Community Transport's Dual Role as a Transport and a Social Scheme: Implications for Policy.

Community transport comprises diverse local, not-for-profit, and primarily volunteer-run transport schemes that operate across the United Kingdom. These schemes support the travel needs of thousands of people, most of whom are older, live in rural areas, and have few other transport options. Further, this transport sector is unique in that most schemes are designed, created, and run by older people themselves. And yet, community transport has thus far received relatively little attention in both policy and research. Using semi-structured interviews with community transport providers in Oxfordshire, this paper proposes community transport as a practice guided by phronesis and argues that it has been made to hold a dual role as both a transport and a social scheme. The transport it provides is unique in being made low-cost, flexible, and functionally accessible. It has also been made into a social scheme as it helps those with few other options, provides benefits that extend beyond the transport realm, and fosters community. Though this dual role means that community transport has many cross-sectoral benefits, this type of service provision is found to be overlooked in both national and local policy, which has enabled the constitutive role of phronesis in community transport. Given this, there are challenges ahead for the sector in both ensuring its sustainability and maintaining its ability to respond closely to users' needs.

Designing policy for Earth's urban future.

Global impacts of cities must be better conveyed to multilateral organizations.

The association between socioeconomic status and mobility reductions in the early stage of England's COVID-19 epidemic.

This study uses mobile phone data to examine how socioeconomic status was associated with the extent of mobility reduction during the spring 2020 lockdown in England in a manner that considers both potentially confounding effects and spatial dependency and heterogeneity. It shows that socioeconomic status as approximated through income and occupation was strongly correlated with the extent of mobility reduction. It also demonstrates that the specific nature of the association of socioeconomic status with mobility reduction varied markedly across England. Finally, the analysis suggests that the spatial differentiation in the ability to restrict everyday mobility in response to a national lockdown is an important topic for future research.

Pokémon GO and Physical Activity in Asia: Multilevel Study.

BACKGROUND: Physical activity has long been considered as an important component of a healthy lifestyle. Although many efforts have been made to promote physical activity, there is no effective global intervention for physical activity promotion. Some researchers have suggested that Pokémon GO, a location-based augmented reality game, was associated with a short-term increase in players' physical activity on a global scale, but the details are far from clear. OBJECTIVE: The objective of our study was to study the relationship between Pokémon GO use and players' physical activity and how the relationship varies across players with different physical activity levels. METHODS: We conducted a field study in Hong Kong to investigate if Pokémon GO use was associated with physical activity. Pokémon GO players were asked to report their demographics through a survey; data on their Pokémon GO behaviors and daily walking and running distances were collected from their mobile phones. Participants (n=210) were Hong Kong residents, aged 13 to 65 years, who played Pokémon GO using iPhone 5 or 6 series in 5 selected types of built environment. We measured the participants' average daily walking and running distances over a period of 35 days, from 14 days before to 21 days after game installation. Multilevel modeling was used to identify and examine the predictors (including Pokémon GO behaviors, weather, demographics, and built environment) of the relationship between Pokémon GO use and daily walking and running distances. RESULTS: The average daily walking and running distances increased by 18.1% (0.96 km, approximately 1200 steps) in the 21 days after the participants installed Pokémon GO compared with the average distances over the 14 days before installation (P<.001). However, this association attenuated over time and was estimated to disappear 24 days after game installation. Multilevel models indicated that Pokémon GO had a stronger and more lasting association among the less physically active players compared with the physically active ones (P<.001). Playing Pokémon GO in green space had a significant positive relationship with daily walking and running distances (P=.03). Moreover, our results showed that whether Pokémon GO was played, the number of days played, weather (total rainfall, bright sunshine, mean air temperature, and mean wind speed), and demographics (age, gender, income, education, and body mass index) were associated with daily walking and running distances. CONCLUSIONS: Pokémon GO was associated with a short-term increase in the players' daily walking and running distances; this association was especially strong among less physically active participants. Pokémon GO can build new links between humans and green space and encourage people to engage in physical activity. Our results show that location-based augmented reality games, such as Pokémon GO, have the potential to be a global public health intervention tool.

Contrasts in active transport behaviour across four countries: how do they translate into public health benefits?

OBJECTIVE: Countries and regions vary substantially in transport related physical activity that people gain from walking and cycling and in how this varies by age and gender. This study aims to quantify the population health impacts of differences between four settings. METHOD: The Integrated Transport and Health Model (ITHIM) was used to estimate health impacts from changes to physical activity that would arise if adults in urban areas in England and Wales adopted travel patterns of Switzerland, the Netherlands, and California. The model was parameterised with data from travel surveys from each setting and estimated using Monte Carlo simulation. Two types of scenarios were created, one in which the total travel time budget was assumed to be fixed and one where total travel times varied. RESULTS: Substantial population health benefits would accrue if people in England and Wales gained as much transport related physical activity as people in Switzerland or the Netherlands, whilst smaller but still considerable harms would occur if active travel fell to the level seen in California. The benefits from achieving the travel patterns of the high cycling Netherlands or high walking Switzerland were similar. CONCLUSION: Differences between high income countries in how people travel have important implications for population health.