Extended Abstracts of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
This text field is large enough to hold the appropriate release statement assuming it is single s... more This text field is large enough to hold the appropriate release statement assuming it is single spaced in a sans-serif 7 point font. Every submission will be assigned their own unique DOI string to be included here.
Typical mode choice models consider trips independently without the complete structure of the tri... more Typical mode choice models consider trips independently without the complete structure of the trip chain. This paper aims to further demonstrate the importance of considering the spatiotemporal structure of trip chains by comparing two multinomial discrete choice models. First, transportation modes are classified in two categories, "With anchor" modes and "No anchor" modes, to allow the enumeration of the possible mode sequences for each trip chain that becomes the set of alternatives for a traveler for a given trip chain. Two mode choice models are then estimated for chains of two trips: one processing trips independently and one based on entire trip chains. The case study is a commuter train corridor of the Greater Montreal Area. With a success rate increasing from 12.74% (trip based) to 72.15% (trip chain based), the results clearly confirm that modeling the trip chain at the mode choice step is much more coherent. It considers the alternatives for the return trip while examining the mode choice for the morning commute.
An important question in planning and designing bike-sharing services is to support the user’s tr... more An important question in planning and designing bike-sharing services is to support the user’s travel demand by allocating bikes at the stations in an efficient and reliable manner which may require accurate short-time demand prediction. This study focuses on the short-term forecasting, 15 min ahead, of the shared bikes demand in Montreal using a deep learning approach. Having a set of bike trips, the study first identifies 6 communities in the bike-sharing network using the Louvain algorithm. Then, four groups of LSTM-based architectures are adopted to predict pickup demand in each community. A univariate ARIMA model is also used to compare results as a benchmark. The historical trip data from 2017 to 2021 are used in addition to the extra inputs of demand related engineered features, weather conditions, and temporal variables. The selected timespan allows predicting bike demand during the COVID-19 pandemic. Results show that the deep learning models significantly outperform the AR...
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2020
Land use and transportation scenarios can help evaluate the potential impacts of urban compact or... more Land use and transportation scenarios can help evaluate the potential impacts of urban compact or transit-oriented development (TOD). Future scenarios have been based on hypothetical developments or strategic planning but both have rarely been compared. We developed scenarios for an entire metropolitan area (Montreal, Canada) based on current strategic planning documents and contrasted their potential impacts on car use and active transportation with those of hypothetical scenarios. We collected and analyzed available urban planning documents and obtained key stakeholders’ appreciation of transportation projects on their likelihood of implementation. We allocated 2006–2031 population growth according to recent trends (Business As Usual, BAU) or alternative scenarios (current planning; all in TOD areas; all in central zone). A large-scale and representative Origin-Destination Household Travel Survey was used to measure travel behavior. To estimate distances travelled by mode, in 2031...
Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 2020
This study proposes a methodological framework to understand the behavior of bikeshare-metro-bike... more This study proposes a methodological framework to understand the behavior of bikeshare-metro-bikeshare (BMB) users and assess the complementarity of bikeshare and transit. This analysis was conducted using Montreal’s Bixi bikeshare data collected over an 8-year period. A k-medoid clustering analysis was performed using three variables describing users’ travel behavior: BMB rate, most frequent BMB trip share, and rate of use of different metro stations. It reveals six groups of BMB users: (1) regular commuters, (2) irregular commuters, (3) occasional commuters, (4) mixed users, (5) leisure users, and (6) utility users. Each group’s share of trips is stable over time. BMB users represent an increasing, yet still marginal, share of 1.8% of Bixi’s annual members. The bikeshare segments of BMB trips averaged 1,180 m, with a standard deviation of 830 m. This confirms bikeshare is useful to complete the first and last kilometer of transit trips. Moreover, BMB trips increased with the expan...
Evolutionary algorithms have been used extensively over the past 2 decades to provide solutions t... more Evolutionary algorithms have been used extensively over the past 2 decades to provide solutions to the Transit Network Design Problem and the Transit Network and Frequencies Setting Problem. Genetic algorithms in particular have been used to solve the multi-objective problem of minimizing transit users' and operational costs. By finding better routes geometry and frequencies, evolutionary algorithms proposed more efficient networks in a timely manner. However, to the knowledge of the authors, no experimentation included precise and complete pedestrian network data for access, egress and transfer routing. Moreover, the accuracy and representativeness of the transit demand data (Origin Destination matrices) are usually generated from fictitious data or survey data with very low coverage and/or representativity. In this paper, experiments conducted with three medium-sized cities in Quebec demonstrate that performing genetic algorithm optimizations using precise local road network data and representative public transit demand data can generate plausible scenarios that are between 10 and 20% more efficient than existing networks, using the same parameters and similar fleet sizes.
Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 2018
Historically, travel surveys have been conducted face-to-face, by mail, or by phone. With the inc... more Historically, travel surveys have been conducted face-to-face, by mail, or by phone. With the increasing share of households having access to the Internet, other survey modes have been deployed. This paper focuses on web surveys. Among other advantages, using the web to conduct surveys reduces costs and helps mitigate poor response rates among young households. Very few studies have been conducted on interview duration and its determinant using paradata from web travel surveys. Such knowledge is necessary to validate the context in which travel data are gathered and can be used to understand sample and data quality. Interview duration modeling is also essential for allocating survey servers and monitoring interviews during the data collection phase. This paper models interview duration using paradata from nine web surveys conducted in the Quebec province from 2010 to 2014. The main objectives of the model are to assist the monitoring of interviews by detecting outliers, provide a be...
Since public transit infrastructure affects road traffic volumes and influences transportation mo... more Since public transit infrastructure affects road traffic volumes and influences transportation mode choice, which in turn impacts health, it is important to estimate the alteration of the health burden linked with transit policies. We quantified the variation in health benefits and burden between a business as usual (BAU) and a public transit (PT) scenarios in 2031 (with 8 and 19 new subway and train stations) for the greater Montreal region. Using mode choice and traffic assignment models, we predicted the transportation mode choice and traffic assignment on the road network. Subsequently, we estimated the distance travelled in each municipality by mode, the minutes spent in active transportation, as well as traffic emissions. Thereafter we estimated the health burden attributed to air pollution and road traumas and the gains associated with active transportation for both the BAU and PT scenarios. We predicted a slight decrease of overall trips and kilometers travelled by car as we...
This document presents an introduction to the ISCTSC Special Issue of Transport Research Procedia... more This document presents an introduction to the ISCTSC Special Issue of Transport Research Procedia. It synthesizes the discussions held at the 10 th International Conference on Transport Survey Methods, and describes the contents of the selected contributions. This conference has been held in different countries from all over the world, involving an increasing group of enthusiastic and generous specialists, willing to share their knowledge. This 10th conference was an opportunity to discuss the state of the art on transport survey methods, but also to question the way transport surveys are conducted. We took the opportunity to identify the main challenges, and the most important questions.
The study of the relationship between activity–travel behaviour and the development of city-regio... more The study of the relationship between activity–travel behaviour and the development of city-regions is a matter of great concern among researchers and urban planners. Much of the current debate focuses on understanding and influencing the relationship between transportation and land use systems, with a view to achieving economic, sustainability, and quality of life policy objectives. The essence of the transport-land
This study assessed relationships between built environmental exposures measured within component... more This study assessed relationships between built environmental exposures measured within components of individual activity spaces (i.e., travel origins, destinations and paths in-between), and use of active transportation in a metropolitan setting. Individuals (n=37,165) were categorised as using active or sedentary transportation based on travel survey data. Generalised Estimating Equations analysis was used to test relationships with active transportation. Strength and significance of relationships between exposures and active transportation varied for different components of the activity space. Associations were strongest when including travel paths in expression of the built environment. Land use mix and greenness were negatively related to active transportation.
With the graying of populations across the world, the travel behavior of seniors has become a top... more With the graying of populations across the world, the travel behavior of seniors has become a topic of growing interest in planning and research. Most attention in the field of transportation has been devoted to motorized travel. However, the use of various modes of transportation, including nonmotorized travel, remains to be fully investigated. In this paper the multimodal trip generation of seniors in Montreal Island is studied. Personal, mobility tools, neighborhood, and accessibility variables are considered in a trivariate ordered probit model of three modes: car, transit, and walking. Geographical analysis of the walking component of the model helps to identify locations within the region where walking is more or less prevalent among older adults.
This paper examines how many cars would be required to fulfill all car driver trips in a metropol... more This paper examines how many cars would be required to fulfill all car driver trips in a metropolitan area if these cars were shared rather than privately controlled. It proposes a twofold analysis regarding the use of cars in urban areas using data from a large scale Origin-Destination travel survey conducted in the Greater Montreal Area in 2008 as case study. In a first step, the use of privately owned cars and their level of usage are assessed through indicators such as the proportion of daily time parked at home location, parked elsewhere and travelling. In the region, 27 % of the owned cars are not used during a typical weekday. According to the estimations, a car will, on average, be parked more than 95 % of the time. In a second step, the research simulates a full-scale mutualization of cars in the region. Cars required to fulfill all car driver trips observed in the survey are generated based on two hypotheses of access distance to the shared cars (250 and 500 m cells). It was found that between 48 and 59 % of the current fleet of privately owned cars would be sufficient to fulfill all car driver trips at the metropolitan level.
Cities are facing many challenges, in particular in relation to the mobility of people and the st... more Cities are facing many challenges, in particular in relation to the mobility of people and the structure of land use. Parking management, which makes the link between land use and transportation, is one of the crucial ways to meet these challenges. In the Greater Montreal Area, data from origin–destination (OD) surveys is helpful in understanding typical travel behaviour. This study processes car driver trips from travel surveys to develop vehicle accumulation profiles and derive theoretical parking supplies from the observed parking demand, defined as the maximal number of cars parked in an area at a given time. This research also provides an assessment of the quality of the estimation by comparing the parking supplies derived from an OD survey to parking supplies estimated from public geographical information systems and field surveys. The paper shows that parking supply is subject to high variability and highlights that its assessment must take into account regulation data (obtai...
In 2056, more than one quart of the Quebec population will be aged 65 years and older. Population... more In 2056, more than one quart of the Quebec population will be aged 65 years and older. Population aging is a worldwide issue and urban areas facing such intense phenomena will face multiple challenges, namely related to the provision of efficient and adapted social services such as transportation. Using data from five large-scale Origin-Destination travel surveys from the Montreal Area, covering 20 years, a pseudo-cohort analysis is conducted to document how features and behaviors of elderly are changing over time. Eights cohorts of people are studied using an age-period-cohort-characteristics modeling framework. Individual car access, non-motorization and transit share are modeled using this approach allowing to separate the effects due to aging, cohort (year of birth) and period (fundamental changes affecting all cohorts). Results show that age has a negative impact on car access but that there is an important positive period effect; non-motorization evolution is mainly due to aging while period and cohort effects are negative; age and cohort effects reduce transit share but the period one is now increasing since 1998 (generalized increase in transit share). The application of such models for prediction is also illustrated.
Taxi is a collective transportation mode that is suffering from under examination. Still, it can ... more Taxi is a collective transportation mode that is suffering from under examination. Still, it can certainly contribute to the adoption of more sustainable travel behaviours as part of co-mobility strategies to reduce dependency towards the private car and all the negative impacts it has. This paper focuses on the role of taxis in the daily travel behaviours of Montrealers. Using a global positioning system (GPS) dataset over one month of operation (October 2011) of a fleet of 968 taxis (app. 22% of the entire fleet of the region), various descriptive analysis are conducted to understand how, when and where the taxis are used. Analysis is conducted at various levels: first, a single taxi is examined and then indicators are generalised to the entire set of data namely trip distance, mean duration, runs per day. The study also reveals important spatial and temporal trends: 95% of the runs are conducted during weekdays, between 6 am and 9 am and 32% of the origins of the runs are concentrated within an are a of 12.3 km² (2.5% of the Montreal Island). Hence, incidence of various factors such as weather or public holiday on usage is examined. For instance, the authors observe that during rainy days, the number of runs increases significantly and that their average length decreases. Specific studies of a main trip generator, the international airport, and of the central business district (CBD), are also conducted confirming the as symmetry of trip ends namely generated by the way the industry is managed i.e. with permits linked to specific zones. Based on spatial - temporal structure of taxi travel demand, we conclude that this transportation mode is often used for constraint trips (work) or to travel when other services are not in operation (at night for instance).
Traffic conflicts between pedestrians, cyclists and motorized vehicles are handled with stop sign... more Traffic conflicts between pedestrians, cyclists and motorized vehicles are handled with stop signs, traffic lights, pedestrian crossings and bicycle tracks and lanes. If these traffic management measures are still present in most 30km/h or reduced speed zones, they are not part of a shared space type of street, named "zone de rencontre" (ZR). In such a zone, motorized vehicles and vulnerable users share the same infrastructure, and pedestrian have priority over vehicles and can cross anywhere on the designated section. After years of try-outs, this concept was officially accepted in Switzerland (2002) and is now spreading in Europe. It is also raising interest among traffic planners in North America. The Ministry of Transportation of Quebec asked Polytechnique Montreal to evaluate the safety outcomes and the applicability of this concept in a Canadian traffic context, considering all aspects (roadway design, winter maintenance, driving culture and our roadway Code). Since ZR are not yet implemented in Canada, it was decided to present European cases to Canadian experts to judge the applicability of the concept. Experts were consulted through a series of 13 focusgroup held cities of various sizes, gathering just over 223 experts. A special attention was drawn on ZR in a context where a high number of pedestrian interacts with high traffic volumes. Videos and photos from specific cases were shown to experts. Design, environment and traffic conditions were judged for their applicability in a Canadian context. One of the main finding is that the vast majority of experts and officials are willing to introduce, in the Highway Safety Code a "caution principle", considering that all users must pay attention to other users, especially the most vulnerable ones. Experts also believed that pedestrians and bicyclists should have priority over motorized vehicles. They agreed that ZR could be introduced, but inside a pilot-project frame, since there is comprehensive fear around the concept, especially for pedestrians visually impaired. Linear central refuges for pedestrian, allowing crossing in a two-step sequence, was found an interesting design solution for two-lane roadways, since it reduces speeds and it is forgiving for vulnerable users. Finally, since ZR are not known by the general public, it is necessary to develop an information campaign for all roadway users if such zone are to be implemented.
Extended Abstracts of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
This text field is large enough to hold the appropriate release statement assuming it is single s... more This text field is large enough to hold the appropriate release statement assuming it is single spaced in a sans-serif 7 point font. Every submission will be assigned their own unique DOI string to be included here.
Typical mode choice models consider trips independently without the complete structure of the tri... more Typical mode choice models consider trips independently without the complete structure of the trip chain. This paper aims to further demonstrate the importance of considering the spatiotemporal structure of trip chains by comparing two multinomial discrete choice models. First, transportation modes are classified in two categories, "With anchor" modes and "No anchor" modes, to allow the enumeration of the possible mode sequences for each trip chain that becomes the set of alternatives for a traveler for a given trip chain. Two mode choice models are then estimated for chains of two trips: one processing trips independently and one based on entire trip chains. The case study is a commuter train corridor of the Greater Montreal Area. With a success rate increasing from 12.74% (trip based) to 72.15% (trip chain based), the results clearly confirm that modeling the trip chain at the mode choice step is much more coherent. It considers the alternatives for the return trip while examining the mode choice for the morning commute.
An important question in planning and designing bike-sharing services is to support the user’s tr... more An important question in planning and designing bike-sharing services is to support the user’s travel demand by allocating bikes at the stations in an efficient and reliable manner which may require accurate short-time demand prediction. This study focuses on the short-term forecasting, 15 min ahead, of the shared bikes demand in Montreal using a deep learning approach. Having a set of bike trips, the study first identifies 6 communities in the bike-sharing network using the Louvain algorithm. Then, four groups of LSTM-based architectures are adopted to predict pickup demand in each community. A univariate ARIMA model is also used to compare results as a benchmark. The historical trip data from 2017 to 2021 are used in addition to the extra inputs of demand related engineered features, weather conditions, and temporal variables. The selected timespan allows predicting bike demand during the COVID-19 pandemic. Results show that the deep learning models significantly outperform the AR...
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2020
Land use and transportation scenarios can help evaluate the potential impacts of urban compact or... more Land use and transportation scenarios can help evaluate the potential impacts of urban compact or transit-oriented development (TOD). Future scenarios have been based on hypothetical developments or strategic planning but both have rarely been compared. We developed scenarios for an entire metropolitan area (Montreal, Canada) based on current strategic planning documents and contrasted their potential impacts on car use and active transportation with those of hypothetical scenarios. We collected and analyzed available urban planning documents and obtained key stakeholders’ appreciation of transportation projects on their likelihood of implementation. We allocated 2006–2031 population growth according to recent trends (Business As Usual, BAU) or alternative scenarios (current planning; all in TOD areas; all in central zone). A large-scale and representative Origin-Destination Household Travel Survey was used to measure travel behavior. To estimate distances travelled by mode, in 2031...
Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 2020
This study proposes a methodological framework to understand the behavior of bikeshare-metro-bike... more This study proposes a methodological framework to understand the behavior of bikeshare-metro-bikeshare (BMB) users and assess the complementarity of bikeshare and transit. This analysis was conducted using Montreal’s Bixi bikeshare data collected over an 8-year period. A k-medoid clustering analysis was performed using three variables describing users’ travel behavior: BMB rate, most frequent BMB trip share, and rate of use of different metro stations. It reveals six groups of BMB users: (1) regular commuters, (2) irregular commuters, (3) occasional commuters, (4) mixed users, (5) leisure users, and (6) utility users. Each group’s share of trips is stable over time. BMB users represent an increasing, yet still marginal, share of 1.8% of Bixi’s annual members. The bikeshare segments of BMB trips averaged 1,180 m, with a standard deviation of 830 m. This confirms bikeshare is useful to complete the first and last kilometer of transit trips. Moreover, BMB trips increased with the expan...
Evolutionary algorithms have been used extensively over the past 2 decades to provide solutions t... more Evolutionary algorithms have been used extensively over the past 2 decades to provide solutions to the Transit Network Design Problem and the Transit Network and Frequencies Setting Problem. Genetic algorithms in particular have been used to solve the multi-objective problem of minimizing transit users' and operational costs. By finding better routes geometry and frequencies, evolutionary algorithms proposed more efficient networks in a timely manner. However, to the knowledge of the authors, no experimentation included precise and complete pedestrian network data for access, egress and transfer routing. Moreover, the accuracy and representativeness of the transit demand data (Origin Destination matrices) are usually generated from fictitious data or survey data with very low coverage and/or representativity. In this paper, experiments conducted with three medium-sized cities in Quebec demonstrate that performing genetic algorithm optimizations using precise local road network data and representative public transit demand data can generate plausible scenarios that are between 10 and 20% more efficient than existing networks, using the same parameters and similar fleet sizes.
Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 2018
Historically, travel surveys have been conducted face-to-face, by mail, or by phone. With the inc... more Historically, travel surveys have been conducted face-to-face, by mail, or by phone. With the increasing share of households having access to the Internet, other survey modes have been deployed. This paper focuses on web surveys. Among other advantages, using the web to conduct surveys reduces costs and helps mitigate poor response rates among young households. Very few studies have been conducted on interview duration and its determinant using paradata from web travel surveys. Such knowledge is necessary to validate the context in which travel data are gathered and can be used to understand sample and data quality. Interview duration modeling is also essential for allocating survey servers and monitoring interviews during the data collection phase. This paper models interview duration using paradata from nine web surveys conducted in the Quebec province from 2010 to 2014. The main objectives of the model are to assist the monitoring of interviews by detecting outliers, provide a be...
Since public transit infrastructure affects road traffic volumes and influences transportation mo... more Since public transit infrastructure affects road traffic volumes and influences transportation mode choice, which in turn impacts health, it is important to estimate the alteration of the health burden linked with transit policies. We quantified the variation in health benefits and burden between a business as usual (BAU) and a public transit (PT) scenarios in 2031 (with 8 and 19 new subway and train stations) for the greater Montreal region. Using mode choice and traffic assignment models, we predicted the transportation mode choice and traffic assignment on the road network. Subsequently, we estimated the distance travelled in each municipality by mode, the minutes spent in active transportation, as well as traffic emissions. Thereafter we estimated the health burden attributed to air pollution and road traumas and the gains associated with active transportation for both the BAU and PT scenarios. We predicted a slight decrease of overall trips and kilometers travelled by car as we...
This document presents an introduction to the ISCTSC Special Issue of Transport Research Procedia... more This document presents an introduction to the ISCTSC Special Issue of Transport Research Procedia. It synthesizes the discussions held at the 10 th International Conference on Transport Survey Methods, and describes the contents of the selected contributions. This conference has been held in different countries from all over the world, involving an increasing group of enthusiastic and generous specialists, willing to share their knowledge. This 10th conference was an opportunity to discuss the state of the art on transport survey methods, but also to question the way transport surveys are conducted. We took the opportunity to identify the main challenges, and the most important questions.
The study of the relationship between activity–travel behaviour and the development of city-regio... more The study of the relationship between activity–travel behaviour and the development of city-regions is a matter of great concern among researchers and urban planners. Much of the current debate focuses on understanding and influencing the relationship between transportation and land use systems, with a view to achieving economic, sustainability, and quality of life policy objectives. The essence of the transport-land
This study assessed relationships between built environmental exposures measured within component... more This study assessed relationships between built environmental exposures measured within components of individual activity spaces (i.e., travel origins, destinations and paths in-between), and use of active transportation in a metropolitan setting. Individuals (n=37,165) were categorised as using active or sedentary transportation based on travel survey data. Generalised Estimating Equations analysis was used to test relationships with active transportation. Strength and significance of relationships between exposures and active transportation varied for different components of the activity space. Associations were strongest when including travel paths in expression of the built environment. Land use mix and greenness were negatively related to active transportation.
With the graying of populations across the world, the travel behavior of seniors has become a top... more With the graying of populations across the world, the travel behavior of seniors has become a topic of growing interest in planning and research. Most attention in the field of transportation has been devoted to motorized travel. However, the use of various modes of transportation, including nonmotorized travel, remains to be fully investigated. In this paper the multimodal trip generation of seniors in Montreal Island is studied. Personal, mobility tools, neighborhood, and accessibility variables are considered in a trivariate ordered probit model of three modes: car, transit, and walking. Geographical analysis of the walking component of the model helps to identify locations within the region where walking is more or less prevalent among older adults.
This paper examines how many cars would be required to fulfill all car driver trips in a metropol... more This paper examines how many cars would be required to fulfill all car driver trips in a metropolitan area if these cars were shared rather than privately controlled. It proposes a twofold analysis regarding the use of cars in urban areas using data from a large scale Origin-Destination travel survey conducted in the Greater Montreal Area in 2008 as case study. In a first step, the use of privately owned cars and their level of usage are assessed through indicators such as the proportion of daily time parked at home location, parked elsewhere and travelling. In the region, 27 % of the owned cars are not used during a typical weekday. According to the estimations, a car will, on average, be parked more than 95 % of the time. In a second step, the research simulates a full-scale mutualization of cars in the region. Cars required to fulfill all car driver trips observed in the survey are generated based on two hypotheses of access distance to the shared cars (250 and 500 m cells). It was found that between 48 and 59 % of the current fleet of privately owned cars would be sufficient to fulfill all car driver trips at the metropolitan level.
Cities are facing many challenges, in particular in relation to the mobility of people and the st... more Cities are facing many challenges, in particular in relation to the mobility of people and the structure of land use. Parking management, which makes the link between land use and transportation, is one of the crucial ways to meet these challenges. In the Greater Montreal Area, data from origin–destination (OD) surveys is helpful in understanding typical travel behaviour. This study processes car driver trips from travel surveys to develop vehicle accumulation profiles and derive theoretical parking supplies from the observed parking demand, defined as the maximal number of cars parked in an area at a given time. This research also provides an assessment of the quality of the estimation by comparing the parking supplies derived from an OD survey to parking supplies estimated from public geographical information systems and field surveys. The paper shows that parking supply is subject to high variability and highlights that its assessment must take into account regulation data (obtai...
In 2056, more than one quart of the Quebec population will be aged 65 years and older. Population... more In 2056, more than one quart of the Quebec population will be aged 65 years and older. Population aging is a worldwide issue and urban areas facing such intense phenomena will face multiple challenges, namely related to the provision of efficient and adapted social services such as transportation. Using data from five large-scale Origin-Destination travel surveys from the Montreal Area, covering 20 years, a pseudo-cohort analysis is conducted to document how features and behaviors of elderly are changing over time. Eights cohorts of people are studied using an age-period-cohort-characteristics modeling framework. Individual car access, non-motorization and transit share are modeled using this approach allowing to separate the effects due to aging, cohort (year of birth) and period (fundamental changes affecting all cohorts). Results show that age has a negative impact on car access but that there is an important positive period effect; non-motorization evolution is mainly due to aging while period and cohort effects are negative; age and cohort effects reduce transit share but the period one is now increasing since 1998 (generalized increase in transit share). The application of such models for prediction is also illustrated.
Taxi is a collective transportation mode that is suffering from under examination. Still, it can ... more Taxi is a collective transportation mode that is suffering from under examination. Still, it can certainly contribute to the adoption of more sustainable travel behaviours as part of co-mobility strategies to reduce dependency towards the private car and all the negative impacts it has. This paper focuses on the role of taxis in the daily travel behaviours of Montrealers. Using a global positioning system (GPS) dataset over one month of operation (October 2011) of a fleet of 968 taxis (app. 22% of the entire fleet of the region), various descriptive analysis are conducted to understand how, when and where the taxis are used. Analysis is conducted at various levels: first, a single taxi is examined and then indicators are generalised to the entire set of data namely trip distance, mean duration, runs per day. The study also reveals important spatial and temporal trends: 95% of the runs are conducted during weekdays, between 6 am and 9 am and 32% of the origins of the runs are concentrated within an are a of 12.3 km² (2.5% of the Montreal Island). Hence, incidence of various factors such as weather or public holiday on usage is examined. For instance, the authors observe that during rainy days, the number of runs increases significantly and that their average length decreases. Specific studies of a main trip generator, the international airport, and of the central business district (CBD), are also conducted confirming the as symmetry of trip ends namely generated by the way the industry is managed i.e. with permits linked to specific zones. Based on spatial - temporal structure of taxi travel demand, we conclude that this transportation mode is often used for constraint trips (work) or to travel when other services are not in operation (at night for instance).
Traffic conflicts between pedestrians, cyclists and motorized vehicles are handled with stop sign... more Traffic conflicts between pedestrians, cyclists and motorized vehicles are handled with stop signs, traffic lights, pedestrian crossings and bicycle tracks and lanes. If these traffic management measures are still present in most 30km/h or reduced speed zones, they are not part of a shared space type of street, named "zone de rencontre" (ZR). In such a zone, motorized vehicles and vulnerable users share the same infrastructure, and pedestrian have priority over vehicles and can cross anywhere on the designated section. After years of try-outs, this concept was officially accepted in Switzerland (2002) and is now spreading in Europe. It is also raising interest among traffic planners in North America. The Ministry of Transportation of Quebec asked Polytechnique Montreal to evaluate the safety outcomes and the applicability of this concept in a Canadian traffic context, considering all aspects (roadway design, winter maintenance, driving culture and our roadway Code). Since ZR are not yet implemented in Canada, it was decided to present European cases to Canadian experts to judge the applicability of the concept. Experts were consulted through a series of 13 focusgroup held cities of various sizes, gathering just over 223 experts. A special attention was drawn on ZR in a context where a high number of pedestrian interacts with high traffic volumes. Videos and photos from specific cases were shown to experts. Design, environment and traffic conditions were judged for their applicability in a Canadian context. One of the main finding is that the vast majority of experts and officials are willing to introduce, in the Highway Safety Code a "caution principle", considering that all users must pay attention to other users, especially the most vulnerable ones. Experts also believed that pedestrians and bicyclists should have priority over motorized vehicles. They agreed that ZR could be introduced, but inside a pilot-project frame, since there is comprehensive fear around the concept, especially for pedestrians visually impaired. Linear central refuges for pedestrian, allowing crossing in a two-step sequence, was found an interesting design solution for two-lane roadways, since it reduces speeds and it is forgiving for vulnerable users. Finally, since ZR are not known by the general public, it is necessary to develop an information campaign for all roadway users if such zone are to be implemented.
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