DETERMINANT FACTORS OF NEIGHBOURHOOD QUALITY INFLUENCING RESIDENTIAL MOBILITY BEHAVIOUR IN PENANG ISLAND

Residential mobility behaviour is about people’s choices and preferences whether to remain at the present house and neighbourhood, or to move out. Moving to another house or neighbourhood entails a deliberate decision that require various considerations by the residents involved especially in dealing with housing adjustments, life neccesities and financial matters. Residents’ perceptions of their housing and neighbourhood can be indicative of their intention to stay in or move out. The act of moving is often asssociated with lower levels of satisfactions with residents’ current housing and neighbourhood environment, thus activating selfpreference and residential mobility. This study aims to identify the determinant factors of neighbourhood quality that influence residential mobility behaviour in neighbourhoods in Penang Island. The nine attributes of neighbourhood quality dimensions included in this study are dwelling features, dwelling utility, neighbourhood facilities, greenery, accessibility, public transportation, environment, economic livelihood, and neighbourhood interaction and attachments. A total of 717 heads of households residing in Penang Island were involved in the questionnaire survey. Using logistic regression method, the study findings reveal that four factors of dwelling features, facilities, neighbourhood environment, and neighbourhood interaction and attachments are significant in influencing residents’ intention to move. Moreover, both internal and external factors of housing and the neighbourhood can influence the residents’ decision to stay in or to move out, thus implying important policy measures for local housing.

Quantifying the Causal Effect of Individual Mobility on Health Status in Urban Space

How does individual mobility in the urban environment impact their health status? Previous works have explored the correlation between human mobility behaviour and individual health, yet the study on the underlying causal effect is woefully inadequate. However, the correlation analysis can sometimes be bewildering because of the confounding effects. For example, older people visit park more often but have worse health status than younger people. The common associations with age will lead to a counter-intuitive negative correlation between park visits and health status. Obtaining causal effects from confounded observations remains a challenge. In this paper, we construct a causal framework based on propensity score matching on multi-level treatment to eliminate the bias brought by confounding effects and estimate the total treatment effects of mobility behaviours on health status. We demonstrate that the matching procedure approximates a de-confounded randomized experiment where confounding variables are balanced substantially. The analysis on the directions of estimated causal effects reveals that fewer neighbouring tobacco shops and frequent visits to sports facilities are related with higher risk in health status, which differs from their correlation directions. Physical mobility behaviours and environment features have more significant estimated effects on health status than contextual mobility behaviours. Moreover, we embed our causal analysis framework in health prediction models to filter out features with superficial correlation but insignificant effects that might lead to over-fitting. This strategy achieves better model robustness with more features filtered out than L1-regularization. Our findings shed light on individual healthy lifestyle and mobility-related health policymaking.

Mobilitási szokások változásai a Covid19-világjárvány idején - Changing mobility behaviour during the Covid19 pandemic

A Covid19-világjárvány jelentős recessziót eredményezett a turizmus szektorban. A korlátozó intézkedések enyhítése mellett a lakosság hozzáállása is nagyban befolyásolja a válságból való a kilábalást, ezért kutatócsoportunk az egyes közlekedési módokkal kapcsolatos társadalmi attitűdök, a világjárvány alatti turisztikai szokások, valamint a járvány enyhülését, megszűnését követő utazási motiváció feltárását tűzte ki célul. A kutatási célok megvalósításához kvalitatív (6 fókuszcsoportos interjú) és kvantitatív adatfelvételi módszereken alapuló, utóbbi esetében a felnőtt magyarországi lakosságra vonatkozóan reprezentatív (n=3025), kutatás készült. A kutatásba bevont alanyok szerint a járvány teljes leküzdéséig legfeljebb a belföldi turizmus iránti kereslet erősödhet, azt követően azonban a nemzetközi turizmus hirtelen fellendülése valószínűsíthető. A kérdőíves, reprezentatív megkérdezés alapján a lakosság körében óvatos, kockázatkerülő magatartás mutatkozik. A válaszadók jelentős része arról számolt be, hogy jövőbeni utazásai során, a Covid19-világjárványt követő időszakban is körültekintőbb lesz a higiéniai szabályok betartásával kapcsolatban. A szigorúbb egészségvédelmi intézkedések iránti erősödő igény tudatában érdemes újragondolni a közlekedési és turisztikai szolgáltatások konstrukcióját (pl. repülőgépek férőhelye, egészségügyi ellenőrzések, szálláshelyek és egyéb szolgáltatók hosszú távú járványügyi védekezése), ami nagyban befolyásolhatja a szektor fellendülését. The Covid19 outbreak has led to a significant recession in the tourism sector. The recovery from the crisis, in addition to the restrictive measures, is also heavily influenced by the attitudes of society. Based on this, our research team aimed to explore changes in social attitudes towards different modes of transport and tourism-related consumption. To achieve this, data collection in two phases: qualitative (6 focus group interviews) and quantitative representative (n=3025) surveys were conducted. Focus group interviews indicated that domestic tourism will be stronger until the Covid19 pandemic is over, but a quick recovery of international tourism is expected afterwards. The survey revealed cautious, risk-averse attitude among the respondents. A significant proportion of subjects reported that they would be more careful about hygiene during travel, even when the pandemic is over. With this mind, transport and tourism services may need to rethink (e.g., empty middle seats on flights, health checks, epidemic prevention by different tourism service providers) to ensure the recovery of the sector.

A physiological model of human mobility: A global study

The movement of people has led to several challenges in terms of traffic congestion, energy consumption, emissions and climate change. Human mobility modelling is currently described mainly through socio-economic variables, such as travel time, travel costs, income and car-ownership. The overall objective of this paper is to relate mobility behaviour based on measurable entities of travel time and distance and the entities of speed. A simple underlying mechanism of human mobility is presented based on the human energy expended. The energy is related firstly to the average values of travel modes. Explicit formulas for the distribution within each travel mode are developed and the concept is also shown to apply to multi-modal mobility. The approach is described in its most basic and fundamental form, but opens up perspectives for new applications and analyses approaches to transport modelling, planning and appraisals. The approach shows that travel time and distance are consistently inversely proportional and limited by the physiological power consumption. The basic hypothesis and the related verifications is shown on all modal combinations of daily mobility with a median R2 of around 0.8. The approach is validated using national travel surveys of Germany, Switzerland, UK and US, spanning over five decades to 2018.

The unequal cycling boom in Germany

Over the last two decades, cycling in Germany has increased by more than 40%. This paper analyses how this overall increase is broken down by group, characterised by residence (rural and smaller towns vs. medium-sized and larger cities) and education (high vs. low). It analyses (1) how the composition of the population changes according to these groups, (2) how cycling behaviour develops within these groups, and (3) how the changes in composition and behaviour shape the overall volume of cycling. Data on mobility behaviour comes from the large-scale, representative German Mobility Panel from 1996 to 2018, and the analytical sample covers information on more than 28,000 persons over approximately 730,000 reported trips. Data on changes in population composition comes from the German Socio-Economic Panel. Results show that the increase in cycling is unbalanced and largely a consequence of highly educated people in cities who now cycle twice as much and whose share of the population has doubled. This reveals that the cycling boom is bypassing important parts of the population, which limits the contribution of cycling to sustainability goals. Furthermore, the uneven evolution of cycling amplifies social inequalities in finances and health. Finally, this paper shows that increased cycling comes not only from changing behaviour within groups, but also from altered population composition. The most impactful compositional shift is the increasing level of education, which will likely continue to boost cycling.

Is there a correlation between children’s outdoor active mobility behaviour and neighbourhood safety? A systematic review of the evidence

ObjectiveTo identify, summarise and evaluate evidence on the correlation between perceived and actual neighbourhood safety (personal and road danger) and diverse forms of outdoor active mobility behaviour (ie, active play, exercise, and travel) among primary-school-aged children.DesignA systematic review of evidence from observational studies exploring children’s active mobility behaviour and safety.Data sourcesSix electronic databases were searched: Google Scholar, PubMed, Scopus, Science Direct, ProQuest and Web of Science from study inception until July 2020.Data extraction and synthesisStudy selection and quality assessment were conducted independently by two reviewers. We expanded on a quality assessment tool and adopted a vote-counting technique to determine strength of evidence. The outcomes were categorised by individual, family and neighbourhood levels.ResultsA total of 29 studies were included, with a majority of cross-sectional design. Higher parental perceived personal safety correlated with increased children’s active mobility behaviour, but most commonly in active travel (eg, independent walking or cycling to a local destination). Increased concerns regarding road danger correlated with a decrease in each type of children’s active behaviour; active travel, play and exercise. However, these correlations were influenced by child’s sex/gender, age, car ownership, neighbourhood types, across time, and proximity to destination. Limited or inconclusive evidence was found on correlate of children’s outdoor active mobility behaviour to ‘stranger danger’, children’s perceived personal safety, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status or measured safety.ConclusionChildren are restricted by perception of safety. Encouraging children’s active travel may require future strategies to address characteristics relevant to types of the neighbourhood that promote a high sense of personal safety. Children and parents may embrace other types of active mobility behaviour if road danger is mitigated. Sex/gender and age-specific interventions and redesign of public places could lead to child-friendly cities. Future studies may benefit from adopting validated measurement methods and fill existing research gaps.

SOCIAL NETWORK ANALYSIS OF SPATIAL HUMAN MOBILITY BEHAVIOUR IN INFECTIOUS DISEASE INTERACTION: AN EXPLORATORY EVIDENCE OF TUBERCULOSIS IN MALAYSIA

The movement of individuals between specific locations and the different group contacts of people is essential to predict the future movement and interaction pattern of infectious diseases. Previous studies have shown major factor of infectious disease spread comes from human mobility because a complex and dynamic network of spatial interactions between locations such as the mobility formed by the daily activity of people from place to place. To better understand the such human mobility behaviour, innovative methods are required to depict and analyse their structures by using social network analysis (SNA). This paper aims to investigate the social network structure of selected tuberculosis (TB) case in Klang, Selangor as actors (nodes), and then human mobility (home-work place) data as edge generally used to investigate social network mobility structures and analyse relation among the nodes and study their edges in term of their network centrality. The main finding has revealed that the higher the centrality (degree and betweenness) of a node in the network structure, the higher the chance the node influencing the TB spread in the whole network, after comparing the network graph result with the geographic information system (GIS) mapping approach. Most of the result share the similar result where most of high infection of TB are located in urban and crowded areas. The SNA is a practical knowledge of the social system and contact structure of a community that can therefore provide crucial information to predict outbreaks of infectious diseases in a dynamic spatial phenomena.

Approaches to integrate land-use and transport planning. Analysing the political dimension of integrative planning

Assuming that mobility behaviour of citizens can be partially influenced by certain spatial structures, the integration of land-use and transport planning seems to be a key aspect of a transition towards sustainable mobility. Such an integrated planning approach is characterised, for example, by increased cross-sectoral interaction, softened institutionalised boundaries between the two sectors of land-use and transport planning as well as cross-sectorally shared goals. However, this often-articulated claim for integration remains unclear in its implementation. Hence, this article presents a conceptual framework within the three dimensions of policy, polity and politics to grasp what integration comprises in its different aspects. The two German cities of Dortmund and Hanover serve as case studies. It appears that informal interaction (politics) between the two sectors acts as a necessary precondition whereas true political will and shared targets (policy) are needed to really initiate the process towards integration. Ultimately, an approach is fully integrated if the institutional design (polity) is adapted in terms of hierarchical coordination and largely removed sectoral boundaries.

Advancing Behavioural Theories in Sustainable Mobility: A Research Agenda

Ensuring that the growing mobility demand is met in a sustainable manner is important for our climate goals, and this would require changes to our current mobility behaviours. Behaviour and behaviour change theories have an important role in informing the mobility behaviour research and practices that seek to achieve these changes, and this paper discusses the application of these theories in both research and practice. Newer and more comprehensive theories have been developed in this area in the last decade, improving the quality of theories available. However, two key challenges of using theories are identified. The great number of theories today makes it challenging when deciding what and when to use them, and the appropriateness of many theories are either too simplistic or too complex. Thus, there is a need to critically review the state of theories in this area and identify ways to advance our application and development of behavioural theories. Here, two suggestions are put forward on how we can address these challenges while advancing the use of theories in mobility behaviour research and practice. First, integrate and summarise multiple, individual theories into a comprehensive and accessible framework for researchers and practitioners. Second, expand this framework beyond behaviour and behaviour-change theories by mapping out their interconnections with theories from other paradigms and disciplines using a systems approach to facilitate a more holistic theorisation.

Global Citizens – Global Jet Setters? The Relation Between Global Identity, Sufficiency Orientation, Travelling, and a Socio-Ecological Transformation of the Mobility System

Global crises such as the climate crisis require fast concerted action, but individual and structural barriers prevent a socio-ecological transformation in crucial areas such as the mobility sector. An identification with people all over the world (i.e., global identity) and an openness toward less consumption (i.e., sufficiency orientation) may represent psychological drivers of a socio-ecological transformation. We examined the compatibility of both concepts as well as their relation to people’s support of a decarbonised mobility system and their flight mobility behaviour – a CO2-intensive behaviour that may be particularly difficult to refrain from for globally identified people, but less so for sufficiency-oriented people. In an online study conducted in Germany (N = 317), we found that global identity and sufficiency orientation were positively related. Both were negatively related to past flight-related CO2 emissions and positively related to refraining from flying and the support of decarbonised mobility policies. Accounting for both showed that sufficiency orientation in particular was related to fewer flight-related CO2 emissions and refraining from flying. Furthermore, we examined people’s travel experiences. While global identity was unrelated to the frequency and duration of international travelling, it was positively related to the frequency and quality of contact with local people met on journeys. An experimental variation of whether participants first answered questions on global identity or on travel experiences revealed that remembering past international travelling led to higher reported levels of global identity. Taken together, global identity seems to profit from in-depth international contact with people, but can be decoupled from resource-intensive travel behaviour. Globally identified and sufficiency-oriented people may support a socio-ecological transformation. Our results indicate a compatibility of global identity and sufficiency orientation. Experimental and longitudinal research should examine causal links to foster our understanding of the conditions under which both can be strengthened.