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Service Quality in Public Transport Systems and Personal Mobility Vehicles

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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Transportation".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (1 February 2022) | Viewed by 21327

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Benedetto Barabino

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Guest Editor

Department of Civil Engineering, Architecture, Land, Environment and Mathematics, University of Brescia, 25121 Brescia, BS, Italy
Interests: advanced public transportation systems; quality of service; fare evasion in public transport; public transport network design
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Cristian Lai

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Guest Editor

Division of Information Society, Centro di Ricerca, Sviluppo e Studi Superiori in Sardegna, 09010 Pula CA, Italy
Interests: information retrieval; Semantic Web; Linked Open Data (LOD); analytics; artificial intelligence; intelligent transportation systems

Prof. Dr. Giulio Maternini

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Guest Editor

Department of Civil Engineering, Architecture, Land, Environment and Mathematics, University of Brescia, 25121 Brescia, BS, Italy
Interests: urban space and mobility; road and public transport; road safety; quality of service; personal vehicle mobility
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Many people spend much of their time traveling on public transport, widely considered a sustainable form of mobility. Several factors contribute to improving public transport service quality, such as reliability, waiting time, frequency. Moreover, many tools, such as automatic vehicle location, automatic passenger counting, and automatic fare collection systems, are growing in the transit market to collect data at a low cost for the sustainable management of public transport. Furthermore, new mobility forms such as personal mobility vehicles (e.g., leg-kick, segway, hoverboard, monowheel) are quickly emerging to be integrated with public transport. In this context, public and private mobility operators are eager to collaborate to improve new transit modes using emerging approaches and technologies. In recent years, many business models have appeared to provide mobility and related information services, including new public–private partnerships.

This Special Issue intends to provide a more interactive and focused platform for researchers and practitioners to present and discuss new and emerging ideas. It is focused on researching and studying new challenges in transit service quality. More precisely, the Special Issue aims to investigate novel models, methods, systems, and tools to characterize, develop, measure, and monitor transit service quality. The Special Issue will contribute to discuss and compare suitable novel solutions based on intelligent techniques and possibly applied in real-world environments.

Dr. Benedetto Barabino
Dr. Cristian Lai
Prof. Dr. Giulio Maternini
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

Transit services
Personal mobility vehicles
Automatic fare collection
Automatic passenger counting
Automatic vehicle location
Mobile devices and applications
Cloud computing
Big data
Artificial intelligence
Web applications and tools

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

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18 pages, 4610 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Planning Suitable Transport Networks for E-Scooters to Foster Micromobility Spreading

by Martina Fazio, Nadia Giuffrida, Michela Le Pira, Giuseppe Inturri and Matteo Ignaccolo

Sustainability 2021, 13(20), 11422; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su132011422 - 15 Oct 2021

Cited by 19 | Viewed by 3754

Abstract

Micromobility has a high potential to change mobility habits towards the use of sustainable transport modes. The shared mobility paradigm encourages the development of new mobility services, such as bike and e-scooter sharing, potentially reducing the need of car ownership, enlarging the accessibility of public transport and enriching the transport options needed to exploit Mobility as a Service solutions. While bike-sharing services have been used in urban areas for many years, shared e-scooter services (and private e-scooters) have been spreading only in the last few years. Due to the novelty of this mode, few attempts have been made for proper micromobility network planning. This paper proposes a multicriteria GIS-based analysis aimed at planning priority networks for e-scooters, focusing on safety, transport and land use characteristics. The case study is Catania, a medium-sized city in southern Italy, which suffers from a lack of adequate infrastructures for such sustainable modes of transport. By applying the methodology, it is possible to prioritise the road network elements that better fit the needs of e-scooters, thus paving the way for suitable infrastructures and network planning. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Service Quality in Public Transport Systems and Personal Mobility Vehicles)

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18 pages, 6508 KiB

Open AccessArticle

15-Min Station: A Case Study in North Italy City to Evaluate the Livability of an Area

by Fabio Borghetti, Cristian Giovanni Colombo, Michela Longo, Renato Mazzoncini, Leonardo Cesarini, Luigi Contestabile and Claudio Somaschini

Sustainability 2021, 13(18), 10246; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su131810246 - 14 Sep 2021

Cited by 10 | Viewed by 2557

Abstract

The goal of this work is to apply the idea of the city in 15 min to railway stations that can become the starting point of the analysis as they represent the “gateway”, where users start their last mile of travel after getting off the train. Within the research, 11 railway stations located in the Lombardy Region in Italy were identified and analyzed. To perform the analysis, an analytical index was implemented and determined for each station: this index summarizes the main features of the station itself in relation to the territory in which it is located. The adopted approach is comparative: it is not important the absolute value of the index of each station, but the comparison between the different indices. In this way it is possible on the one hand to classify the stations and on the other hand to identify and propose possible interventions to improve the role of a railway station in a territory. The proposed model is expandable and replicable: it is possible to add other useful indicators for the calculation of the index of each station and it is also possible to perform the analysis in different territorial contexts. In fact, it is a decision support tool able to provide indications and information for the planning and programming of the railway system and of the city; among the potential users of the proposed model there are railway station managers and administrations. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Service Quality in Public Transport Systems and Personal Mobility Vehicles)

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22 pages, 2036 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Identifying and Selecting Key Sustainable Parameters for the Monitoring of e-Powered Micro Personal Mobility Vehicles. Evidence from Italy

by Elena Carrara, Rebecca Ciavarella, Stefania Boglietti, Martina Carra, Giulio Maternini and Benedetto Barabino

Sustainability 2021, 13(16), 9226; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su13169226 - 17 Aug 2021

Cited by 15 | Viewed by 2279

Abstract

The recent invasion of electric-powered personal mobility vehicles (e-PMVs) in many cities worldwide has disputed the transport sector and captured the attention of academics, practitioners, and public administrators. Indeed, these vehicles are believed to be sustainable transport alternatives. Therefore, understanding how to evaluate and monitor the related performance is crucial and may be addressed by suitable key sustainable parameters (KSPs) to inform on the excellences and criticalities of e-PMVs. Previous research has focused largely on “how to measure and manage” KSPs rather than “what to measure”. Conversely, as far as the authors know, no study investigated objective methods for identifying and selecting top KSPs. This paper covers this gap by proposing a cohesive approach, which identifies a long list of KSPs, defines their properties, involves experts to elicit judgments for each KSP, evaluates the long list, and returns the most promising set. This approach is demonstrated with an application based on an Italian survey. A circumscribed and relevant set of six overlapping KSPs is derived by merging two different approaches. These results may support the opportunity to assess the performance of e-PMVs among cities according to a common set of KSPs. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Service Quality in Public Transport Systems and Personal Mobility Vehicles)

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18 pages, 2176 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Does Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) Meet the Citizens’ Mobility Needs? Evaluating Performance for the Case of Multan, Pakistan

by Muhammad Nadeem, Muhammad Azam, Muhammad Asim, Muhammad Ahmad Al-Rashid, Othman Che Puan and Tiziana Campisi

Sustainability 2021, 13(13), 7314; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su13137314 - 30 Jun 2021

Cited by 17 | Viewed by 5041

Abstract

Bus rapid transit (BRT) has emerged as an efficient and cost-effective transport system for urban mobility that offers safe and high-quality transport services for city dwellers. Recent research has widely discussed BRT systems’ performance evaluation, but such assessments have remained limited in the South Asian context, where users’ needs might be distinct. The present study addresses this research gap and evaluates the performance of the BRT system in Multan, Pakistan, based on the passengers’ perceptions and the BRT standard scorecard. The data were collected at 21 BRT stations, and a face-to-face questionnaire survey was carried out with 420 users. The BRT standard scorecard method was also applied by conducting an observation survey and semi-structured interviews based on the aspects as specified by the Institute of Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP). The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software package was mainly utilised for data analysis. This research concluded that around 54% of passengers are highly satisfied and opted for BRT due to comfort. Cronbach’s Alpha reliability analysis concluded that most of the BRT stations possess the acceptable value (0.8 > α ≥ 0.7), with only six out of 21 stations categorised as unacceptable (α < 0.5). Multan BRT achieved overall 79 scores and classified as Silver-Standard BRT. The study suggests critical insights to improve the citizens’ mobility with the existing BRT system, serving as a benchmark for policymakers and transport planners. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Service Quality in Public Transport Systems and Personal Mobility Vehicles)

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Review

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34 pages, 2186 KiB

Open AccessEditor’s ChoiceReview

Survey on e-Powered Micro Personal Mobility Vehicles: Exploring Current Issues towards Future Developments

by Stefania Boglietti, Benedetto Barabino and Giulio Maternini

Sustainability 2021, 13(7), 3692; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su13073692 - 26 Mar 2021

Cited by 64 | Viewed by 6116

Abstract

Nowadays, the diffusion of electric-powered micro Personal Mobility Vehicles (e-PMVs) worldwide—i.e., e-bikes, e-scooters, and self-balancing vehicles—has disrupted the urban transport sector. Furthermore, this topic has captured many scholars and practitioners’ interest due to multiple issues related to their use. Over the past five years, there has been strong growth in the publication of e-PMV studies. This paper reviews the existing literature by identifying several issues on the impact that e-PMVs produce from different perspectives. More precisely, by using the PRIMA’s methodological approach and well-known scientific repositories (i.e., Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar), 90 studies between 2014 and 2020 were retrieved and analyzed. An overview and classification into endogenous issues (e.g., impact on transport and urban planning) and exogenous issues (e.g., impact on safety and the environment) are provided. While several issues are deeply investigated, the findings suggest that some others need many improvements. Therefore, the status quo of these studies is being assessed to support possible future developments. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Service Quality in Public Transport Systems and Personal Mobility Vehicles)

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