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Sustainability
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Sustainable Mobility in Urban and Peri-Urban Areas
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Sustainable Mobility in Urban and Peri-Urban Areas

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Urban and Rural Development".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2023) | Viewed by 4259

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Pasquale Colonna

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Guest Editor
Department of Civil, Environmental, Land, Building Engineering and Chemistry, Polytechnic University of Bari, Bari, Italy
Interests: road safety, road design, tunnels, road works, mobility, driving behaviour
Dr. Vittorio Ranieri

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Guest Editor
Department of Civil, Environmental, Land, Building Engineering and Chemistry, Polytechnic University of Bari, Bari, Italy
Interests: road design; sustainable mobility; vulnerable users; cycling
Dr. Nicola Berloco

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Guest Editor
Department of Civil, Environmental, Land, Building Engineering and Chemistry, Polytechnic University of Bari, Bari, Italy
Interests: road design, sustainable mobility, vulnerable users, cycling
Dr. Paolo Intini

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Civil, Environmental, Land, Building Engineering and Chemistry, Polytechnic University of Bari, Bari, Italy
Interests: road safety, road design, driving behaviour, data analysis, traffic modelling

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Sustainable mobility in urban and peri-urban environments is enhanced using different types of interventions and transport policies, such as implementing traffic calming devices; defining appropriate regulations; building infrastructure for pedestrians, cyclists; public transport; and innovative/future mobility.

Research often focused on the effects of these interventions on mobility from a transport demand/supply perspective and on the environmental impacts. However, investigating the possible effects of traffic calming measures and infrastructure for non-motorized users using a macro-level systemic approach is important. This means considering safety and mobility aspects for all road users and the necessary trade-offs that may occur (e.g., reducing the vehicular serviceability for promoting sustainable mobility and protecting vulnerable road users).

Safety conditions improve may after new policies and some general and specific measures are implemented in areas particularly unsafe for non-motorized users (e.g., 30 km/h speed zones with speed cushions and/or raised platforms). However, the safety issues may eventually migrate to nearby roadways deprived of these measures, since traffic volumes may relocate with the aim of keeping travel times constant. Drivers may show behavioral adaptation to specific measures, especially those familiar with the road environment, which are a large percentage of all drivers on urban and peri-urban roads.

For the reasons explained above, studies inquiring into those aspects are encouraged, in particular, those articles dealing with:

  • Traffic calming measures (physical interventions and/or general policies) at the area-wide level;
  • Combined effects of interventions for enhancing urban sustainable mobility both on safety and mobility;
  • Before/after or cross-sectional studies considering the implementation of one or more measures;
  • Interdisciplinary studies, considering both safety and mobility aspects, and/or the influence of human factors.

Experimental studies and theoretical frameworks relevant to the topic are both welcome.

Prof. Dr. Pasquale Colonna
Dr. Vittorio Ranieri
Dr. Nicola Berloco
Dr. Paolo Intini
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

  • Sustainable mobility 
  • Urban and peri-urban roads 
  • Traffic calming 
  • Vulnerable users 
  • Driving behavior

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

21 pages, 4240 KiB  
Article
Analysis of the Factors Influencing Speed Cushion Effectiveness in the Urban Context: A Case Study Experiment in the City of Bari, Italy
by Nicola Berloco, Stefano Coropulis, Giuseppe Garofalo, Paolo Intini and Vittorio Ranieri
Sustainability 2023, 15(8), 6352; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15086352 - 7 Apr 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1540
Abstract
The installation of Traffic-Calming Devices (TCDs) is an extremely valuable countermeasure to prevent vulnerable road users from fatalities in urban contexts. Among all the TCDs, Berlin Speed Cushions (BSCs) seem to be one of the most promising because they reduce speeds but do [...] Read more.
The installation of Traffic-Calming Devices (TCDs) is an extremely valuable countermeasure to prevent vulnerable road users from fatalities in urban contexts. Among all the TCDs, Berlin Speed Cushions (BSCs) seem to be one of the most promising because they reduce speeds but do not affect emergency vehicles. However, previous research on BSCs is limited and lacks some important aspects, such as the analysis of speeds at different distances from the cushion or the investigation of the influence of other context variables. In this study, BSCs of different lengths (2.20 m, 2.70 m, and 3.20 m) were deployed in the City of Bari on three roads belonging to the same area. To overcome the limitations of previous research, speeds were recorded using a laser-speed gun before and after the implementation of BSCs, in different conditions, in order to take into account the effect of the following factors: the time of day, day of the week, and average hourly traffic. An ANOVA analysis was performed, with speed as the dependent variable and the above-reported factors and the test road site (proxy variable for the cushion length) as factors, independently repeated for six distance ranges with respect to the cushion. The results reveal that speed evidently decreases immediately before (down to about 13 km/h) and after the cushion (down to about 12 km/h), time of the day is an important factor (speed decrease is much more evident during the morning than the evening), and the length of the cushion has some influence on speed decrease (the speed decrease is lower for the longest cushion). Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Mobility in Urban and Peri-Urban Areas)
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13 pages, 1906 KiB  
Article
Operational and Environmental Assessment of Weaving Section for Urban Roads: Case Study, Aljouf Region, KSA
by Abdelhalim Azam, Fayez Alanazi, Mohamed Ahmed Okail and Mohamed Ragab
Sustainability 2023, 15(5), 4275; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15054275 - 27 Feb 2023
Viewed by 1850
Abstract
The urban weaving sections are more complex due to the various disturbing elements within the weaving section, such as lane-change situations. These turbulences reduced road capacity and increased vehicle exhaust emissions. The Highway Capacity Manual (HCM 2010) has a methodology for the analysis [...] Read more.
The urban weaving sections are more complex due to the various disturbing elements within the weaving section, such as lane-change situations. These turbulences reduced road capacity and increased vehicle exhaust emissions. The Highway Capacity Manual (HCM 2010) has a methodology for the analysis of weaving sections for the free highways; the methodology for the analysis of urban roads is not investigated in the HCM. Therefore, the main objective of this research is to present a systematic analysis of the factors that could potentially affect the capacity and exhaust emissions of urban weaving sections. These factors include the main road traffic volume, the weaving section length (WL), the volume ratio (VR), and the percentage of heavy vehicles (HV%). Two weaving sections were selected in the Aljouf Region, KSA; the Sakakah–Dumat Al-Jandal road. The collected data were used in the development of microsimulation using VISSIM models. The results indicated that increasing the volume ratio and percentage of heavy vehicles caused a decrease in capacity and an increase in exhaust emissions. It was discovered that the increase of weaving length resulted in increasing the capacity. However, increasing the weaving length was not beneficial for reducing exhaust emissions. Finally, regression models were developed for capacity estimation and emissions prediction of urban weaving sections based on weaving length and volume ratio, resulting in relatively high R2 values. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Mobility in Urban and Peri-Urban Areas)
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