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Does active transport lead to improved mood and performance? A panel study of travel changes during the Covid-19 lockdown in Norway
No full textPublished by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).Everyday commuting is seen as a burden and an unwanted necessity for people. Recent studies have challenged this notion and have found that certain aspects of commuting can be positive. In particular, research has shown that active commuting can be an important source of everyday physical activity and a pause between arenas for daily routine. The current study uses the Covid-19 lockdown situation in Norway, and the associated travel restrictions, as a backdrop to study the relationship between active travel and self-reported mood and work performance. In a situation where people are strongly encouraged to take up active mobility forms in place of more passive forms, the often-encountered challenge of self-selection is reduced. A convenience sample was recruited via social media (N=1319) in May 2020 and completed a total of six follow-up surveys over a period of four months, thus allowing for a panel design as well as a within-subjects comparison. The survey covered topics related to commute mode, experience of travel, current mood, and work performance. Background variables related to personality, general wellbeing as well as sociodemographic measures were also captured. Multivariate models show that those who during this period commute with active modes (walking and cycling) report a higher degree of travel satisfaction than users of passive modes (driving and public transport). Further, active modes are associated with being in a better mood, and with reporting higher work performance. Finally, looking at individuals who over time change travel mode (N= 151), we find that they report improved mood and work performance when travelling with active vs. passive modes. The results have implications for policy makers and for employers looking for justification to spend company money on measures to increase active travel.Does active transport lead to improved mood and performance? A panel study of travel changes during the Covid-19 lockdown in NorwaypublishedVersio
Replacing Home Deliveries by Deliveries to Parcel Lockers: Cost, Traffic, Emissions, and Societal Cost Effects of Locker Network Expansions in Greater Oslo
Full text linkPinchasik, D. R., Hovi, I. B., & Dong, B. (2023). Replacing home deliveries by deliveries to parcel lockers: cost, traffic, emissions, and societal cost effects of locker network expansions in greater Oslo. International Journal of Logistics Research and Applications, 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/13675567.2023.2286006This study assesses the effects of using parcel lockers as an alternative to home deliveries, combined with different locker network expansions. We use empirical shipment data and real-world routing optimisation procedures to demonstrate that increased parcel locker use can reduce logistics costs, traffic, and emissions from last-mile distribution of a logistics service provider. Unlike many existing studies, we also comprehensively estimate overall societal effects, including recipients’ pick-up trips, using detailed travel behaviour data. For society overall, we find a robust and considerable potential for CO2 reductions (13–32 percent) by replacing home deliveries with parcel locker deliveries, even under conservative assumptions on travel modes and pick-up trips. Similarly, we find reductions in external (societal) damage costs, driven by reduced traffic. We further highlight several important dynamics between network expansion strategies, recipient coverage, last-mile efficiency, and pick-up trips, that are highly relevant for the decision-making of logistics service providers and policy-makers.Replacing Home Deliveries by Deliveries to Parcel Lockers: Cost, Traffic, Emissions, and Societal Cost Effects of Locker Network Expansions in Greater OsloacceptedVersio
Network design with route planning for battery electric high-speed passenger vessel services
No full textHåkon Furnes Havre, Ulrik Lien, Mattias Myklebust Ness, Kjetil Fagerholt, Kenneth Løvold Rødseth, Network design with route planning for battery electric high-speed passenger vessel services, European Journal of Operational Research, Volume 315, Issue 1, 2024, Pages 102-119, ISSN 0377-2217, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejor.2023.11.015.This paper studies the Zero Emission passenger Vessel Service Network Design Problem (ZEVSNDP) in order to investigate how technical and economic challenges related to diffusion of battery electric vessels can be alleviated by appropriate planning of services. The ZEVSNDP considers decisions that are strategic (i.e., vessel fleet and charging locations), tactical (i.e., routes, whether to omit servicing ports, fleet deployment, and operating frequencies), as well as operational (i.e., passenger flow, sailing speeds, and scheduling decisions). A novel Mixed Integer Programming (MIP) model considering operator and passenger costs is proposed for the ZEVSNDP. Since the MIP model cannot be solved to optimality by a commercial solver except for tiny instances, we implement a heuristic Decomposition Based (DB) solution method. The DB solution method is applied to a real complex passenger vessel service in Florø, Norway, as well as two other test instances focusing on short-range transport and dense markets, respectively. Except for the short-range test instance, abatement costs (i.e., the costs of removing emissions by introducing battery electric vessels) are found to be significant. This is attributed to limited reach and time used for charging of battery electric vessels. Routes should consequently accommodate range limitations: omitting ports from the current route can be a cost-effective strategy when the cost of alternative transport for the passengers is moderate.Network design with route planning for battery electric high-speed passenger vessel servicespublishedVersio
Optimal planning of an urban ferry service operated with zero emission technology
No full textKenneth Løvold Rødseth, Kjetil Fagerholt, Stef Proost, Optimal planning of an urban ferry service operated with zero emission technology, Maritime Transport Research, Volume 5, 2023, 100100, ISSN 2666-822X, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.martra.2023.100100.While passenger-only ferries can be an effective instrument in mitigating road congestion in urban areas, they are among the most polluting modes of transportation. This paper studies technical and economic feasibilities of a battery-powered high-speed ferry service in Oslo, Norway. An urban ferry planner problem that minimizes ferry operator and passenger costs and external costs of road transport subject to strategic (fleet selection and infrastructure location), tactical (service frequency) and operational (vessel speed) decisions is proposed. While the results show that zero emission technologies can pass the cost-benefit test for a short-range service, competitiveness hinges on energy costs and capacities and on the performance of the existing service. Counterfactual scenarios show substantial cost reductions from altering the current ferry route. Anticipated increase in external costs of road transport from closing the ferry service is also much smaller than the system costs of maintaining the urban ferry connection.Optimal planning of an urban ferry service operated with zero emission technologypublishedVersio
E-scooter riders and pedestrians: Attitudes and interactions in five countries
No full textMatúš Šucha, Elisabeta Drimlová, Karel Rečka, Narelle Haworth, Katrine Karlsen, Aslak Fyhri, Pontus Wallgren, Peter Silverans, Freya Slootmans, E-scooter riders and pedestrians: Attitudes and interactions in five countries, Heliyon, Volume 9, Issue 4, 2023, e15449, ISSN 2405-8440, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e15449.Electric scooters (e-scooters) have become a popular phenomenon internationally; however, their use has raised concerns about pedestrian safety. This study describes the possible effects of the emergence of e-scooters on pedestrians. We focus on the interaction, conflicts, crashes, and attitudes between pedestrians and e-scooter riders and pedestrians' perceived safety in the presence of e-scooters. Data were collected from e-scooter riders and non-riders (n = 3385) through an online survey in Australia, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Norway, and Sweden. Around 20–30% of e-scooter riders rode on sidewalks, whether it is allowed or not. Non-riders of e-scooters tended to report that riding an e-scooter is rather dangerous. Pedestrians, except Australian ones, perceived e-scooter riders (and e-scooter operation) as annoying. Half of the e-scooter riders had experienced a near miss at some point in the past and more than 50% of these near misses included another road user. Up to 10% of the e-scooter riders from all five countries reported having experienced a crash. On the basis of these findings, we believe that the most relevant suggestions for the implications in sustainable (urban) mobility involve separating e-scooter riders and pedestrians.Ministerstvo Školství, Mládeže a TělovýchovypublishedVersio
What would a road safety policy fully consistent with safe system principles mean for road safety?
No full textRune Elvik, What would a road safety policy fully consistent with safe system principles mean for road safety?, Accident Analysis & Prevention, Volume 193, 2023, 107336, ISSN 0001-4575, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2023.107336.If fully implemented, the Safe System principles as formulated by the International Transport Forum would lead to a considerably safer road transport system. The aims of this paper are: (1) To define operationally what full consistency with Safe System principles means; (2) To estimate the potential effects on traffic fatalities of full compliance with the Safe System principles. Operational definitions of full consistency with Safe System principles are proposed for speed limits, road design, road maintenance, vehicle safety and road user compliance with road traffic law. Estimates for Norway indicate that by complying perfectly with Safe System principles in all these areas, the number of fatalities could be reduced by 50–70 %. This is a conservative estimate. This shows that the Safe System principles are well justified scientifically: adhering to them would greatly improve road safety. However, currently road safety policy in many countries, including Norway, fails to realise these improvements in safety by not complying with the Safe System principles.What would a road safety policy fully consistent with safe system principles mean for road safety?publishedVersio
The relative effectiveness of overlapping international institutions: European Union versus United Nations regulations of air pollution
Full text linkTveit, A. K., & Tørstad, V. (2023). The relative effectiveness of overlapping international institutions: European Union versus United Nations regulations of air pollution. International Political Science Review 2024 45:4, 441-454. https://doi.org/10.1177/01925121221145496Which types of international institutions display higher ability to change states’ behaviour? This article assesses the relative environmental effectiveness of a management-based (‘soft’) and an enforcement-based (‘hard’) international agreement: the United Nations Sofia Protocol and a European Union directive. Using difference-in-differences analysis, we find that the European Union directive is more effective in inducing emissions reductions than the United Nation’s Sofia Protocol. We propose that the European Union’s enforcement capacity is a likely driver of the directive’s effectiveness. The article makes two contributions to existing literature. First, we provide causal evidence on the relative importance of overlapping international institutions in regulating environmental policy outcomes, elucidating how an apparent emissions-reducing effect of a ‘soft’ United Nations Protocol is in fact driven by the existence of overlapping ‘hard’ European Union regulation. Second, we demonstrate how states’ enthusiasm for emissions regulations can explain the relative effectiveness of soft and hard law institutions.The relative effectiveness of overlapping international institutions: European Union versus United Nations regulations of air pollutionpublishedVersio
The LEVITATE Policy Support Tool of Connected and Automated Transport Systems
Full text linkAll rights are reserved, including those for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies. For all open access content, the relevant licensing terms apply.Rapid technological advances leave limited margins for the preparation of cities to receive Connected, Cooperative and Automated Mobility (CCAM). The LEVITATE project endeavours to develop an open access web-based Policy Support Tool (PST), that will provide decision makers at all levels with access to LEVITATE methodologies and results. The aim of the PST is to consolidate the outputs of different methods into an overall framework for the assessment of impacts, benefits and costs of CCAM, for different automation and penetration levels and on different time horizons. The PST comprises two modules: the Knowledge and the Estimator module, which includes a forecasting and a backcasting sub-system. The present research provides an insight of the PST, by presenting the studied automation use cases, parameters and impacts of CCAM, the applied methodologies and the online tool.The LEVITATE Policy Support Tool of Connected and Automated Transport SystemspublishedVersio
Kan regional utdanning hjelpe mot sentralisering?
Full text linkHalvparten av befolkningsveksten de siste 25 årene har skjedd i Oslo og Viken. Det er neppe en politisk ønsket utvikling. For å motvirke utviklingen har flere offentlige ekspertutvalg foreslått å desentralisere høyere utdanning. Vi analyserer to tiltak og drøfter mekanismene de skaper. Tiltakene sammenliknes med en referansebane som ser på regionale virkninger av Perspektivmeldingens forutsetninger. Referansebanen kan ha selvstendig interesse. Den gir ytterligere vekst i Oslo og Viken.Kan regional utdanning hjelpe mot sentralisering?publishedVersio
Digitalization of public sector organizations over time: The applicability of quantitative text analysis
No full textFossheim, K., & Lund-Tønnesen, J. (2024). Digitalization of public sector organizations over time: The applicability of quantitative text analysis. International Review of Administrative Sciences, 90(2), 318-335. https://doi.org/10.1177/00208523231183569In recent decades, public organizations have undergone significant changes related to digitalization. These changes are the result of multiple, varying influences, such as external institutional feedback. The issue of digitalization feedback development in public organizations opens the discussion on how to study digitalization over time. In this article, we consider whether the method of quantitative text analysis can be used to observe the same administrative trends in digitalization as found using other methods and data sources in existing research. After conducting a co-occurrence analysis of documents from the Norwegian Customs Agency (NCA) over a period of 20 years, we found that the NCA's digitalization-related language changed in this period and that user feedback was the most frequently emphasized kind of external feedback. These observations are consistent with the literature, which shows that the use of co-occurrence methodology to study public administration has a positive role in future research.acceptedVersio