Nearby Destinations Research Articles

Quantifying local mobility patterns in urban human mobility data

Understanding fine-scale dynamics of human mobility patterns is pivotal for effective urban planning, public health strategies, and retail analysis. This study introduces a novel mobility measure – the Local Mobility Index (LMI) – combining geometry-based mobility metrics and accessibility measures. The LMI can be considered a measure of ‘relative localness’ by integrating preferences into the assessment of local mobility patterns, offering a novel measure for understanding mobility behavior in urban contexts. The LMI improves upon existing measures as it captures individual choice for local destinations through measuring whether individuals select nearby destinations; accounting for the unequal spatial distribution of urban amenities. Our contribution is mainly methodological, advancing the field by introducing a metric that captures different aspects of mobility compared to conventional mobility metrics. Leveraging mobile-phone-based GPS data, we examine the LMI using 759 individuals across three cities in England. We found that the LMI captures a new and distinct dimension of urban mobility, as evidenced by its weak correlation with established metrics. Therefore, LMI's capacity to highlight previously undetected aspects of mobility behavior, underscores its importance for advancing research and urban planning.

Food day-trippers’ perceptions of regional food destination attractiveness: an application of distance decay theory

ABSTRACT The shift towards local food consumption is creating new opportunities for regional food destinations. The growing market segment of ‘food day-trippers’ who travel to nearby destinations to experience local cuisine has elevated this trend. In response, destination marketers increasingly use local cuisine to enhance destination attractiveness and to create regional food hubs. Yet, it is unclear what attracts food day-trippers to these destinations. This paper explores destination attributes that represent regional food destination attractiveness and presents personal values that shape those attribute preferences. The Repertory Test and Laddering Analysis explore these connections, providing valuable insights into perceptual orientations influencing travel choices within this context. Supported by distance decay theory, findings show that despite the common proposition prioritising food-related attributes in food destination marketing, proximity and non-food attributes also appear important. Underlined by personal values such as a sense of security, these attribute preferences demonstrate food day-trippers’ tendency to look for novelty in food experiences rather than in the location. Practically, these insights highlight an opportunity to capitalise on repeat visitation and aid destination marketers in revisiting their value propositions to include elements that go beyond food.

Exploring onshore excursion preferences among cruisers: application of the travel career pattern in the Hong Kong cruise tourism context

ABSTRACT Employing the travel career pattern (TCP) by Pearce (2019, Dreaming and longing. Tourist Behaviour, 20–40) as its guiding conceptual framework, the study explores cruise tourism and examines the factors and destination characteristics that influence the onshore excursion preferences of cruisers. Utilising a mixed-methods approach, the study combines qualitative content analysis and quantitative on-site questionnaire. The latter was administered to 602 participants at the Kai Tak Cruise Terminal in Hong Kong. Our findings provide insights into cruise passengers’ preferences for onshore excursions, particularly focusing on the attributes they value most in nearby destinations that are accessible from the cruise ship's ports of call. The study also identifies two distinct subgroups of cruisers (authenticity seekers and generic sightseers) who have different preferences when selecting places to visit at/nearby ports of call. The study contributes to the cruise tourism literature by exploring passengers’ onshore excursion preferences, a key component of their onboard experience. Moreover, it offers practical insights for destination management organisers keen on promoting their destinations to cruisers by capitalising on the proximity to a cruise port.

Quantifying active travel among people with disabilities in the US

BackgroundPeople with disabilities have higher rates of physical inactivity than people without. Active travel (e.g., walking/wheeling to nearby destinations or transit) is a recommended approach to increasing total physical activity (PA) but limited research has examined active travel among people with disabilities. ObjectiveTo describe active travel among a nationally representative sample of people with disabilities, analyze variation between sub-groups, and examine factors associated with active travel. MethodsUsing the 2017 National Household Travel Survey, our cross-sectional analysis summarized counts and duration of walking/wheeling trips for people with four different types of disabilities. We examined which factors were associated with doing any active travel and the duration of active travel, using zero inflated negative binomial regression models. ResultsOur analysis identified that 14.55% of people with disabilities took a mean of 2.56 (95%CI = 2.42–2.69) walking/wheeling trips per day. Compared to non-active travelers, a higher proportion of active travelers were low-income, lived alone, had no-vehicle, and were Black or Hispanic. For active travelers, daily walking minutes, on average, were 46.41 (95%CI = 40.25–52.57) among people who used ambulatory devices, 41.55 (95%CI = 24.61–58.49) among people who were blind/low-vision, 39.93 (95%CI = 35.41–44.45) among people who used no device, and 29.58 (95%CI = 23.53–35.64) among people who used chair devices. Our analysis identified individual, household, and community factors associated with the likelihood and duration of walking/wheeling for travel and variation across disability types. ConclusionsUnderstanding the multiple identities of active travelers with disabilities can inform walking/wheeling intervention strategies. Infrastructure improvements that support less reliance on automobiles could increase active travel among people with disabilities.

Multi-Domain Resource Multiplexing Based Secure Transmission for Satellite-Assisted IoT: AO-SCA Approach

Due to the wireless broadcasting and broad coverage in satellite-supported Internet of things (IoT) networks, the IoT nodes are susceptible to eavesdropping threats. Considering the distance difference between satellite and nearby destinations is negligible, the main and wiretapping channels between satellite and IoT node are similar, it poses great challenges to reach physical layer security in satellite-assisted IoT networks. In this paper, to guarantee secure transmissions for satellite-assisted IoT downlink communications, the multi-domain resource multiplexing based secure approach is proposed. Particularly, the self-induced co-channel interference between adjacent nodes is leveraged to increase the difference of signal transmission quality over both main and wiretapping channels. By comprehensively optimizing multi-domain resources, i.e., frequency, power, and spatial domains, secure transmissions from satellite to IoT nodes are reached. Specifically, the problem to maximize the sum secrecy rate of IoT nodes is formulated with a constraint of common communication rate of IoT nodes. To solve this non-convex problem, an alternating optimization (AO) algorithm with two inner successive convex approximation (SCA) algorithms are executed to solve the power allocation, spectral multiplexing, and precoding. In addition, simulation results are carried out to evaluate the secrecy rate performance and verify the efficiency of our proposed approach.

Transit station area walkability: Identifying impediments to walking using scalable, recomputable land-use measures

Transit station area land-use characteristics can increase or decrease the perceived costs of riding rail relative to driving or taking other modes. This paper focuses on those characteristics that create discomfort to riders who are walking between stations and destinations, with the aim of providing researchers and planners with a tool that can be used to identify pain points in any existing or potential station areas. We propose and demonstrate a scalable, recomputable method of measuring pedestrian quality for trips that relies solely on datasets readily available for almost any location in the United States, and we compare results using data from a global source, OpenStreetMap. We illustrate our tool in neighborhoods surrounding the Blue Line light rail in Minneapolis, Minnesota, calculating the population-weighted distribution of land uses within pathway buffers of walks from stations to nearby destinations. We focus on land uses that pose a disutility to pedestrians such as major highways or industrial tracts, and we compare disamenity levels across station areas. Despite their simplicity, our measures capture important differences in land-use-related pedestrian experiences and reveal the inadequacy of using circular buffers to designate and characterize station catchment areas.

The role of travelling distances: different planning, different motives

The impact of travel distance on travel planning and motives of travelling represents a notable research gap. This study aims to demonstrate that impacts of intention predictors are different, since longer distance increases complexities of planning; also – that a long-haul travelling is driven by different motives than short-haul travelling. The study is based on analysis of survey data from Lithuania. The findings showed differences in how beliefs impact intentions to travel to distant and nearby cities. Behavioural and normative beliefs had stronger impacts on intentions for nearby destinations, whereas control beliefs had strong impacts for distant destinations. Also, the sets of travel motives for long-haul destinations and for short-haul destinations had different structure of motives. The findings deepen understanding of travel distance as an aspect of travelling that differentiates impacts of travel intention antecedents and generates different sets of travel motives for long-haul and short-haul travelling.

The impact of urban form on daily mobility demand and energy use: Evidence from the United States

The causal relationship between urban form, in particular density, and travel demand is subject to debate. Here, we investigate this relationship using a structured regression approach applied to a large-scale layered dataset of travel patterns and urban form. We find that residents of the densest urban areas use 80% less energy for transportation than residents of rural areas and explore the causal factors influencing this relationship. We find that the primary driver of the density–energy use relationship is the larger number of nearby destinations available to urban dwellers, followed by differences in road network properties and public transit infrastructure. The energy benefits of urban dwelling are weakened when there are more destinations available 10–100 km away due to urban sprawl. While these causal factors are correlated with density, urban form can substantially affect travel energy use even within a given density bracket. We also show that urban form predominantly influences how and where people travel, rather than how often and how long. These results outline pathways for cities and communities to reduce the environmental impact of travel while increasing access to relevant destinations.

Cultural Distance and Chinese Outbound Tourism: Exploring the Moderating Effect of Geographical Distance

In this study, the gravity model is applied via the dynamic generalised methods of moments estimation to assess the role of geographical distance in moderating the impact of culture on outbound tourism flows. The results show that cultural distance has a positive impact on Chinese outbound tourism flow. However, the effect of cultural distance on outbound tourism flow decreases as geographical distance increases since travellers to nearby destinations are more strongly influenced by cultural distance than travellers to more distant markets. These results therefore support the concept of the “diminishing effect of cultural distance” on the Chinese outbound tourism market. In addition, the results of this study serve as a basis for promoting the sustained contribution of Chinese outbound tourism to the development of destination management, which will help with the recovery of international tourism following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Opportunities in Identifying and Marketing Windsport Tourism Destinations: High-Resolution Wind Analysis

Windsports (e.g., windsurfing, kiteboarding) can contribute to important tourist experiences at destinations with suitable natural resources. In the context of future tourism decarbonization, it is expected that many distant locations will become less accessible to Europeans, which will increase the attractiveness of nearby destinations. This study provides an analysis of the natural resources of European and nearby windsport destinations, which proves to be important physical evidence for windsport experiences. The high-frequency output of a long-term, high-resolution numerical atmospheric reanalysis (COSMO_REA6) was thoroughly analyzed using a method specifically tailored to windsports. This gives us unprecedented insight into the geographical distribution of wind resources in the period from May to September. The wind and temperature analysis recognizes the most known windsport locations and identifies several potential locations for possible windsport development. The trend analysis identifies potential changes in future wind conditions. Detailed wind analyses are of great importance to destination managers and marketers, as these could support strategic planning at the destination level, which is necessary for sustainable development. Furthermore, the study can guide windsurfers and kiteboarders in their future destination choices.

Bi Objective Peer-to-Peer Ridesharing Model for Balancing Passengers Time and Costs

Ride-sharing services are one of the top growing sustainable transportation trends led by mobility-as-a-service companies. Ridesharing is a system that provides the ability to share vehicles on similar routes for passengers with similar or nearby destinations on short notice, leading to decreased costs for travelers. At the same time, though, it takes longer to get from place to place, increasing travel time. Therefore, a fundamental challenge for mobility service providers should be finding a balance between cost and travel time. This paper develops an integer bi-objective optimization model that integrates vehicle assignment, vehicle routing, and passenger assignment to find a non-dominated solution based on cost and time. The model allows a vehicle to be used multiple times by different passengers. The first objective seeks to minimize the total cost, including the fixed cost, defined as the supply cost per vehicle, and the operating cost, which is a function of the distance traveled. The second objective is to minimize the time it takes passengers to reach their destination. This is measured by how long it takes each vehicle to reach the passenger’s point of origin and how long it takes to get to the destination. The proposed model is solved using the AUGMECON method and the NSGA II algorithm. A real case study from Sioux Falls is presented to validate the applicability of the proposed model. This study shows that ridesharing helps passengers save money using mobility services without significant change in travel time.

It's getting tight in the Alps - challenges and implications of the e-mountain bike boom for sustainable tourism management

This study analyses the challenges and implications of technological development in mountain-bike sports for Alpine tourism destinations. We investigate the motivations of e-mountain bikers in tourism destinations and derive implications for tourism managers to handle dynamic technological developments in a sustainable manner. A mixed-method design including qualitative in-depth interviews with relevant actors and a quantitative survey with 175 e-mountain bikers was applied. The e-bike boom offers potential and challenges for sustainable tourism management in Alpine destinations. Tourism managers must develop diverse, participatory, and nature-friendly concepts as well as collaborations with nearby destinations and recreational areas to control the flow of tourists within ecologically sensitive areas.

Purpose-Based Walking Trips by Duration, Distance, and Select Characteristics, 2017 National Household Travel Survey.

New or enhanced activity-friendly routes to everyday destinations is an evidence-based approach for increasing physical activity. Although national estimates for some infrastructure features surrounding where one lives and the types of nearby destinations are available, less is known about the places where individuals walk. A total of 5 types of walking trips (N = 54,034) were defined by whether they began or ended at home (home based[HB]) and trip purpose (HB work, HB shopping, HB social/recreation, HB other, and not HB trip) (2017 National Household Travel Survey). Differences and trends by subgroups in the proportion of each purpose-oriented trip were tested using pairwise comparisons and polynomial contrasts. About 14% of U.S. adults reported ≥1 walking trip on a given day. About 64% of trips were HB trips. There were few differences in prevalence for each purpose by subgroup. For example, prevalence of trips that were not HB decreased significantly with increasing age and increased with increasing education and household income. Given age-related and socioeconomic differences in walking trips by purpose, planners and other professionals may want to consider trip origin and destination purposes when prioritizing investments for the creation of activity-friendly routes to everyday destinations where people live, work, and play.

Guest Editorial Diversification in Urban Transportation Systems and Beyond: Integrating People and Goods for the Future of Mobility

The increasing growing need for optimization of transportation in a sustainable and green environment is fundamental for the future of mobility. Companies, governments, and non-governmental institutions are trying to find new ways to contribute to this challenge. In particular, the approach is to improve the efficiency and the quality of the movement of diversification of an integrated way of transportation of people and goods. Many people may need to be at some location at some point in time, or many goods may need to be transported to nearby destinations with the same packaging conditions. The main goal of this Special Issue was to integrate the most recent advances in transportation that connect the hybrid point of view. In particular, key contributions integrate several interesting topics related to earning algorithms for the integration of passengers and goods, gamification techniques, semantic data, blockchain, and edge computing. Other topics in urban mobility, railway, and highways were considered, and hot topics on shared autonomous vehicles (SAVs) brought huge value. Moreover, the Internet of Things (IoT) opens the doors for new development in Vehicle to Everything (V2X), which are crucial for the development of new services that generate business and social impact in the future of a diversified way of the integration of passengers and goods mobility.

Is it really too far? Overestimating walk time and distance reduces walking

In this paper we use an intercept survey of 1,297 people at seven locations in New Jersey to answer three questions about perceived distances and walk times to nearby destinations. First, we seek to clarify conflicting results from the literature by asking: what factors are associated with perceived distance and walk times? Like other studies, we find that people overestimate both walk times and distances. We find that characteristics of the route matter. People are more likely to overestimate in car-dependent locations, along routes with many turns or barriers, or for destinations that are relatively closer. In terms of personal characteristics, experience walking and familiarity with the area both lead to lower estimates, while concerns about crime, getting lost, or carrying something heavy increase estimates. Next, we explore whether overestimating walk times and distances reduces the likelihood of walking. We find that people who overestimate are less likely to walk, everything else equal. Together, these results suggest that wayfinding campaigns that clarify the travel time to nearby destinations and ease the fear of getting lost are likely to improve perceptions and increase walking. We make an additional contribution by highlighting important differences between our university and town center samples, which raises questions about the reliance on student samples in research.

Route choice effects of changes from a zonal to a distance-based fare structure in a regional public transport network

By using a hypothetical transport network that reflects common origin and destination relations in a regional transport network, we illustrate the effects of changing fares from a zonal to a distance-based structure. We take the zonal fare as a base case and model the effect of different fare/km, including non-additive fares, where the marginal price per km is decreasing with a typical regional network. We restrict our analysis to a fixed total demand and consider the effects of fares on route choice including station access choice and walking to nearby destinations. The results indicate some general trends that can be expected, such as the fare range in order to achieve similar fare revenue incomes. At this fare parity point the total travel time tends to be reduced in the distance-based case but the flows become less dispersed. Furthermore, in case of a non-additive distance-based fare, we show that total utility could be improved at the fare parity point compared to additive fares.

Navigation and Object Detection for Blind Persons Based on Neural Network

Tools for blind people with mobility activities in pedestrian pathways have been widely launched, approved and patented. However, there are still shortcomings that can be done only for pedestrian paths or nearby destinations. In this study, both a camera (detection of the pedestrian path) and LiDAR (detection of surrounding objects) sensors to help disability activities. The first stage of image data from the preparatory camera from RGB to XYZ, color filters, close morphology, resizing, learning and testing of neural networks. Bring up 3 voice attitudes information. Attitudes are perpendicular, left tilted, right tilted, or not reversed to the pedestrian yellow path. The second stage of the LiDAR distance points data is processed into 2D array geometry, learning, and testing of neural networks. Bring up the information 8 voice attitudes. Detection of the cycle and distance of objects right side, front, left, right-front, right-left, front-left, right-front-left, not captured. The test results approximately at lux <15000 got 89.7% accuracy for pedestrian path detection and 87.5% for object detection.

The mountains are calling! An extended TPB model for understanding metropolitan residents' intentions to visit nearby alpine destinations in summer

This study investigated the suitability of an extended Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) to research the travel intention of metropolitan citizens to nearby destinations. The consideration of heat waves in this context is a novel approach. The survey data was collected from 877 Viennese respondents. Structural equation modelling shows a very good fit of the final model to the data; model extensions yield a strong increase of explained variance. The results suggest that heat-related change of intention is influenced by the strength of heat stress perceived during past heat waves. Nevertheless, subjective and social norm are the strongest determinants of intention, whereas attitude is a very weak predictor. Additional significant predictors are outdoor sports as a travel motive, media coverage, and past behaviour. The first application of an extended TPB model to summer tourism in the context of climate change yields important insights as to how climate change affects the destination choice of summer tourists. The results provide valuable starting points for attracting heat stressed metropolitan visitors.

A Mixed Methods Study on the Barriers and Facilitators of Physical Activity Associated with Residential Relocation.

Despite evidence suggesting that neighbourhood characteristics are associated with physical activity, very few mixed methods studies investigate how relocating neighbourhood, and subsequent changes in the built environment, influences physical activity. This sequential mixed methods study estimates associations between changes in overall physical activity and transportation walking and cycling and changes in objectively assessed neighbourhood walkability (quantitative phase) and describes perceived barriers and facilitators to physical activity following residential relocation (qualitative phase). During the quantitative phase, self-reported changes in transportation walking, transportation cycling, and overall physical activity following residential relocation were measured using a 5-point scale: (1) a lot less now, (2) a little less now, (3) about the same, (4) a little more now, and (5) a lot more now. Walkability improvers reported a slight increase in transportation walking (mean = 3.29, standard deviation (SD) = 0.87), while walkability decliners reported little or no perceived change in their transportation walking after relocation (mean = 2.96, SD = 1.12). This difference approached statistical significance (p=0.053). Furthermore, walkability decliners reported a slight decrease in transportation cycling (mean = 2.69, SD = 0.96), while walkability improvers reported little or no perceived change in their transportation cycling after relocation (mean = 3.02, SD = 0.84). This difference was statistically significant (p < 0.05). Change in walkability resulting from relocation was not significantly associated with perceived change in overall physical activity. Our qualitative findings suggest that moving to a neighbourhood with safe paths connecting to nearby destinations can facilitate transportation walking and cycling. Some participants describe adjusting their leisure physical activity to compensate for changes in transportation walking and cycling. Strong contributors to neighbourhood leisure physical activity included the presence of aesthetic features and availability of recreational opportunities that allow for the creation of social connections with community and family.

Exploration of the effect of violent crime on recreational and transportation walking by path and structural equation models

To examine how violent crime affects people's recreational and transportation walking duration in daytime and after dark on a typical day, this study undertakes associative and causal analyses with geo-referenced crime data, street-audit data, and data collected through an intercept survey in a three-municipality region of New Jersey that is predominantly inhabited by low-income and minority populations. Survey data was collected from 1173 respondents at 87 intersections selected by stratified random sampling. Similar to many past studies using associative methods, correlation analysis and ordered logit models showed mostly counterintuitive results. However, sequential or causal models, including path and structural equation (SE) models, showed that recorded crime increases fear of crime and chances of victimization, which in turn decrease walking duration for both recreation and transportation. The study concludes that even if people walk more in high-crime areas because of nearby destinations and lack of alternatives, crime may still have an adverse effect on walking, meaning that people in those neighborhoods would have walked even more if not for high crime.