Long-Term Urban Epidemic and Disaster Resilience: The Planning and Assessment of a Comprehensive Underground Resilience Core

This study utilizes the enclosed and stable environment of underground space for long-term sustainable planning for urban epidemics and disasters. Owing to the COVID-19 epidemic, cities require long-term epidemic-disaster management. Therefore, this study proposed a strategy for integrating multiple functions to plan a comprehensive Underground Resilience Core (URC). A planning and assessment methods of URC were proposed. With this methodology, epidemic- and disaster- URCs were integrated to construct a comprehensive-URC in underground spaces. The results show: (1) Epidemic-resilient URCs adopting a joint progressive approach with designated hospitals can rapidly suppress an epidemic outbreak. (2) The regularity of the morphology of underground spaces determines the area of the URC. Bar-shaped underground spaces have the potential for planning disaster-URCs. (3) The URC planning efficiency ranking is as follows: Bar shapes lead overall, T shapes are second under seismic resilience, and Cross shapes are second under epidemic resilience. (4) The potential analysis of planning a comprehensive-URC in the underground parking in Chinese cities showed that the recovery time can be advanced from 29% to 39% and the comprehensive resilience can be improved by 37.63%. The results of this study can serve as sustainable urban planning strategies and assessment tools for long-term epidemic-disaster management.

IoT-Based E-Parking System for Multiplexes and Shopping Malls

This paper helps in automating process of car parking in shopping malls. It helps in making parking more efficient by burning of less fuel. This system is useful for places with large number of people considering less people-to-people contact considering Covid Pandemic and making a safe system for minimal infection transmission from people to people. This paper aims at developing a IoT-based E-parking system. This project uses Micro-controller (ATtiny85) for controlling of sensors. Set of multiple ultrasonic sensors are put on ceilings per floor with multiple slots for detection of vehicles in parked spaces with threshold set for cars. Multiple Wi-Fi modules are used for wirelessly uploading the values of vehicles parked in different floors to cloud from where the Wi-Fi module at entrance extracts data and displays on central display at entrance for assigning empty parking slots to new vehicles on arrival. Entrance display displays number of empty slots on every floor to new customer entering mall parking system. This project achieved objective of making a system which can be used in times of Covid-19 for better safety of people. This paper has been able to achieve its main objectives of making a safe, affordable, scalable parking system which can be used in shopping malls and multiplexes. It can be scaled to large usable parking systems using better sensors and better computing devices. It can provide means of work or business to youth of city for building and selling smart vehicle parking systems and deploy them to multiple malls and multiplexes using help from staff and sell at affordable rates. It can also help make more customizable and modular smart parking systems tailored to use of system in any buildings. Arduino IDE has been used for uploading code to cloud modules in project. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

Assessment of Automated Parking Garage Services as a Means to Sustainable Traffic Development in a Mid-Sized City

The research in this article deals with verifying the deficit of parking spaces from model examples in the city of Ostrava, Czech Republic. Specifically, it deals with the possibilities of solving these deficits using automated parking systems. The main data collection took place between 2010 and 2019;later, supplemental lockdown data (up until May 2022) were obtained. The main objective of this article was to use data to determine the profitability and functionality of automated parking systems in mid-sized cities such as Ostrava. The RING system was chosen as a suitable model for the automated parking system. The data (using a least-squares approximation) were used via statistical methods to make predictions for future years, including the construction of confidence limits for a given significance level. Based on data from 2011–2019, we found that the RING system would be profitable with a probability of 92.45% in the following years. We compared these predictions with the actual data and made a new prediction.

Downtown Vibrancy Plan Complete Streets Project

During the Great Recession in 2009, the City of Salinas began receiving requests from stakeholders concerned with the city's downtown to evaluate the area's circulation and parking. While the initial intent was to improve mobility and manage parking, the focus of the plan expanded through an extensive outreach process. Residents expressed a desire for downtown to become the heart of the city, and a place to gather for civic and community events. Through this process, the plan evolved to include four major themes: Creating a Destination Downtown, Managing Parking Resources, Building the Heart of Salinas, and Stimulating Development Activity. The process, dubbed "The Road to Vibrancy," sought to construct a plan to capture and discuss aspirations, ideas, and concepts;develop and expand concepts jointly through workshops and meetings;debate and refine the Vibrancy Plan to ensure it was done right;and to gain broad-based support so that the plan can and will be implemented. The Vibrancy Plan was shaped heavily by public input through a robust planning process. In fact, nearly all the ideas and concepts presented in the plan were discovered through dialogue with residents, property owners, business owners, and others who shared their aspirations.

Tea Culture Tourism Perception: A Study on the Harmony of Importance and Performance

Tea culture tourism is a product of the combination of agricultural tourism and ecotourism. After the COVID-19 period, this product is more and more popular. Tourism performance is an important index for measuring the development level of tourist destinations, and research on the influencing factors of tourism performance is an important way to promote the high-quality development of tea culture tourism. Using the tea tourism town of Wushan as a case study, 452 valid questionnaires were used as research data, and exploratory factor analysis, paired sample t-test and IPA analysis were applied. The results indicate that: (1) tourism performance is mainly divided into 5 dimensions and 22 specific indicators, including service quality, resource environment, tourism transportation, tourism-supporting facilities and tea tourism products;(2) there is a significant difference between the degree of importance and performance of visitors to each indicator, and the overall tourism performance of the case sites at an average level;(3) convenient service, professional service, business management, park traffic, parking conditions, environmental design, shopping environment, tea quality, and tea culture characteristics are potential advantageous factors, and ‘service with a smile', accessibility, trail layout, overall image, air quality, natural scenery, landscape vignettes, network communication, public toilets, sanitation facilities, tourist service centers, tea travel activities, and tourism souvenirs are areas in need of improvement. © 2023 by the authors.

Density variability of COVID-19 face mask litter: A cautionary tale for pandemic PPE waste monitoring.

Despite the requirement for data to be normally distributed with variance being independent of the mean, some studies of plastic litter, including COVID-19 face masks, have not tested for these assumptions before embarking on analyses using parametric statistics. Investigation of new data and secondary analyses of published literature data indicate that face masks are not normally distributed and that variances are not independent of mean densities. In consequence, it is necessary to either use nonparametric analyses or to transform data prior to undertaking parametric approaches. For the new data set, spatial and temporal variance functions indicate that according to Taylor's Power Law, the fourth-root transformation will offer most promise for stabilizing variance about the mean.

Managing the curb – Public space and use of curbside cafes during the Coronavirus pandemic

Urban streets, especially curbside spaces, are increasingly complex and often contested. The Coronavirus pandemic created a new demand for street space to enable physical distancing. The urgency of the pandemic and the fear of covid exposure suspended traditional community engagement opportunities, opposition from residents and business owners, and considerations over the privatization of public street space. This exploratory paper uses the case studies of Toronto and Chicago to trace the past and present regulations and programs affecting curbside parking spaces. Through these cases, this paper addresses larger questions that relate the historical conceptions around curbside parking use with those put forward in response to the pandemic. Given the popularity of pandemic-related curbside space programs and their potential to become long-term interventions, this paper also raises several questions around privatization, access and social equity that must be addressed in future iterations of programs affecting curbside space. © 2022 Elsevier Ltd

New Parking Lot Selection Approach Based on the Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) Methods: Health Criteria

To find a parking space, valet parking drivers have to travel a lot, which leads to carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. In order to reduce these emissions, it is essential to understand a user's needs and criteria when searching for a parking space. Several selection criteria are considered when allocating a parking space. Recent research on parking space management mentions several parameters that have an impact on the choice of a parking space: namely, the traffic situation, the availability of each parking lot in question, and the cost of parking, etc. In this article, we discuss a new criterion: the physical condition of the driver in the management of parking spaces;the identification of the driver's bodily fragility. We also propose MCDM as a parking space allocation model that best meets the cost–benefit convention. This reflection leads us to evaluate MCDM methods in the field of intelligent parking management. Therefore, we conducted a comparison between the most recent multi-criteria decision making methods used by researchers, namely, CODA, EDAS, TOPSIS, and WASPAS. The CRITIC method was used in this paper to objectively determine the weight of each criterion. A new approach is proposed to evaluate and select the best MCDM method. Indeed, we propose a method that computes the "average inter-item correlation SW”, a combination of the "average inter-item correlation” and the SW coefficient. This approach allows us to efficiently compute the correlation between a method and the set of methods while favoring the cells with the best ranking. A case study is presented to illustrate the MCDM approach to parking space allocation and evaluation. The proposed system provides drivers with services such as intelligent parking decisions, taking into account the human aspect while reducing energy consumption, driving time, and traffic congestion caused by searching for available parking spaces.

Simulating Scenarios to Evaluate Data Filtering Techniques for Mobile Users

Citizens are nowadays being flooded with huge amounts of information, which will keep growing as the physical spaces become more intelligent, with the proliferation of sensors (e.g., pollution sensors, traffic sensors, etc.), mobile apps, and information services of different types (e.g., malls providing offers and other kinds of information to nearby customers). To actually become resilient modern citizens, people need to be able to handle all this highly-dynamic information and act upon it by taking suitable decisions. In this context, the development of suitable data management techniques to help citizens in their daily life plays a major role. Motivated by this, we focus on the design of novel data management techniques for mobile users (pedestrians) and for drivers, which are two key areas in the daily life of citizens. More specifically, we consider the problem of recommending relevant items to pedestrians (e.g., tourists) and the challenges of drivers when they try to find an available parking space. As evaluating data management strategies in a real environment in a large-scale is very challenging, in this paper we propose suitable simulation approaches that facilitate the evaluation task. Through simulations, we obtain some initial experimental results that show the additional difficulties that appear when we want to satisfy additional constraints such as the desire to minimize the risk of virus spread in a COVID-19 scenario. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Understanding the capacities of urban street spaces by mapping Melbourne's parklets

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many parklets have been deployed onto kerbside carparking spaces throughout Melbourne, Australia, by street-fronting hospitality businesses, to provide socially-distanced outdoor dining spaces. These temporary parklets provide useful indicators of the varying capacities of urban streets to support street life and commercial activity. By examining the distribution of Melbourne's parklets, this paper identifies numerous urban design factors that provide capacity for parklets, or inhibit them. The analysis shows parklets thrive on traditional, pedestrian-friendly shopping streets with narrow frontages and good access but low through-traffic. Car-dependent outer-suburban shopping streets and strip shopping centres also support numerous parklets. Key hindrances include commercial streets serving as arterial commuter routes and streets that already have extensive traffic-calming features. Minor side streets can provide parklet capacity, but many design conditions inhibit this. The paper challenges policy-makers, planners and designers to address a variety of impediments to creating more pedestrian-friendly street environments. © 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Finding space for nature in cities: the considerable potential of redundant car parking

Nature-based solutions (NBS) are recognised as a means to address challenges such as heatwaves, flooding and biodiversity loss. Delivering these benefits at scale will require large areas of scarce urban land to be converted into green space. Here we show an approach by which cities can make substantial progress towards their sustainability targets using NBS, by converting redundant street parking into biodiverse green space. We demonstrate that up to half of street parking in our case study municipality (The City of Melbourne) could be accommodated in garages within 200 m, freeing up large areas for greening. Our modelling projects significant benefits in terms of tree canopy over, stormwater and ecological connectivity. These would represent strong progress towards a number of the city’s ambitious NBS targets. As many cities allocate extensive areas to both street parking and off-street garages, this approach to freeing up space for nature in cities is widely applicable.

Multicriteria Model for Shared Parking and Parking Route Recommender Systems

In many congested areas, shared parking has gotten increasing attention because of its potential to alleviate parking resource shortages. However, managing parking resources remains a challenge when simultaneously considering multiple decision-making criteria of public travelers in allocating parking spaces and recommending optimal parking routes. To fill this gap, from four perspectives, i.e., driving, among shared parking lots, at a shared parking lot, between shared parking spaces and destinations, we proposed nine criteria for shared parking space allocations and parking route recommendations, and we also gave the quantitative models for different criteria. Furthermore, an analytic hierarchy process Entropy-TOPSIS grey relational analysis (AHP-Entropy-TOPSIS-GRA) method and an improved ant colony algorithm were proposed to solve the proposed allocation of parking spaces and recommend optimal parking routes, respectively. Finally, the validity of our proposed models and algorithms was tested by empirical parking data and road traffic data collected in Huai’an City, Jiangsu province, China. The research helps provide a theoretical foundation for implementing shared parking initiatives and improving public travelers’ parking satisfaction.

Concrete and void: Understanding the acoustics of a parking garage

The COVID-19 pandemic has converted musicians at all levels of professional accomplishment into improvising buskers, brocantuers of stray sound in ad-hoc market-places. Lacking the resources to design and build new open-air venues quickly, and facing the possibility of putting group music-making activity on hold, musicians have instead repurposed available spaces. In particular, the pandemic forced the first author’s university orchestra from their dedicated performance space into a nearby parking garage. It performed unexpectedly well as a space for acoustic music, in spite of its singular brutalist material and large voids to the outside air. This study, undertaken by the conductor and an acoustician, draws insight from acoustic measurements and wave-based simulations in an attempt to unravel why a space designed for the limited function of supporting cars could give a respectable acoustic showing. The satisfying nature of the shared group experience may compel a widening of our perception of what constitutes an appropriate space for acoustic music making, and a reimagining of the historical line between outdoor and indoor music. © 2022 Acoustical Society of America.

Call for Data-ITE Parking Generation Manual, 6th Edition

The Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) has initiated the process of developing the 6th Edition of its widely used informational report, Parking Generation Manual, for release in the second half of 2023. In addition to a continuous, multi-hour count of vehicle parking demand, ITE needs a complete description of the site characteristics (i.e., gross square footage, number of dwelling units, parking supply, parking cost) and its setting (street address is preferable, from which ITE can classify the site as general urban/suburban, dense multi-use urban, center city core, rural, or some other classification). To ensure data are considered for inclusion in the 6th Edition of Parking Generation, please submit by January 31,2023, to Lisa Fontana Tierney, Traffic Engineering Senior Director, ITE, 1627 Eye Street, NW, Suite 550, Washington, DC 20006 USA or lfontana@ite.org. itej

Public Acceptability of Environmentally Linked Congestion and Parking Charging Policies in Greek Urban Centers

Nowadays, urban centers face the challenge to upgrade life quality by reducing traffic congestion, air pollution emissions and road casualties. Transport charging policies applied in cities at a quick pace are a key tool for sustainable mobility. However, public acceptability is an important precondition to be adopted for such policies. In this context, the scope of this paper is the investigation of the public acceptability of environmentally linked urban charging policies in Greek urban centers. Specifically, the paper’s objective is the investigation of Greek drivers’ acceptability of the implementation of a congestion charging policy and a parking charging policy with the charging being adjusted according to the Euro class and technology of the vehicle in favor of less polluting cars. A structural equation model (SEM) was developed using data from a questionnaire survey which provided a sample encompassing 733 respondent drivers from three main urban centers of Greece: Athens, Thessaloniki and Volos. Several statistical relationships were detected and quantified correlating the two examined urban environmental charging policies with five latent unobserved variables. Based on the results, public acceptability of environmental congestion charging policies and the public acceptability of environmental parking charging policies were found to be positively correlated with each other, meaning that a driver who supports one environmentally linked transport charging policy is more likely to support the other one as well. The environmental sensitivity and high commuting profiles of drivers are influential factors that positively affect the acceptability of the two examined transport charging policies’ implementation in Greek urban centers. Analysis has also shown that younger, higher-educated respondents and females are more likely to accept the environmental charging policies under consideration.

A Tabu Search Algorithm for the Optimization of the Long Term Parking of Aircraft

The 2020 coronavirus pandemic lead to a virtual standstill of air passenger traffic in the spring of that same year. While some travel restrictions have since been lifted, passenger air travel is not expected to return to pre-coronavirus levels for several years. Then the question arises of how to park the large amounts of grounded aircraft efficiently, minimizing valuable airport space used. While aircraft parking for this purpose is a largely unexplored area in academic literature, the problem shows similarities with cutting and packing problems which have been researched for many years. Hence, the proposed model in the paper is modelled similar to that of the irregular strip packing model, where a fixed width is used and the length of the parking layout is to be minimized. Aircraft are represented as non-convex polygons and are allowed to rotate in discrete intervals. The concept of the no-fit polygon (NFP) is used in order to prevent overlap between aircraft. A tabu search algorithm with an adaptive tabu list is proposed in order to optimize the sequence and orientations in which the aircraft are placed onto the placement area using a bottom-left (BL) placement strategy. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm, several instances are created and tested using computational experiments. © 2022, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Inc, AIAA. All rights reserved.

Impact of COVID-19 on Urban Mobility and Parking Demand Distribution: A Global Review with Case Study in Melbourne, Australia.

The tremendous impact of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) on societal, political, and economic rhythms has given rise to a significant overall shift from pre- to post-pandemic policies. Restrictions, stay-at-home regulations, and lockdowns have directly influenced day-to-day urban transportation flow. The rise of door-to-door services and the demand for visiting medical facilities, grocery stores, and restaurants has had a significant impact on urban transportation modal demand, further impacting zonal parking demand distribution. This study reviews the overall impacts of the pandemic on urban transportation with respect to a variety of policy changes in different cities. The parking demand shift was investigated by exploring the during- and post-COVID-19 parking policies of distinct metropolises. The detailed data related to Melbourne city parking, generated by the Internet of things (IoT), such as sensors and devices, are examined. Empirical data from 2019 (16 March to 26 May) and 2020 (16 March to 26 May) are explored in-depth using explanatory data analysis to demonstrate the demand and average parking duration shifts from district to district. The results show that the experimental zones of Docklands, Queensbery, Southbanks, Titles, and Princess Theatre areas have experienced a decrease in percentage change of vehicle presence of 29.2%, 36.3%, 37.7%, 23.7% and 40.9%, respectively. Furthermore, on-street level analysis of Princess Theatre zone, Lonsdale Street, Exhibition Street, Spring Street, and Little Bourke Street parking bays indicated a decrease in percentage change of vehicle presence of 38.7%, 56.4%, 12.6%, and 35.1%, respectively. In conclusion, future potential policymaking frameworks are discussed that could provide further guidance in stipulating epidemic prevention and control policies, particularly in relation to parking regulations during the pandemic.

Determination of the Applicability of Free-Floating Bike Sharing (FFBS) in Manila as Response to Transportation Issues Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic

Limited transportation capacity and availability of PUVs are encountered daily in cities such as Manila due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Public bike-sharing like FFBS may ease these transport problems, although it is not known whether Manila is bike-friendly enough to accommodate the transport scheme. The study aims to investigate Manila through certain factors to determine the applicability of FFBS in the city. Field data collection on existing bikeways and potential bike parking, a survey on commuters in the city, and document review on legal documents was done to get an in-depth analysis regarding bike facilities, government involvement, user behavior, and expected demand for FFBS in Manila. Findings show that LOS of investigated roads and bikeways were mostly between B to C (VCR of 0.20–0.69) and at B (ave. bike speed of 15–22 kph) respectively, suitable bike parking exists along at least one side of the investigated roads, the government enabled bikeways to be set up and more are expected in the future, there is high probability of positive user behavior towards dockless bikes (Likert Scale mean above 4.0), and most of the response (75%) regarding demand leans towards agreeing to avail FFBS services. FFBS was concluded to be an applicable transport scheme in Manila. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

Cycling Infrastructure for All EPACs Included?

A modal shift to electric pedal-assisted cycles (EPACs) can help with reaching the transport emission goals of the European Green Deal. With the rising sales of EPACs in Europe, a lack of appropriate (electric) cycling infrastructure remains a major barrier for many potential users. This paper discusses the results of a survey about the requirements of (potential) cyclists to design a better cycling infrastructure. The differences in requirements for non-cyclists vs. cyclists and electric cyclists vs. conventional cyclists are discussed using statistical analysis. The key findings are that cyclists and non-cyclists both require wide quality cycling infrastructure with safe crossing points, secure bicycle parking and smart traffic lights. Non-cyclists’ requirements significantly differ from cyclists’ on 12 items, of which rain cover while cycling and parking spots for the car are the most noteworthy. There is (but) one significant difference between the requirements of EPAC users and conventional cyclists: the need for charging points for EPACs along the cycle route.

Flexible design of Park-and-Ride facility in the city center proximity

The problem of the proper functioning of Park-and-Ride facilities seems to be of key importance for ensuring appropriate transport in cities in which the intensity of road traffic is systematically increasing, together with the increase of environmental pollution (air pollution, noise etc.). The attractiveness of a car park of this kind seems obvious – instead of a burdensome journey in one’s own car, one changes the vehicle to fast municipal public transport or another means of transport (a bike, a scooter), or reaches the destination on foot. This results in benefits – above all in terms of comfort (shortening the time of the journey), health advantages etc. As has been proven by experiments, facilities of this kind are an expensive investment, the location of which (e.g. stand-alone) does not always ensure full utilization. The concept presented in the article assumes the possibility of a gradual extension of the multistorey car park following the increase of the demand. The article attempted to demonstrate that one of the sources of increasing attractiveness is the appropriate location (guaranteeing easy commute to the car park), the possibilities to continue the journey in an attractive way, then increasing the attractiveness through the possibility to use various services (shopping, the gym, the swimming pool, cinema, restaurants) and thirdly: the plan of launching the car park and its utilization in the life cycle should ensure the possibility of flexible reacting to changes of the demand (the experiences of the ongoing pandemic indicate that there is no guarantee of ensuring systematic demand increase). An element which also seems significant is the limitation of costs in the initial stage of investments of this kind with the possibility of gradual extension following the change of user habits.