RESUMEN
BACKGROUND: GP trainees may not have experienced a systematic and comprehensive education in safe prescribing. Therefore, a self-assessment prescribing review was developed. AIM: To determine whether the assessment was feasible, had face validity, and did not disadvantage particular groups of participants. DESIGN & SETTING: An online survey that evaluates the opinions of GPs in training of a prescribing assessment in the UK. All full-time UK trainees who started their final year of GP training in August 2019 undertook the prescribing assessment along with their trainers, after which they completed an online anonymous feedback questionnaire. METHOD: The questionnaire completed by trainees sought their opinions of the assessment, and collected ethnicity and disability data. The trainer questionnaire was similar but did not include any demographic information. RESULTS: The questionnaire was completed by 1741 trainees and 1576 trainers. There was no evidence that ethnic group and disability were related to aspects of the review. Most of the trainees (76.4%, n = 1330) and trainers (82.0%, n = 1293) agreed or strongly agreed that the prescribing review was helpful for assessing and learning about the trainee's prescribing. However, most participants (63.2%, n = 1092) took >4 hours to review their prescriptions. A majority of trainees (90.2%, n = 1571) reported that completing the assessment had resulted in a change in their prescribing practice. CONCLUSION: The majority of trainers and trainees reported that the prescribing assessment was helpful. The study was not able to assess whether there had been an actual change in practice that resulted in an error reduction.
RESUMEN
Since the coronavirus pandemic hit in early 2020 many workers around the world, that can, have begun to work remotely. Many studies have been completed on the success or otherwise of this new trend in remote working and postulate that this trend will continue beyond the pandemic. One of the other trends that has been spoken about significantly with this renewed interest in remote working is the development of remote working hubs (RWHs). These are locations outside of main cities that are used by workers from different companies to work remotely in a flexible way. The research conducted in this paper examines several of these RWHs that are located on the periphery of Dublin city centre. The motivation for the research was to establish the potential emissions and travel time savings for commuters using RWHs. The study collected survey data from 514 participants that are currently using RWHs and questioned them on their travel and work habits. The analysis showed that users of RWHs were driving on average 60 km less per day and the majority were able to depart for work later. In the sample, 34% would have driven to their normal place of work and whereas 12% drove to their RWH. The results also point to substantial travel time and emissions savings from using RWHs. The findings suggest that on average those that drive alone could save 1.126 tonnes of CO2 from working at a RWH 3 days a week for a year.
RESUMEN
COVID-19 has had a major impact on the transport systems around the world. Several transport-related policies were implemented in short period of time to contain the spread of the pandemic. These policies had a major influence on travel behavior and people's perception towards the safety of different modes of transport, especially public transport, thus affecting several sustainable mobility initiatives. To build a resilient and sustainable transport system and to rebuild trust in public transport, it is important to understand the role of mobility in the spread of COVID-19 pandemic. The present study investigates the relationship between mobility and reported COVID-19 infections using data from Dublin city. Different modes of transport including traffic volume, bus passengers, pedestrians and cyclists were considered in the study during a forty week period. Multiple scenarios involving two-week lag and three-week lag of mobility data and COVID-19 infections were considered in building statistical models. Results showed that, 36.2% of the reported COVID-19 infections after a two-week lag and 33% of the infections after a three-week lag. Our research examines the links between movements and COVID-19 numbers, but clearly this was not the only reason for increased case numbers as many other events impacted on increased numbers. The study further discusses the policy implications and strategies for ensuring a resilient and sustainable transport system.
RESUMEN
Surrogate measures of safety (SMoS) aims at road safety evaluation without depending on historical crash data. Existing studies have evaluated SMoS in traffic conditions having good lane discipline. However, in several traffic conditions vehicles do not follow good lane discipline resulting in high crash rates. Moreover, existing studies do not consider type of the vehicle explicitly while estimating conflicts. This study aims to address these gaps by proposing a generic methodology for safety evaluation applicable also in non-lane-based multi-class traffic conditions. It utilizes precise position of the vehicles and their widths to identify critical interactions between all types of vehicles. Conflicts are then estimated from these critical interactions using the modified time-to-collision (MTTC), an existing SMoS. The proposed methodology is evaluated in both lane-based as well as non-lane based traffic conditions. The former uses NGSIM trajectory data and compares the estimated conflicts with the literature. The latter, on the other hand, uses simulated vehicle trajectories from an expressway but compares the estimated conflicts with historical crash data. The results show that estimated conflicts exhibit significant temporal and spatial correlation with real crashes. It also shows the suitability of the methodology for diverse traffic conditions.
