Montreal Metropolitan Region Research Articles

Breaking down public transit travel time for more accurate transport equity policies: A trip component approach

In the Northern hemisphere, low-income transit users typically take shorter trips and use buses in a greater proportion, but there is limited knowledge on inequalities in the detailed characteristics of public transit trips.In this paper, we seek to understand and explain differences in segment components of transit trips across socio-economic groups. Trip components include access time, wait time, total travel time, overall trip speed and percent of trip time spent in access and wait (off-vehicle time).Using the Montreal metropolitan region travel survey (2013), we focus on the 46,186 transit trips made by 20,138 individuals for which household income was available. This data is augmented by time estimations of the aforementioned trip components, and combined with trips specific transit service measures calculated using General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS). We first assess the relationship between trip components and income using descriptive statistics. OLS regressions are then conducted to identify which individual and transport-based factors contribute to variations in trip component outcomes.Low-income transit users take more transit trips (especially bus and Metro) than their higher income counterparts and combine multiple transit modes through more frequent transfers. While average access and wait time are individually lower than those for trips of wealthier respondents, low-income total trip time is similar but trip speed is considerably lower. Lower-income populations also spend a greater share of their trips in access and wait time due to service and trip discrepancies including trip timing, proximity to metro stations and requirement for transfers. When controlling for other factors, the conditions under which trips by low-income individuals are taken mainly drive income differences.

Thinking regional and acting local: Assessing the joint influence of local and regional accessibility on commute mode in Montreal, Canada

Accessibility indicators, measuring the ease of reaching destinations via a specific mode of transport, are increasingly used in planning and research as they support integrated land use and transport planning. Research has shown that increased local accessibility (walkability for example) is associated with an increase in walking mode share, whereas increase in public transport accessibility is associated with a greater use of public transport. Yet, while public transport agencies are promoting the combination of active and public transport options to address one's diverse mobility needs, local and regional accessibility are rarely addressed together in research or practice. This research aims to determine the joint influence of local and regional accessibility on the transport mode used for work trips in the Montreal metropolitan region, while controlling for socio-demographic characteristics. Data come from the 2013 Origin-Destination survey 2016 Canadian census, 2017 public transport data DMTI Enhanced points of interests. A multinomial logistic model is used to understand how local and regional accessibility are associated with walking, cycling or taking public transport to work across individuals. The results demonstrate that increases in both local and regional accessibility are associated with a higher probability of using sustainable modes. The predicted probabilities suggest that local accessibility is more closely associated with a decrease in car use. This study sheds light on the interaction between local and regional land use and transport systems and is of relevance to planners and policymakers wishing to develop neighborhoods that support the use of sustainable modes.

I only get some satisfaction: Introducing satisfaction into measures of accessibility

Improving accessibility is a goal pursued by many metropolitan regions to address a variety of objectives. Accessibility, or the ease of reaching destinations, is traditionally measured using observed travel time and has of yet not accounted for user satisfaction with these travel times. As trip satisfaction is a major component of the underlying psychology of travel, we introduce satisfaction into accessibility measures and demonstrate its viability for future use. To do so, we generate a new satisfaction-based measure of accessibility where the impedance functions are determined from the travel time data of satisfying trips gathered from the 2017/2018 McGill Transport Survey. This satisfaction-based measure is used to calculate accessibility to jobs by four modes (public transport, car, walking, and cycling) in the Montreal metropolitan region, with the results then compared to a standard gravity-based measure of accessibility. This comparison reveals a discrepancy between both measures of accessibility, particularly for public transport users. By combining this discrepancy with mode share data, we identify areas that may be targets for future investigations to better understand the causes for discrepancy. The study demonstrates the importance of including satisfaction in accessibility measures and allows for a more nuanced interpretation of the ease of access by practitioners, researchers, planners, and policy-makers.

Neighbourhood attachment revisited: Middle-class families in the Montreal metropolitan region

Migration, mobility, globalisation and individualisation have transformed the way people relate to space by affecting their physical, social and emotional bonds to place. Yet, does it mean that place attachment is due to wane and that the neighbourhood does not matter nowadays? The article is tackling this question by addressing the underexplored neighbourhood attachment and the residential choices of young middle-class families in Montreal Census Metropolitan Area. Empirical results are drawn from in-depth interviews with immigrant and non-immigrant households in a comparative perspective between a peri-urban and near-suburban neighbourhood in recent ethnic transition. We explore three types of neighbourhood attachment: physical and social as underlined in the literature, but we also suggest the importance of accounting for the symbolic dimension of neighbourhood attachment. Findings reveal how families display neighbourhood attachment through an extensive use of neighbourhood amenities (physical), embedded social ties (social) and distinctive lifestyles convergent with the representations of middle-class family life (symbolic). Unlike narratives of middle-classes’ place detachment and withdrawal from neighbourhood life, our case study of ‘middle’ middle-class neighbourhoods suggest that the neighbourhood preserves its importance, but that neighbourhood attachment takes different forms and that these forms differ among urban and suburban families. It is argued that what residents believe urban and suburban life should be and their values and identities associated with it needs further investigation, given their considerable role in neighbourhood attachment and residential choices of middle-classes families.

The impacts of urban sprawl on ecological connectivity in the Montreal Metropolitan Region

Urban sprawl is a widely recognized phenomenon in many major cities worldwide and is a significant land use planning and management issue. This process has many impacts on the ecological function and structure of the landscape. In this article, we analyze the effects of urban sprawl on the ecological patterns and processes in the Montreal Metropolitan Region (MMR) between 1966 and 2010. The dispersed sprawl of low-density urban areas within the territory during this period sharply increased the fragmentation of the territory, isolating the few remaining natural spaces and decreasing their ecological connectivity and, ultimately, biodiversity. The results obtained clearly show that land-use changes that occurred in the MMR have caused profound changes in landscape properties, both structurally and functionally, and especially from 1981 to 2010. In 1966, around 45% of the land had a high or very high level of connectivity, and almost 38% in 1981. By 2010 only 6.5% of the landscape was connected and 73% of the territory possessed no or low connectivity.

Quantifying the effects of input aggregation and model randomness on regional transportation emission inventories

Accurate road-traffic emission inventories are of great interest to metropolitan planning agencies especially in the appraisal of regional transport policies. Integrated road transport emission models are an effective means of establishing emission estimates, yet their development requires significant investments in data and resources. It is therefore important to investigate which data inputs are the most critical to inventory accuracy. To address this issue, an integrated transport and emissions model is developed using the Montreal metropolitan region as a case-study. Daily regional hydrocarbon (HC) emissions from private individual travel are estimated, including the excess emissions due to engine starts. The sensitivity of emission estimates is then evaluated by testing various levels of input aggregation common in practice and in previous research. The evaluated inputs include the effect of start emissions, ambient weather conditions, traffic speed, path choice, and vehicle registry information. Inherent randomness within the integrated model through vehicle selection and path allocation is also evaluated. The inclusion of start emissions is observed to have the largest impact on emission inventories, contributing approximately 67 % of total on-road HC emissions. Ambient weather conditions (season) and vehicle registry data (types, model years) are also found to be significant. Model randomness had a minimal effect in comparison with the impact of other variables.

Smog and socioeconomics: an evaluation of equity in traffic-related air pollution generation and exposure

How traffic-related air pollution generation and exposure is distributed among different population groups is an important environmental justice concern. From a social equity perspective, many questions arise at the metropolitan scale. Do socially disadvantaged communities have higher exposure levels to traffic-related air pollution? Do discrepancies exist wherein neighborhoods are not exposed to levels of pollution similar to those they themselves generate? And, is there a relationship between this discrepancy and social disadvantage? These questions are examined for the Montreal Metropolitan Region through the development of an integrated transport and emissions model. Two measures of traffic-related air pollution are estimated at the traffic analysis zone level: (1) generation (average emissions per household), and (2) exposure (average residential zone concentration). A social disadvantage index is also calculated that incorporates elements of social and material deprivation. Three levels of inequity exist regarding emissions, exposure, and socioeconomics. Social disadvantage was found to have a positive relationship with exposure, meaning that the most socially disadvantaged communities tend to experience the highest levels of traffic-related air pollution. Spatial discrepancies in emission generation versus emission exposure are also present for most of the metropolitan region. Furthermore, the communities that face a double burden of greater disadvantage and higher exposure also tend to create the lowest quantities of pollution.

Evaluating vehicular emissions with an integrated mesoscopic and microscopic traffic simulation

This paper demonstrates the implementation of a traffic simulation linked with instantaneous emissions modelling and is used to evaluate the effects of street closures and area-wide pedestrianization on vehicle-induced greenhouse gas emissions. The study is set in Montreal, Canada where traffic in a dense borough (8656 links) is simulated in a dynamic traffic assignment mode to generate second-by-second speed profiles along every link in the 7–8 AM period. Instantaneous speeds are then used to estimate link-level and intersection-level emissions. The traffic demand at the borough boundaries is simulated using a mesoscopic traffic assignment model developed for the Montreal metropolitan region (127 217 links). Street closures and area-wide pedestrianization schemes are modelled within the microscopic as well as the mesoscopic models to evaluate their effects on greenhouse gas emissions, both while accounting for changes in demand and under constant demand. In all cases, we observe an increase in borough-level greenhouse gas emissions compared to the base-case scenario indicating that such schemes do not lead to a reduction in emissions even when accounting for changes in demand. We also compare emissions calculated using the microscopic models (traffic and emissions) and those obtained from the mesoscopic assignment (traffic and average-speed emissions) and observe that the regional model is much less sensitive to local-level changes mostly due to the incapacity of simulating accelerations and decelerations and therefore underestimating the changes in borough-level emissions compared to the base-case scenario. This indicates the importance of adopting instantaneous emissions models for the evaluation of changes to street configuration.

Urban Sprawl and Ecosystem Services: A Half Century Perspective in the Montreal Area (Quebec, Canada)

Urban sprawl is central to the issues surrounding sustainable urban development. It generally leads to multiple impacts on land-use change, including loss of sensitive natural areas, farmland and fragmentation of ecosystems, which negatively impact the production of a wide range of ecosystem services (ES). In this study, we evaluate the value of ES provided by forests, croplands, grasslands and wetlands. Four spatial analyses of the Montreal Metropolitan Region (Quebec, Canada) are used over a period of 45 years at 15 year intervals (1966, 1981, 1994 and 2010). We demonstrate that despite a variety of management strategies, urban sprawl continues to have negative impacts on ES economic value over time.

Microscale Numerical Prediction over Montreal with the Canadian External Urban Modeling System

AbstractThe Canadian urban and land surface external modeling system (known as urban GEM-SURF) has been developed to provide surface and near-surface meteorological variables to improve numerical weather prediction and to become a tool for environmental applications. The system is based on the Town Energy Balance model for the built-up covers and on the Interactions between the Surface, Biosphere, and Atmosphere land surface model for the natural covers. It is driven by coarse-resolution forecasts from the 15-km Canadian regional operational model. This new system was tested for a 120-m grid-size computational domain covering the Montreal metropolitan region from 1 May to 30 September 2008. The numerical results were first evaluated against local observations of the surface energy budgets, air temperature, and humidity taken at the Environmental Prediction in Canadian Cities (EPiCC) field experiment tower sites. As compared with the regional deterministic 15-km model, important improvements have been achieved with this system over urban and suburban sites. GEM-SURF’s ability to simulate the Montreal surface urban heat island was also investigated, and the radiative surface temperatures from this system and from two systems operational at the Meteorological Service of Canada were compared, that is, the 15-km regional deterministic model and the so-called limited-area model with 2.5-km grid size. Comparison of urban GEM-SURF outputs with remotely sensed observations from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) reveals relatively good agreement for urban and natural areas.

Social actors and their role in metropolitan governance in Montréal: towards an inclusive coalition?

The article is about the role of civil society organizations in the governance of the Montreal metropolitan region. It identifies a high level of cooperation around metropolitan scale issues on the part of these organizations. In the Montreal region, government agencies as well as private corporations demonstrate readiness to work alongside civil society organizations on joint projects. Evidence of this type of collaboration is particularly strong in the case of economic development, neighbourhood revitalization and cultural initiatives. This form of cooperation is perceived as a manifestation of the so-called “Quebec model” and is an asset for the Montreal metropolitan region. The article demonstrates that interventions that involve social organizations are more likely to be successful than those that turn their back on these organizations.

Field validation of listings of food stores and commercial physical activity establishments from secondary data

BackgroundFood- and activity-related establishments are increasingly viewed as neighbourhood resources that potentially condition health-related behaviour. The primary objective of the current study was to establish, using ground truthing (on-site verification), the validity of measures of availability of food stores and physical activity establishments that were obtained from commercial database and Internet searches. A secondary objective was to examine differences in validity results according to neighbourhood characteristics and commercial establishment categories.MethodsLists of food stores and physical activity-related establishments in 12 census tracts within the Montreal metropolitan region were compiled using a commercial database (n = 171 establishments) and Internet search engines (n = 123 establishments). Ground truthing through field observations was performed to assess the presence of listed establishments and identify those absent. Percentage agreement, sensitivity (proportion of establishments found in the field that were listed), and positive predictive value (proportion of listed establishments found in the field) were calculated and contrasted according to data sources, census tracts characteristics, and establishment categories.ResultsAgreement with field observations was good (0.73) for the commercial list, and moderate (0.60) for the Internet-based list. The commercial list was superior to the Internet-based list for correctly listing establishments present in the field (sensitivity), but slightly inferior in terms of the likelihood that a listed establishment was present in the field (positive predictive value). Agreement was higher for food stores than for activity-related establishments.ConclusionCommercial data sources may provide a valid alternative to field observations and could prove a valuable tool in the evaluation of commercial environments relevant to eating behaviour. In contrast, this study did not find strong evidence in support of commercial and Internet data sources to represent neighbourhood opportunities for active lifestyle.

Vers une nouvelle forme urbaine ? Desserrement et diffusion de l'emploi dans la région métropolitaine de Montréal

Résumé Dans cet article nous explorons les logiques de suburbanisation des activités économiques à partir d’une analyse de l’emploi dans la région métropolitaine de Montréal, pour la période 1996-2001. Nous mettons à l’épreuve l’idée que le centre-ville perd sa fonction de commandement au profit de pôles suburbains, et l’idée que la croissance d’emplois en banlieue serait éparpillée sans logiques structurantes. Nous concluons qu’à Montréal, les logiques d’accessibilité, d’agglomération et de centralité guident toujours la localisation des nouveaux emplois. L’idée selon laquelle de nouvelles logiques guident la localisation des activités économiques ne serait pas généralisable à toutes les métropoles.

Analyse descriptive des urgences psychiatriques dans la région du Montréal métropolitain

In. September 197S1, a research team from the Department of Health Administration of the University of Montreal, completed a research study on psychiatric emergencies financed by the Planning section of Quebec's Ministry of Social Affairs. The purpose of this research was on the one hand, to measure the importance of psychiatric problems in the emergency services of hospital centers in Montreal's metropolitan region (22 institutions) and, on the other hand, to describe the characteristics of patients who have access to these emergency services for the purpose of psychiatric treatment. This article summarizes the first section of this research study. Firstly, the authors explain the problem underlying the study, as well as the objectives pursued. Subsequently, a brief description of the research is made, according to its major methodological features. Finally, in the third section, data relative to the number of psychiatric emergencies and to the distribution of this care demand in Montreal's hospital centers, are presented. A second article will deal with the main characteristics of the psychiatric clientele requiring emergency resources i.e. age, sex, marital status, socio-professional categories, types of emotional distress, profiles of past-utilization of services (etc.).

Agglomeration and Dispersion of High-order Service Employment in the Montreal Metropolitan Region, 1981-96

Much of the recent urban literature on suburban employment centres has neglected the role of high-order services, perhaps the principal component of 'edge cities', in the creation of the evolving multinucleated metropolitan structure. This paper specifically explores the role of high-order services in this process. We use employment by place-of-work data at the census-tract level to examine the changing intrametropolitan geography of employment in four finance, insurance and real estate (FIRE) services and eight business services in the Montreal area over the period 1981-96. We find evidence of central business district (CBD) decline in relative, but not absolute, terms. The resulting decentralisation has clearly assumed the form of polycentricity rather than of generalised dispersion. In spite of recent advances in telecommunications technologies, agglomeration economies continue to exert an important impact upon intrametropolitan location.

Occupational Stress, Burnout, and Professional Support in Nurses Working with Dying Patients

Nurses working with dying people are exposed to numerous stress factors. Their occupational stress may be so important as to lead to burnout. The aim of the present study is to examine the relationship among occupational stress, burnout, and professional support in nurses working with patients dying from cancer. The study has taken place in four palliative care and three medical oncology units of the Montreal metropolitan region. In all, seventy-six nurses of the N nurses fitting the entrance criteria of the study were selected. Participants completed a French version of the following instruments: the Occupational Stress of Nurses Working with Dying Patients, the Jones Staff Burnout Scale for Health Professionals and the Professional Support Scale. Results indicate that there is a significant relationship between occupational stress and burnout ( r = 0.462, p < 0.001) and between professional support and burnout ( r = −0.449, p < 0.001). Further, the results showed that the level of occupational stress and burnout was significantly lower for the palliative care nurses who received significantly more professional support than their colleagues working in medical oncology units. Professional support and training for nurses working with patients dying from cancer should be implemented in order to minimize the development of burnout.

Une revue de la littérature scientifique sur l'étalement urbain et sur les relations urbaines-agricoles dans la frange urbaine : le cas de la région métropolitaine de Montréal, dans le contexte nord-américain.

A review of the scientific literature about the urban sprawl and about the urban- agriculture interactions within the urban fringe: the case of the Montreal metropolitan region, within the Northern-American context. The article summarizes recent literature on urban-agriculture interactions in the rural-urban fringe. First, the active processes and impacts of urban sprawl are outlined and then a brief case study of metropolitan growth in the Montreal region since World War II is presented. In the following sections, the impact of urbanisation on urban fringe agriculture is more closely examined ; emphasis being put on recent research conducted in Canada and the United States. There is growing interest for the behaviour of farmers, especially their decision taking process. Some important factors at the individual farm level should be considered for they influence decisions that determine agricultural change.

MODELING RESIDENTIAL CHOICE*

ABSTRACT. This paper presents a new approach in the modeling of residential choices for simulation purpose. The originality of the approach resides in the way recent developments in stochastic choice models are combined with deterministic mathematical programming which allows to define an equilibration process for simulation. In that respect, ex ante probabilities of housing choice based on random utility maximization under perceived constraints are distinguished from ex post probabilities of choice that respect supply constraints. The proposed model is tested on the Montreal Metropolitan Region, and a few simulation results based on a scenario of population aging and decrease in household size are analyzed.

The Montreal Metropolitan Region

The Montreal Metropolitan Region