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We propose a conceptual framework for understanding the complex nature of the correlation between the living environment and intravillage activity-travel. Based on participant observations of 146 villages (2317 rural residents) in Guangdong, China, we find that the rural built environment is predominantly organised by the gemeinschaft cultural environment in which people locate their homes near ancestral halls to maintain the bonds with those who are identified as the Us and to separate themselves from the Other. Together with the impact of the social environment which brings about a dispersed distribution of household farmlands, the phenomenon of home-farmland separation is pervasive. Several transport-related issues are engendered from the rural living environment: (a) distorted time-space for other activities that improve rural residents' quality of life; (b) land abandonment due to unwillingness to travel; and (c) extreme social exclusivity in relation to the Other. • Participant observation of 2317 rural residents in 146 villages in Guangdong. • The rural built environment spatially embodies and shapes the gemeinschaft. • Homes are located to maintain the ties with the Us and exclude the Other. • Home-farmland separation leads to long-time travel. • The rural living environment is more socially exclusive than the urban one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the determinants of elderly people's public transport usage patterns can offer new insights into elderly mobility issues and provide policy implications for planning toward an aging-friendly and sustainable city. However, few studies have examined the impact of the built environment on the trip time of the elderly using big data. Moreover, the elderly's trip time has been mostly investigated by the multivariate linear regression model (MLR), ignoring the non-linear association between explanatory variables and trip time. Using smart card data from Nanjing in 2019, this study employs a gradient boosting regression trees (GBRT) model to probe into the correlations between the built environment and the elderly's trip time. The results show that significant non-linear relationships exist between trip time and the selected explanatory variables, which cannot be captured by the MLR model. It suggests that relevant policy implementations should be carried out in conjunction with the elderly's travel environment by regarding their threshold effects. Besides, interaction effects of spatial attributes on trip time are identified in our study. For example, elderly people living in the exurban area are more likely to take long-distance metro travel for their physical exercise. These findings demonstrate that planners and policymakers should not only consider one single built-environment factor, but also the interactions of various factors to enhance elderly mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Network morphological analysis has emerged as a tool to quantify street network structures, providing a nuanced foundation for evaluating their impacts on traffic safety. Yet, there is a lack of disaggregate-level evidence on the spillover effects and spatial heterogeneity of these impacts. This research conducts a comprehensive, disaggregate-level, multi-scale examination on the overall impacts of street network morphologies on traffic safety. Our study focuses on the frequency of traffic injury collisions over a five-year period across more than 190,000 street links in Greater London. We characterise street-link morphologies at local (0–1 km), meso (0–3 km), and city (0–8 km) scales using a spatial design network analysis. For each spatial scale, we apply extended auto-negative binomial models to examine the overall impact of street-link morphological characteristics on the injury collision frequency, considering both the link being investigated and other surrounding links determined by the spatial scale. We find significant spatial heterogeneity in the overall safety impacts of street-link morphologies. At the local scale, higher farness of a street link corresponds to an overall increase in injury collisions, whereas at the meso and city scales, it indicates an overall decrease. At the local and meso scales, higher betweenness of a street link is associated with an overall increase in injury collisions, but at the city scale, it correlates with an overall decrease. Independent of the spatial scale, a larger diversion ratio of a street link is linked to an overall decrease in injury collisions. These findings are similar to those on killed and seriously injured-only collisions. Our findings suggest that encouraging compact street network structures, which aligns well with New Urbanism and the Compact City policy, may not necessarily be effective for an overall reduction in injury collisions across an entire city. • We examine the overall impacts of street network morphologies at the street-link level on injury collision frequency. • The overall impact of street-link morphologies on traffic safety presents spatial heterogeneity. • Promoting compact street network designs may not be effective for an overall reduction in collisions across an entire city. • We reflect on the limitations of New Urbanism planning and Compact City policy in ensuring traffic safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the spatiotemporal variation of high-efficiency ride-hailing orders (HROs) is helpful for transportation network companies (TNCs) to balance the income of drivers through reasonable order dispatch, and to alleviate the imbalance between supply and demand by improving the pricing mechanism, so as to promote the sustainable and healthy development of the ride-hailing industry and urban transportation. From the perspective of TNCs for order management, this study investigates the spatiotemporal variation of HROs and common ride-hailing orders (CROs) for ride-hailing services using the trip data of Didi Chuxing in Haikou, China. Ordinary least squares (OLS) and geographically weighted regression (GWR) models are established to examine the factors that affect the densities of HROs and CROs during different time periods, such as morning, evening, afternoon and night, with considering various built environment variables. The OLS models show that factors including road density, average travel time rate, companies and enterprises and transportation facilities have significant impacts on HROs and CROs for most periods. The results of the GWR models are consistent with the global regression results and show the local effects of the built environment on HROs and CROs in different regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Ridesplitting adoption rate (RAR) presents spatial heterogeneity across regions. • Factors affecting the RAR during different time periods are examined. • Subway station density is positive with the RAR in the southern area. • Potential substitutive and complementary effects between ridesplitting and transit. • Percent zero-vehicle households is negative with the RAR for most regions. Ridesplitting, a form of ride-hailing service where passengers with similar travel routes are matched to the same driver, can reduce the negative effects of solo ride-hailing trips and bring various environmental and social benefits. However, limited efforts were made to examine the spatial variation of ridesplitting trips, which was not conducive to the formulation of ridesplitting policies. To fill the gap, this work investigates the spatial variation of ridesplitting adoption rate (the proportion of ride-hailing trips with shared trip authorized, RAR) and its association with built environment and socio-economic factors at the census tract level, using the ride-hailing trip data in Chicago. To addressing the spatial heterogeneity, geographically weighted regression models are established to detect the factors influencing the RAR during different time periods, such as weekday, weekend, weekday morning peak and evening peak. Modeling results show that GWR models outperform the traditional global models in terms of model fit. The census tract level factors including subway station density, frequency of transit, land use mix, homicide density, percent female, the share of nonwhite, and percent zero-vehicle households have impacts on RAR, and the coefficient estimates of each explanatory variable vary across regions. The research results can help urban planners and transportation network companies develop refined policies to promote shared ride-hailing trips. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Travel burden on rural residents is an important theme in transport geography. However, the empirical evidence for this remains scarce. This paper aims to shed light on rural travel burden by examining the relationship between the rural built environment and villagers' travel burden, as measured by the time and money spent on essential and regional trips. A national survey of rural residents in 287 villages across China is analysed. The results show that residents living in rural areas are more likely to be faced with travel burden than are urban residents when accessing livelihood opportunities in local rural settlements and regional urban centres. The built environment attributes are significantly correlated with residents' travel burden. Specifically, the distance from the village to the destination has the strongest relationship with essential trips compared with other built environment variables. Villagers tend to incur higher time costs for an essential or regional trip when paved roads, bus stations and high-quality roads are less accessible. Bus transfer times from the village to the town centre, the population density, and the accessibility of local facilities also show significantly correlation with villagers' travel cost. Moreover, those residents who are elderly, low-income, or have a physical disability are more likely to suffer from high travel burden. The findings will enhance our understanding of the role of land use and transport policies in releasing villagers' travel burden to achieve sustainable transport development in rural contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]