Mobility Practices Research Articles

The nexus of MICE tourism in smart cities: understanding its effects and complexities with urban mobility and crime

ABSTRACT This study examines the effect of MICE tourism in cities by analysing its relationship with urban mobility practices and crime within current smart city projects. To date, the extant tourism literature on meetings, incentives, conventions, and exhibitions (MICE) tourism primarily focuses on value co-creation in the tourism industry, overlooking its integration into the urban environment for (i) city (and smart city) projects and (ii) its nexus with social aspects such as crime, which influences and shapes the urban environment. Considering 30 Italian cities over 13 years, this study employs a spatial-panel data approach to disentangle these relationships. The estimated results demonstrate that while urban mobility practices are highly responsive to MICE tourism, they are influenced by imbalances from increased users and visitors, which in turn affects urban security. This dynamic reduces the positive effect of MICE tourism on urban mobility, creating imbalances that public managers and policymakers must address. Practical implications are suggested to harness the potential of MICE tourism in current smart city projects.

Jumping over histories: transborder migration from colonial Mozambique to colonial Zimbabwe ca 1945–1975

ABSTRACT Drawing on over 200 interviews and archival sources, this article examines clandestine African cross-border labour migration from colonial Mozambique to Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) from the 1940s to 1975. At the height of the labour migrations, 1945–1960, as many as sixty thousand migrants per year left Mozambique for Southern Rhodesia. While existing scholarship on cross-border migration has opened up important ways of conceptualizing such migrations, we extend the study by highlighting three overlooked but pertinent issues. First, we contend that the migrations had historical antecedents: men and women had crossed borders for socio-economic and political opportunities. Second, we argue that the colonial labour migrations were built on Indigenous cartographic knowledge and mobility practices, and long-standing Indigenous geographical knowledge continued to guide them, as in the past. Third, we underline the actual challenges that thousands of migrants faced in walking long distances from Mozambique to Southern Rhodesia.

Building Small, Living Large: A Corpus of South-Eastern Norwegian Settlement Evidence, 2350–500 bc

This study examines settlement evidence from south-eastern Norway during the Late Neolithic and Bronze Age, revealing unique aspects of regional architectural and social organization. Notably, smaller and uniform house sizes suggest a divergence from the monumental power displays seen in southernmost Scandinavia. The uniformity in house sizes and significant spatial distances between contemporary houses imply a social structure akin to segmentary societies with symmetrical power relations, reliant on mobility and mixed subsistence practices. Changes in settlement patterns and house sizes during the Late Bronze Age could have been the result of increased social stratification or responses to population growth. Overall, the settlement patterns and house sizes in south-eastern Norway reflect a society that, while connected to the broader Nordic Bronze Age world, developed distinct social and economic strategies. These findings highlight the importance of considering regional variations and responses to environmental and social challenges in prehistoric societies.

Mobility Practice of Slum Households in Siliguri City: Analyzing the Nexus between Mobility, Poverty, and Human Adaptations in Urban India

The present research steams from the question that how the urban poor, inhabiting slums and surviving on narrow, close-knit networks of economic opportunities, tend to negotiate their mobility practices in a city where the existing transport infrastructure is highly biased toward motorization. The study accordingly navigates through the mobility patterns of slum households in Siliguri, a medium-sized Indian city, within the context that the city’s urban transport scenario is visibly biased toward automobile-centrism. By analyzing factors such as access to transport modes, travel preferences and needs, frequency of travel, and accessibility constraints, the study endeavors to shed light on the ways the urban poor of Siliguri negotiate space in the city through their daily mobility practices. The findings from the data, collected through door-to-door household surveys in 400 slum households, pertaining to the travel behavior of slum residences of Siliguri, highly corroborate with the findings of the existing body of scholarly evidence in the field, arguing that the poor of a city are not “motorized” so far and they depend much on shared or nonmotorized modes for their day-to-day commutes. This adaptation reflects their resilience in optimizing available resources, further highlighting the intricate relationship between socio-economic circumstances and mobility practices.

Green Mobility Implementation Strategy: A SWOT Analysis Approach

Green mobility is one of the main solutions to reduce the environmental impact of transportation, as well as to support sustainable urban development. This study aims to identify strategies for implementing green mobility in urban areas using the SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) and STP (Segmentation, Targeting, Positioning) analysis approaches. This study uses a qualitative method based on literature studies that examine various sources related to policies, infrastructure, and green mobility practices in various cities. The results of the SWOT analysis show that the main strength of green mobility implementation lies in green mobility being an environmentally friendly transportation with low operational costs and can reduce congestion, although there are weaknesses in terms of inadequate infrastructure and resistance to behavioral change. Opportunities that can be utilized include support from government policies and global trends towards smart cities and increased investment in the environmentally friendly transportation sector, while threats faced by resistance from the conventional vehicle industry include high dependence on private motor vehicles. In the STP analysis, market segmentation is carried out based on geographic, demographic, and psychographic characteristics, targeting urban workers who are more open to environmentally friendly transportation solutions. Green mobility is positioned as an efficient, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly transportation option. Based on the analysis results, it is suggested that transportation policies that support green mobility focus on developing better infrastructure, educational campaigns, and policy support from the government. Thus, the implementation strategy obtained is green mobility education to the community, development of supporting infrastructure, provision of incentives and subsidies, and government policies that support the implementation of green mobility.

Service Performance of Transjakarta City Bus Public Transportation System Corridor 1, 3 And 9

Transjakarta has implemented smart mobility i.e. the information technology (IT) and artificial intelligence (AI), and therefore this study focuses to discuss the performance of its smart mobility practices. The measurement of smart mobility performance in Transjakarta was carried out using in-depth analysis for each of variables such as load factor, travel speed, headway, frequency, waiting time, service time and circulation time. The perception of Transjakarta passangers was collected using distributed questionnaires in online surveys to obtain public aspirations for smart mobility service performance improvement. A total of 434 respondents filled the questionnaires which were distributed randomly in three bus corridors. As a result, 261 resondents (60,14%) stated that Passenger Information System (PIS) has given accurate information about the schedule of Transjakarta, while 173 respondents (39,86%) stated otherwise. In conclusion, the service performance in Transjakarta Corridor 1,3, and 9 can be categorized as medium when compared to official minimum service standard.

The Alps-Adriatic Region – an “Area of Transition”: Doing In-Between in Travel Literature of the 19th Century

Based on travel literature, the article explores the ways in which the Alps-Adriatic Region of the 19th century was portrayed as a hybrid space characterised by doing in-between. It traces these features by analysing descriptions of trade relations and trade routes, mobile practices, multilingualism, and processes of cultural exchange. The paper highlights the multiple affiliations and multiple positioning of historical subjects, which go against the grain of a nationalising historiography.

Fostering Global Citizenship through ESD in Higher Education: A Study of International Student Mobility and Sustainability Awareness

This study investigates the intricate relationship between international student mobility and sustainability awareness within the context of higher education, emphasizing the role of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in fostering global citizenship. By employing a mixed-methods approach, we surveyed 300 international students from 20 different countries and conducted semi-structured interviews with 20 faculty members across 10 universities. Our findings indicate that international student mobility can significantly enhance sustainability awareness but primarily when ESD principles are effectively integrated into academic curricula. Specifically, students who engaged in programs infused with ESD reported a deeper understanding of sustainability issues and a stronger commitment to global citizenship. The study further reveals that faculty development plays a crucial role in promoting ESD within higher education settings, as instructors equipped with enhanced knowledge and skills in sustainability education are better positioned to transform curricula in meaningful ways. Additionally, institutional policies and frameworks are essential to creating an environment conducive to ESD, ensuring that programs prioritize global citizenship alongside academic performance. By drawing connections between mobility, sustainability awareness, and educational practices, this research underscores the necessity for universities to adopt strategic initiatives and collaborative efforts aimed at embedding sustainability into higher education curricula. In conclusion, this study offers valuable insights for policymakers, educators, and institutions, highlighting the imperative to strengthen ESD practices to cultivate a generation of informed global citizens. The implications of our findings aim to inspire actionable steps toward integrating sustainability within higher education, ultimately promoting a more equitable and sustainable future.

Exploring physical activity in people after stroke: a substudy of the Falls After Stroke Trial

Purpose The Falls After Stroke Trial (FAST) intervention involves habit-forming functional exercise and mobility practice which may increase physical activity. This substudy of FAST explores physical activity in community-dwelling people after stroke comparing the FAST intervention to usual care. Methods This study used a subset of 49 participants from a randomised trial. Outcome measures were taken at baseline, 6- and 12-months. The primary outcome was physical activity (step count, upright time and sedentary time, activPAL4™ micro). Results Thirty-nine participants (80%) had valid primary outcome data at 6 months and 36 participants (73%) at 12 months. Compared to baseline, the experimental group completed 485 (95% CI −434 to 1405) more steps/day than the control group at 6 months and 724 (95% CI −239 to 1667) more steps/day at 12 months; and spent 36 (95% CI −46 to 118) fewer min/day in sedentary behaviour than the control group at 6 months and 34 (95% CI −51 to 119) fewer min/day at 12 months, although the differences were not significant. Conclusions FAST may improve physical activity more than usual care at 6- and 12-months but results are inconclusive. Further research could be conducted to confirm any benefit in a larger sample.

Mobile security awareness of university students in Hong Kong: demographics and education

PurposeThis research investigates mobile security awareness among university students in Hong Kong, who increasingly rely on mobile devices for their daily activities and academic needs. This research seeks to inform targeted educational strategies and policies to enhance mobile security practices among young adults, particularly in regions similar to Hong Kong, where mobile usage is extensively integrated into everyday life.Design/methodology/approachUtilizing an online survey, this research assessed the mobile security awareness of 407 university students from Hong Kong. The Mann-Whitney U-test and other statistical methods were employed to analyze differences in security awareness based on demographic factors such as IT background, gender, educational level and participation in mobile security courses.FindingsThe research revealed a generally high level of mobile security awareness compared to similar research in other regions. It also highlighted that despite no significant difference in awareness between genders, students from IT-related fields or those who participated in mobile security courses exhibit higher awareness levels. These findings underscore the impact of focused education and training on enhancing mobile security awareness.Originality/valueThis research contributes to the limited but growing body of literature on mobile security awareness from the end-user perspective, particularly among university students in the Asia Pacific region. It offers valuable insights for governments, educators and corporate policymakers worldwide, providing a basis for integrating mobile security education into broader academic and professional training programs.

(Two) Wheels on the Bus: Road User Perceptions of a Bike Bus and How This Links to Addressing Global Health Challenges.

Excessive car use hampers progress toward tackling global health challenges, including climate and sustainability issues, and is linked to lower physical activity. Local communities have been developing solutions through bike buses. This paper, one of the first on bike buses, explores how a bike bus is perceived by other road and place users. An interdisciplinary survey instrument with dialogic-style questions was distributed on flyers to road and place users on 1 bike bus route including when the bike bus was passing. Responses were thematically analyzed using analytic framing to identify themes and subthemes. This paper focuses on 2 domains related to physical activity's link to the global health challenges of climate change and sustainability issues of excess car traffic: climate actions and community-level activism. Overall, 172 responses were received from 542 distributed flyers (31.8%). The climate actions domain identified a bike bus as a solution that creates a transport mode shift, reduces emissions, and improves air quality. Themes associated with community-level activism domain include perception that a bike bus is a form of activism or a protest and that it is a disruption to the status quo on the roads. Our findings indicate that this active mobility practice goes beyond the utility of getting children to school and being a way to promote physical activity. A bike bus is seen as local community action that could create a transport mode shift, draw attention to road space allocation, and help tackle global health challenges.

Troubling Paradise

While student mobility is increasingly important for HEIs, most research has focused on international mobility, what is commonly referred to as study abroad or education abroad. Arguing for expanding our understanding of mobility practices, this qualitative research study explores the lived experiences of participants in a domestic study away program to Hawaiʻi. The voices of individual participants were contextualized by consciously foregrounding and centering the specificity of place - Hawaiʻi - and its manufactured tourist gaze. The findings indicate that participants experience Hawaiʻi as foreign and familiar, and they negotiate being both students and visitors. Not wanting to be thought of as tourists, participants emphasized the importance of being respectful while on exchange, and many demonstrated that by taking courses which focused specifically on Hawaiʻi. As a result of these classes, many participants were able to develop a more complicated and nuanced understanding of Hawaiʻi which troubled notions of this place as paradise.

Sustainable practices and household resilience: an empirical analysis of behavior change in times of crises

Understanding sustainability behavior is essential in tackling the global challenge of climate change. The importance of studying sustainability practices and their dynamics grows in light of recent global crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the energy crisis following the Ukraine war. These events both challenge and shape individual sustainable practices, offering opportunities for fostering individual sustainable practices and enhancing societal resilience. An online survey was conducted in Germany (n = 571, May 2023) to investigate sustainable behavior dynamics (mobility, energy-saving, and shopping habits) and to identify segments reflecting behavioral shifts. We found relative stability in sustainable mobility choices compared to pre-crisis times, with a tendency towards reduction, as well as an overall increase in energy-saving and sustainable shopping habits. Factor analyses revealed that sustainable mobility behavior (SMB) and sustainable consumer practices (SCP) formed two separate domains. Cluster analyses further identified four segments within each domain, each exhibiting unique behavioral patterns compared to pre-crisis practices. Examining individual variables, adopting more sustainable mobility practices was associated with sociodemographic factors (income, education, and area of living), higher levels of environmental awareness, institutional trust, and increased risk perceptions. Sociodemographic variables had less influence on sustainable consumer practices. Here, higher levels of knowledge, climate change awareness, trust, and risk perceptions played a significant role. Our findings highlight the importance of separately considering behavioral domains in understanding crises-induced changes in sustainability practices. Moreover, it is important to consider specific individual factors and to develop tailored interventions and policies to promote sustainable practices during volatile times.

Sustainable Urban mobility: Lessons from European Cities

The rising urgency of climate change and rapid urbanization has compelled cities worldwide to prioritize sustainable urban mobility. This article explores the innovative strategies implemented by leading European cities—such as Amsterdam, Copenhagen, and Vienna—in fostering sustainable transport solutions, including dedicated cycling infrastructure, car-free zones, and integrated public transport systems. By examining these cities' comprehensive approaches to urban planning, policy frameworks, and public engagement, this article highlights the key factors contributing to their success in reducing emissions, enhancing urban liveability, and shifting public behaviour toward sustainable modes of transport. Through a comparative analysis of these cities’ approaches, the study aims to offer actionable insights for global cities seeking to adopt similar sustainable mobility practices. In conclusion, the article discusses the critical role of policy support, infrastructure investment, and community involvement in making urban mobility more sustainable, equitable, and accessible, emphasizing the scalability of European models for cities around the world.

“We’ve Got to Move”: Mapping and Remapping the World in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road

ABSTRACT Cormac McCarthy’s The Road depicts the spatial dilemma in which a nameless father and son traverse a devastated post-apocalyptic world. Extensive studies have analyzed the roadmap and the doomsday landscape in critiquing the dissolution of meaning. However, scholars have neglected that the father and son’s narrative is a form of literary cartography, namely, an effort to alleviate spatial perplexity and construct meaning between humans and place through storytelling. This article hence posits that examining the pair’s mapping project carries significant implications in our understanding of the father’s torturous struggle with his sense of place, the pair’s mapping and remapping work to imbue the world with meaning, and their commitment to the embodied practice of mobility.

Of canoes, tinnies and helicopters: contemporary maritime mobility and place relations in north central Arnhem Land

The mobility of Indigenous Australians has long been a source of bureaucratic attention in the Northern Territory (NT). While much government policy has focused on sedentarising Indigenous people into towns – justified under the agendas of economic viability and streamlined service delivery – anthropologists have brought attention to the way these policies render invisible kin-based relationships to ancestral lands and sanction certain forms of movement. Ethnographic studies of Australian Indigenous mobility have examined the systems of interconnection between people and place that shape distinct Indigenous social and economic values related to movement. This literature, however, has left practices of maritime mobility largely unstudied. This paper examines historic and contemporary mobility between the towns of Warruwi and Maningrida in north central Arnhem Land. This coastline is devoid of both road access and outstations, in contrast to most of coastal Arnhem Land. As such, it is marked by patterns of maritime mobility, once by kupuny (dugout canoe) and now in motorised metal boats known as ‘tinnies’. The paper draws on several months of ethnographic research conducted in Warruwi, Maningrida, and the coastline between the towns to examine patterns of movement across these waters. The paper asks how the temporal acceleration of maritime mobility interfaces with the affective dimensions of relationship in ancestral Country. I argue that as mobility accelerates, non-Indigenous institutions have an increasingly acute mediating effect on encounters between Indigenous landowners and their ancestral lands and seas.

Compelled Speech at Work: Employer Mobilization as a Threat to Employee Speech Rights

AbstractEmployers often encourage, incentivize, or even require their employees to engage in politics in a variety of ways. For example, employers often encourage employees to vote, press employees to support particular political candidates or policies, require employees to participate in political events, or ask employees to contact elected officials to advocate for the employer’s interests. Such practices are all forms of employer mobilization. This essay considers the threat that employer mobilization poses to employees’ speech rights, specifically employees’ right against compelled speech. I argue that employer mobilization practices are liable to infringe on employees’ right against compelled speech when three conditions are met: (1) the employer asks or encourages employees to express a particular political message that is inconsistent with some employees’ beliefs and values; (2) the employer forces some employees to express the employer’s message; and (3) the employees are not employed in a role or an organization in which expressing or supporting such messages is an essential part of the job.

Microprudential Regulations and Bank Lending in Nigeria

Objectives: The current study aimed at investigating the relationship between microprudential regulations and bank lending in Nigeria. Theoretical framework: The theoretical underpinning of the study is drawn on the theory of risk-return tradeoff which maintains that potential return rises with an increase in risk. Method: Financial data of 13 banks over a period of 15 years were sourced from the repository of Central Bank of Nigeria, and were analyzed using the Panel (Least Squares) Multiple regression technique. Results and Discussions: The result of analyses revealed a high R-squared value of 0.75, an indication that microprudential regulation accounted for 75% variation in profitability in the Nigeria banking institution. Also, the F-statistic of 101.31 and a p-value of 0.000, indicated that the Ordinary Least Square regression model is statistically significant at the 1% level. Overall, microprudential regulation impact on lending and profitability in Nigeria. Research Implications: More so, the study’s relevance is evident in its applications to the principles and practice of lending, fund mobilization and other finance related policies and decisions in the banking sector. Originality/ Value: The outcome of the current study is valid and can be used for statistical inference. The conceptual framework of the study is a novel model that demonstrates how the variables in the study are interconnected. Furthermore, the model specification presents a viable template for financial speculations and calculations.

Cultura, comunicação pública e cidadania: práticas de deliberação cidadã no campo das artes/cultura (Brasil-Canadá)

This study describes a stage of research linked to the international cooperation plan that investigates practices of citizen deliberation and public communication in municipal management planning documents and citizen mobilization practices — such as the culture and tourism plans in Brazil (Salvador and Belo Horizonte) and Canada (Montreal) — and online public consultations. It presupposes conflicting public administrations interests as sometimes they aim to implement public policies with a view to citizens, such as those to promote Arts/Culture and, on the other hand, strictly mercantile practices toward tourists and the construction of cities merchandise by place branding.

Home Economics at Middle Pre-Pottery Neolithic B al-Khayran in West-Central Jordan: Reconstructing Residential Unit Economic and Mobility Behavior through Lithic Analysis

ABSTRACT The shift from foraging to farming economies was deeply intertwined with increasing sedentism and the emergence of house-based corporate units in southwestern Asia, with a number of researchers arguing that in the early Neolithic, households become primary economic units within communities for the first time. In order to understand how this role for households articulated with new subsistence systems, this paper analyzes the knapped stone assemblage from the Middle Pre-Pottery Neolithic B agricultural field house of al-Khayran in the west-central Jordanian Highlands. Results demonstrate that al-Khayran’s residential unit enacted household maintenance activities, intensive cereal production, bidirectional blade reduction, and caching of stone tools in anticipation of repeated temporary occupations at the site. These findings show that the corporate household which occupied al-Khayran enacted novel mobility practices in order to accommodate emergent risks in agricultural economies.