an integrated choice and latent variable modeling framework to provide a new awareness of the relationships between an individual’s lifecycle stage, mobility style, lifestyle aspirations, and underlying preference in residential environment. Specifically, we found that aspirations regarding housing and accessibility were strong predictors of stated neighborhood preferences, while mobility style was also closely associated with these lifestyle aspirations. Also, consistent with a narrative of gentrification, high income households preferred more urban environments with better multimodal access.

URBAN FACTORS AFFECTING ON TRAVEL PATTERN AND BEHAVIOR IN ASSIUT CITY

There is an increased interest to understand and evaluate travel patterns and behaviors, as an attempt to understand travel choices and to identify priorities for interventions. Factors affecting travel choices and behavior were divided into two main groups: non-urban factors and urban factors. This study examined the effect of some various land-use factors on the behavior of the inhabitants of Assiut city-Egypt and measured the preferences of users for special and alternative modes of mechanical mobility in an attempt to determine the required and urgent development priorities to improve transportation services and change travel behaviors toward sustainability. The study was based on an analytical descriptive method. The database was derived from a field study of Assiut city during the period (January 2017 to March 2017). The data were collected through: urban survey of the urban environment supporting the mobility style and behavior of the respondents, in different neighborhoods in Assiut city. During the same period, the researchers distributed a questionnaire at work centers, educational services and some commercial services sites in Assiut. The relative weights for factors limiting the use of alternative means by individuals as well as factors encouraging individuals to use alternative means of transport were determined. The study concluded that mixed land use alone is not enough to reduce mobility and to encourage individuals to move without using mechanical or motorized ways. It should be accompanied with a balanced diversity distribution of services with access by multiple means of transport. In addition, the use of mixed and diverse land use and the shortness of travel distance has a stronger impact on the quality and efficiency of pedestrian corridors and their transit areas on increasing pedestrian mobility, while the quality and efficiency of the cycling infrastructure has been found to be more effective than the limited mobility of bicycles. People's behavior and choices are affected primarily by the quality and efficiency of transport services provided, rather than by mobility costs, and the need to combine pricing policies with urban and planning procedures to change mobility behaviors and to lead to more sustainable behaviors. The paper concluded with a set of recommendations on sustainable mobility and land use in an integrated framework.

Assessing the Value of Systematic Cycling in a Polluted Urban Environment

The positive health effects of systematic cycling are weighted against the negative effects due to higher pollutant inhalation in the actual case of the city of Milan in northern Italy. The paper first evaluates the actual use of bikes in the city, and then considers why and how much such an active mobility style can be expanded. Two models are used to compare the outcome of cycling on the specific population sample with the equivalent path travelled by car. The first model computes the long term effects of the physical activity, and the second evaluates the exacerbation of some relevant diseases due to the exposure to high levels of pollutants, in the case at hand, mainly particulate matter with diameter smaller than 10 μm (PM10). According to these two models, the overall balance for public health is always in favour of systematic biking. Even the current level of biking, low in comparison to other European cities, allows a considerable economic advantage on the order of tens of millions euros per year. This may increase to hundreds of millions if the biking level of more bike-friendly cities is reached. Despite being much less relevant from the economic viewpoint, the study also estimates the reduction of pollution and greenhouse gas emissions corresponding to the assumed biking levels.

Developing competitive advantage through tracking tools in service business: the case of a global industrial service supplier

This research is about the utilisation of tracking tools in maintenance resource coordination to investigate the benefits of tracking in the coordination processes. Based on service industry, this study uses a pilot project, questionnaires and interviews as research methods. Various challenges were found in the field of mobile workforce management; coordination, safety at work, achieving optimisation goals of cost-efficiency, quality and customer service. Many of these challenges can be facilitated with tracking. However, the possibilities of tracking utilisation vary in differing business areas of case company. Four dimensions in the existing business were identified. They are connected with the mobility and management style of service technicians. Further, the main tracking opportunities were introduced into each of these business fields. The successful usage and implementation of a tracking system necessitates strong support from management. Tracking tools offer numerous opportunities for maintenance resource coordination. Undoubtedly, the tracking implementation and utilisation require consideration of several managerial matters.

Moving towards sustainability? Mobility styles, attitudes and individual travel behaviour

Future scenarios for the transport sector are increasingly confronted with the finite nature of fossil-based resources (petrol, natural gas) and an urgent need for reductions of negative transport-related effects (CO2 and other exhaust emissions, noise, land consumption). In view of limited technical advances and efficiency improvements, along with growing traffic volumes, behavioural changes towards more sustainable travel futures have attained a crucial importance. This paper will discuss initial results from a 2-year project (funded by the British Economic and Social Research Council – ESRC) which aims to develop the notion of sustainability-related ‘mobility styles’ as a context for applying targeted social marketing policies to specific population segments. Based on ten focus group discussions and a survey of more than 1500 participants in the South West of England, two segmentation approaches are used to identify gaps between different domains of individual travel behaviour and the varying role of attitudes for travel decisions. The results demonstrate the usefulness and limitations of existing segmentation approaches and underline the need for more complex and comprehensive mobility style frameworks as basis for measures aiming at behavioural change towards sustainable mobility.

Leisure mobility styles in Swiss conurbations: construction and empirical analysis

Leisure travel is the most difficult travel purpose to analyse due to the lack of fixed spatial and temporal referents and the consequent flexibility in patterns. This paper addresses lifestyles, social influence, and the travellers’ social networks, issues that have proved valuable for travel behaviour research in confronting the complexity of leisure travel. An approach for constructing leisure mobility styles, based on orientations towards leisure and mobility, will be presented first and then the hypotheses that transport behaviour can be better explained through analysis of leisure mobility styles will be tested. Multivariate analysis reveals that the leisure mobility style group makes a significant contribution towards clarifying variance for the activities ‘Visiting friends and relatives’, ‘Travel participation’, ‘Mode choice’, and ‘Travel distance for leisure’. The use of leisure mobility styles is most useful for developing practical intervention pointers where the in-group homogeneity of lifestyle should be addressed in greater detail.

Mobility Styles and Travel Behavior: Application of a Lifestyle Approach to Leisure Travel

Recently, several efforts have been made to include individuals’ attitudes, values, and orientations within travel behavior research. The restrictions of the traditional modeling variables become obvious when one is trying to explain changes in travel patterns related to changes in Western societies. Traditional modeling efforts also neglect the intrinsic dimensions of traveling and of nonwork travel. A lifestyle approach has been used to construct mobility styles by applying factor and cluster analysis to leisure and mobility orientations. A data set was collected in four neighborhoods of Cologne (Germany). The analysis focuses on leisure travel on weekends, because it is assumed that mobility styles are more important for leisure than for work-related traveling. The key question is whether the utility of mobility styles as a tool for the analysis of travel behavior can be demonstrated. The results indicate, first, that there is a correlation of mobility styles with several other factors, such as personal and household characteristics, availability of transport modes, and urban form elements (e.g., residential neighborhood, garden ownership, and dwelling type). Furthermore, a correlation is observed between mobility styles and participation, frequency, and car use for leisure travel. Finally, multivariate analysis indicates that the mobility styles largely explain the participation in traveling for different leisure purposes and the distances traveled by car. For the mode choice, other factors such as availability of transport modes and workday use of a transport mode appear to be more important than the mobility style.