Children's active school transportation: an international scoping review of psychosocial factors.

BACKGROUND: Over the last decades, the prevalence of AST has decreased significantly. Barriers to active school transport (AST) have been extensively examined in the literature, while psychosocial factors that facilitate AST have received less attention. To our best knowledge, there are currently no reviews on this subject. Therefore, the objective of this review was to scope the literature and identify published research about psychosocial factors related to AST. METHODS: Systematic searches conducted in PubMed, Web of Science, TRID, Scopus, and ERIC resulted in a total of 1933 publications, and 77 of them were considered eligible for this review. RESULTS: The results of the included articles were categorised into four psychosocial factors: confidence in ability, attitudes, social support, and social norms, which were all generally positively related to AST, with a few exceptions. CONCLUSION: The findings of this review indicate that these psychosocial factors may be important to consider when developing interventions and highlight that both children and parents should be involved in the process. This knowledge can serve as a valuable guide for developing interventions to promote AST. However, the evidence base supporting these psychosocial factors requires further investigation to fully understand how and when to incorporate them to maximise AST efficacy.

Influence of pneumatic transportation on the stability of monoclonal antibodies.

Pneumatic transportation systems (PTS) were recently proposed as a method to carry ready-for-injection diluted monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) from the pharmacy to the bedside of patients. This method reduces transportation time and improves the efficiency of drug distribution process. However, mAbs are highly sensitive molecules for which subtle alterations may lead to deleterious clinical effects. These alterations can be caused by various external factors such as temperature, pH, pressure, and mechanical forces that may occur during transportation. Hence, it is essential to ensure that the mAbs transported by PTS remain stable and active throughout the transportation process. This study aims to determine the safety profile of PTS to transport 11 routinely used mAbs in a clinical setting through assessment of critical quality attributes (CQA) and orthogonal analysis. Hence, we performed aggregation/degradation profiling, post-translational modifications identification using complementary mass spectrometry-based methods, along with visible and subvisible particle formation determination by light absorbance and light obscuration analysis. Altogether, these results highlight that PTS can be safely used for this purpose when air is removed from the bags during preparation.

Social Distance Approximation on Public Transport Using Stereo Depth Camera and Passenger Pose Estimation.

In order to effectively balance enforced guidance/regulation during a pandemic and limit infection transmission, with the necessity for public transportation services to remain safe and operational, it is imperative to understand and monitor environmental conditions and typical behavioural patterns within such spaces. Social distancing ability on public transport as well as the use of advanced computer vision techniques to accurately measure this are explored in this paper. A low-cost depth-sensing system is deployed on a public bus as a means to approximate social distancing measures and study passenger habits in relation to social distancing. The results indicate that social distancing on this form of public transport is unlikely for an individual beyond a 28% occupancy threshold, with an 89% chance of being within 1-2 m from at least one other passenger and a 57% chance of being within less than one metre from another passenger at any one point in time. Passenger preference for seating is also analysed, which clearly demonstrates that for typical passengers, ease of access and comfort, as well as seats having a view, are preferred over maximising social-distancing measures. With a highly detailed and comprehensive set of acquired data and accurate measurement capability, the employed equipment and processing methodology also prove to be a robust approach for the application.

Hazardous materials facility siting optimization and ranking: A transportation risk mitigation framework.

Hazardous material transportation problems have widely been studied in the past especially in the context of routing, scheduling, and network design problems. Yet, the combined hazardous material facility location-routing problem has not been studied adequately. We emphasize that locating a hazardous material facility is a rich process, and a good site can mitigate the potential transportation risk beforehand. A methodological framework is proposed which allows evaluation and ranking of potential sites based on hierarchical relationship utilities. The proposed method attempts to improve the risk functions and applies a stochastic analysis to measure the risk, which relaxes some assumptions in deterministic analysis, and is more realistic while avoiding overestimation of the risk. The study covers multi-objective optimization considering the decision-makers' preferences on network segments and risk to the population and water bodies. Potential hazardous material facility sites' rank is determined by the probability of optimality and one-to-one relationship utilities with the points of interests. Results show that the proposed stochastic analysis offers more flexibility to select and rank the potential sites.

Traveling itinerary problem in a scheduled multimodal transportation network for a fixed sequence of cities.

Developing an efficient and economical journey plan in multimodal transportation networks is of significant and fast-growing importance, but it is still an annoying experience for a traveler. This paper aims to find the journey plan at a combined cross-border and inter-regional level when visiting a sequence of cities while utilizing several transport modes to reduce travel costs and planning time. We study a traveling itinerary problem in a scheduled multimodal transportation network with constraints on both arcs and nodes as a new extension of the shortest path problem. We formulate a 0-1 integer linear programming model for the traveling itinerary problem and develop an exact algorithm that finds a combined cross-border and inter-regional low costs journey plan. We present case studies based on real-world transport data to illustrate the usefulness and computational efficiency of the proposed approaches. We compare the results with the previously proposed approach to demonstrate the benefits of multimodal journeys. Finally, we compare the results with the solution obtained by the general-purpose 0-1 integer linear programming solver to evaluate the computational time.

A multi-objective optimization model of urban passenger transportation structure under low-carbon orientation considering participating subjects.

The optimization of urban passenger transport structure can effectively save energy and reduce the carbon emission of transport. However, the carbon emission and energy consumption generated by the construction of transport projects are worthy of attention. In this paper, a multi-objective optimization model of urban passenger transport structure oriented to low carbon is proposed considering passenger, operator, and construction. The optimal solution of the model is obtained based on the NSGA-II algorithm, and the validity of the model is verified with a case of Qingdao. The optimal ratio of Qingdao passenger traffic structure considering only the passenger perspective (PS), considering the passenger and operator (POS), and considering the three parties together (POCS) is obtained, respectively. The results show that the optimal structures obtained by the PS, POS, and POCS models increase the public transport passenger share by 12.74%, 20.74%, and 23.70%, compared with the actual values. From both the supply and demand sides, there has been an increase in the passenger share of public transport. The POS model is more suitable for solving structural optimization problems that do not involve construction carbon emissions in the short term. The POCS model is more suitable for long-term comprehensive structural optimization problems. The results of the study provide a reference basis for optimizing the urban passenger transport structure.

Active School Commuting in School Children: A Narrative Review of Current Evidence and Future Research Implications.

Active school commuting (ASC) has been proposed as a practical way to inculcate positive physical activity habits in children. This paper reviews the current evidence regarding ASC among children, highlights advances in research techniques and existing limitations in the field, and outlines future implications for research and promotion. A comprehensive literature search was conducted to identify English language studies on ASC among children aged 6-12 years, followed by a narrative review. ASC has witnessed a global decline, despite evidence of its contribution to physical activity levels. Context-dependent factors such as commuting distance and parental safety concerns are consistently identified as key determinants of ASC. Several promising interventions have been identified. Despite the limitations in intervention scope and quality, notable advancements in research techniques, such as multilevel regression and agent-based modelling, have been identified. Effective promotion of ASC to tackle childhood physical inactivity requires collaborative efforts among schools, parents, and the government, and should be tailored to address multilevel determinants within the local context. Future research should leverage recent advancements in research techniques to develop effective promotion strategies, while considering the context-dependent nature of ASC behaviours and addressing existing limitations, including the lack of standardised definitions and limited geographical and age coverage.

Changes in active commuting and changes in health: Within- and between-individual analyses among 16 881 Finnish public sector employees.

BACKGROUND: Active commuting, such as walking or cycling to work, can be beneficial for health. However, because within-individual studies on the association between change in active commuting and change in health are scarce, the previous results may have been biased due to unmeasured confounding. Additionally, prior studies have often lacked information about commuting distance. METHODS: We used two waves (2020, T1 and 2022, T2) of self-report data from the Finnish Public Sector study (N = 16,881; 80% female) to examine the within- and between associations (in a hybrid model) between active commuting and health. Exposure was measured by actively commuted kilometers per week, that is, by multiplying the number of walking or cycling days per week with the daily commuting distance. The primary outcome, self-rated health, was measured at T1 and T2. The secondary outcomes, psychological distress, and sleep problems were measured only at T2 and were therefore analyzed only in a between-individual design. RESULTS: After adjustment for potential time-varying confounders such as socioeconomic factors, body mass index, and health behaviors, an increase equivalent to 10 additional active commuting kilometers per week was associated with a small improvement in self-rated health (within-individual unstandardized beta = 0.01, 95% CI 0.01-0.02; between-individual unstandardized beta = 0.03, 95% CI 0.02-0.04). No associations were observed between changes in active commuting and psychological distress or sleep problems. CONCLUSIONS: An increase in active commuting may promote self-rated health. However, increase of tens of additional kilometers in commuting every day may be required to produce even a small effect on health.

Bio-inspired artificial somatic index for reflecting the travel experience of passenger agents under a flexible transportation scenario.

This work analyzes the implementation of an artificial mechanism inspired by a biological somatic marker that ables a passenger agent to both, react to changes in the service, as well as keep said reactions as a memory for future decisions. An artificial mental model was designed, and the passenger agent was implemented as an autonomous decision-making system, where both, the choice of the transport operator and the evaluation of the received service were fully delegated to the system. The evaluation of the service experience is not only based on rational aspects (such as the cost of the trip) but also on subjective aspects related to the satisfaction level derived from the passenger's experience. The experimental scenario considered 10,000 trip requests simulated within an artificial map that emulates characteristics that are usually present in a city, such as vehicular congestion, the unsafety of certain streets, or the benefits of an area with tourist interest. The results show that the option to travel under a transport operator with a touristic profile is a trend. Unlike current cases in the industry, this research work explores the scenario where the passenger can have as a client a trip profile with memory, differentiated from other clients, and can receive more than one trip proposal for the same trip request, according to the different conditions that the passenger is looking for.

Examining the effect of moderating variables on autonomous public van acceptance model (APVAM).

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) will soon become the primary means of transportation for millions of people. However, the introduction of these vehicles may lead to increased traffic and changes in people's travel patterns. To address this issue, one solution is to promote the use of AVs in a shared and public manner. However, the success of this approach depends on public acceptance of public AVs. If the promoters of public AVs are unaware of how people perceive this technology, it is possible that these vehicles will face failure in the market. Therefore, this paper aims to identify the factors that influence the willingness to use public AVs. To achieve this, an autonomous public van acceptance model (APVAM) was developed by adapting the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT2) through structural equations modeling. In this study, 824 citizens of Tehran participated in a field study and completed an online questionnaire. The research results indicated that the variable of effort expectancy indirectly affects the use of autonomous public vans (APVs), while the variables of performance expectancy, facilitating condition, hedonic motivation, and perceived PUnTrust directly affect their use. The research also found that various factors such as gender, level of education, individualism/collectivism, travel purpose, the dominant travel mode, marital status, occupation, age, household wealth, number of vehicles owned, and the price of the current vehicle of the household have a moderating effect on the APVAM. Furthermore, it was revealed that individuals who primarily use personal or public transport for their daily trips are more influenced by the perceived enjoyment of APVs in increasing their willingness to use these vehicles, compared to those whose predominant mode of travel is walking or cycling.

Feasibility of Using Rideshare Transportation to Reduce Barriers to Participating in a Clinic-based Food Insecurity Intervention.

BACKGROUND: Few clinic-based food insecurity interventions address transportation barriers to utilizing food resources. OBJECTIVES: We assessed the feasibility of using free rideshare-based transportation to reduce barriers to participating in an ongoing clinic-based food insecurity intervention. METHODS: Our multi-methods pilot study used patient surveys (n = 155), focus groups with clinic and program staff (n = 10), and rideshare usage data. RESULTS: Of the 95 (61.2%) survey respondents who reported transportation barriers, only 34 (21.9%) used rideshare. More than 80% of rideshare users rated their experience as good or excellent. Clinic and program staff reported that the service allowed patients a greater sense of control over their time and health and emphasized the need for staffing and program-level infrastructure. CONCLUSIONS: Free rideshare may address transportation barriers for some patients but multiple options for support and adjustments to how we offer transportation solutions are needed to successfully meet the needs of all program participants experiencing transportation barriers.

The finest diamond must be green: a closer look at the roles of institution in shipping firms' sustainable practices.

Shipping companies' implementation of sustainable shipping management is an important means of protecting major water bodies in the marine environment. This research establishes a theoretical model based on institutional theory and incorporates a micro-consciousness level to explore the factors influencing companies' implementation of sustainable shipping practices. After surveying the management of Chinese shipping companies, a total of 282 datasets were obtained for analysis. This study demonstrated that rules and regulations, societal norms, environmental awareness, and legal awareness can improve shipping companies' sustainable shipping practices. Meanwhile, these practices have a positive impact on the environmental, financial, and competitive performance of shipping companies. Moreover, these findings are highly significant for maritime environmental protection and sustainability.

Comparative analysis of the USA's Washington Ferries and road transport carbon emissions using the Trozzi and Vaccaro and Greatest Integer functions.

Countries' sectors are currently under great scrutiny for their response to the greenhouse gas (GHG) emission profile and the general effect of the sectoral activities on the environment. As in the agenda of all sectors, environmental concerns and investigations are of high importance in shipping and maritime transport. Amidst the rising forms of globalization, the need for sustainable transportation is constantly increasing. However, the machines that are the cornerstone of transportation largely depend on fossil fuels, thus resulting in environmental degradation. Notably, environmental-related degradation has continued to account for global warming, climate change, and ocean acidification. Shipping is considered the most environmentally friendly mode of transportation in terms of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions per ton per mile of transported unit load when compared against road transportation. In this study, six ferry lines (FLs) of Washington State Ferries were calculated to compare ship-generated carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions with those from road transportation as if the carried vehicles had used the highway instead of transport by FL. While making these calculations, the Greatest Integer function (GIF) and Trozzi and Vaccaro function (TVF) were utilized. From the examined three scenarios, i.e., all passengers travel by car instead of ferry as scenario 1, all ferries carry both cars and passengers as scenario 2, and all car-free passengers travel by bus instead of ferry as scenario 3, the outlined results are as follows: (i) none of the cars were carried by the ferry, and car-free passengers preferred traveling by their own cars as observed in scenario 1; (ii) hypothetical scenarios (1 to 3) in which the road vehicles carried on FLs had instead used the highway, and the total potential CO2 emissions of these road vehicles were calculated as 2,638,858.138, 704,958.2998, and 1,394,148.577 tonnes per year, respectively. Policy-wise, this study revealed the management strategies for CO2 emissions reduction for two transport modes, shipping and road transportation, under current conditions.

Association of Walking and Biking to School Policies and Active Commuting to School in Children.

BACKGROUND: Active commuting to school (ACS) can be an important source of physical activity for children. Schools are an important setting for policy-related ACS promotion. The purpose of this study was to examine the association between school policies and ACS, and to assess whether this relation varied by grade. METHODS: This cross-sectional study used data from schools recruited to the Safe Travel Environment Evaluation in Texas School study (n = 94). The percent of trips made by active travel modes was measured through tallies among third to fifth grade classrooms from 5 school districts in Central Texas in 2018-2019. School ACS policies and practices were measured through 8 survey items aggregated into a score. Linear mixed effects models were used to assess the association between policies and ACS. RESULTS: School health policy surveys and ACS data were collected from 69 elementary schools. An average of 14.6% of trips to/from school was made using active travel modes. Schools with higher numbers of policies had significantly higher percentages of students using active travel modes (P = .03), and for each additional policy, the predicted percentage of trips made by active travel modes was 1.46% higher. There was a significant interaction effect between school policy and grade, with stronger correlations among higher grades (P = .002). CONCLUSIONS: Results from this study demonstrate a correlation between the school policies designed to support walking and biking and ACS. Results from this study can be used to justify the use of school-based policy interventions to promote ACS.

Validating the Perceived Active School Travel Enablers and Barriers-Parent (PASTEB-P) Questionnaire to Support Intervention Programming and Research.

A child's ability to participate in active school travel (AST) is complicated by several factors. Of particular note are parental controls, which are informed by their perceptions of the local built and social environments, assessments of their child's skills, and convenience preferences, among other considerations. However, there is currently a lack of AST-specific scales that include validated parental perception measures related to such notable barriers and enablers, or those that tend to frame their AST decision-making processes. Framed within the social-ecological model of health behaviour, the aims of the present paper were thus threefold, specifically to (1) outline and test the construct validity of measures delineating parental perceptions of barriers and enablers to AST, (2) evaluate the reliability and consistency of the developed measures, and (3) connect these measures to develop broader constructs for use in the Perceived Active School Travel Enablers and Barriers-Parent (PASTEB-P) questionnaire. To achieve these aims, a mixed-methods approach featuring cognitive interviews and surveys, along with qualitative (thematic analysis) and quantitative (Cohen's Kappa, McDonald's Omega, and confirmatory factor analysis) analyses, was applied across two studies. The validation processes of the two studies resulted in the development of fifteen items comprising seven distinct constructs (barriers: AST Skills, Convenience, Road Safety, Social Safety, and Equipment Storage; enablers: Supportive Environment and Safe Environment) related to parental perceptions of AST. The developed PASTEB-P questionnaire can be used to inform and evaluate AST intervention programming and can be applied for AST research purposes.

Environmental correlates of adolescent active travel to school in Asia: An ecological study.

OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to examine the association between country-level environmental correlates and the prevalence of active school travel (AST) in Asia and country-level differences in AST by age and sex. METHODS: This ecological study involved 31 Asian countries. Dependent variables were AST prevalence, AST prevalence difference by age, and by sex. Independent variables were country-level environmental correlates extracted using publicly available datasets, classified into physical and social environments. Association estimates of each dependent variable and each of the independent variables were calculated using univariate linear regression. All variables were standardized to have a mean of 0 and a standard deviation of 1. RESULTS: Results showed that 1 standard deviation (SD) difference in urban population percentage, night-time light, secondary-school enrolment, and prevalence of adult insufficient physical activity were negatively associated with AST prevalence (SD difference: -0.44 (-0.78 to -0.09), -0.40 (-0.76 to -0.04), -0.39 (-0.74 to -0.04), and -0.40 (-0.76 to -0.03), respectively). A 1 SD difference in car per people was associated with a -0.46 (-0.84 to -0.09) difference of AST prevalence by age. A 1 SD difference in PM2.5 concentration and of prevalence of adult insufficient physical activity were associated with a difference of 0.38 (0.01-0.74) and 0.42 (0.03-0.80) difference of AST prevalence by sex. CONCLUSIONS: This study shows that Asian countries with a greater number of people living in urban areas, lower levels of overall adult physical activity and higher levels of night-time light have a lower prevalence of adolescent AST. Country-level physical and social environmental correlates explained some of the regional variance in AST. Future policy actions and interventions for the region need to be contextually sensitive to the environmental correlates that vary between countries.

Design and Validity of a Smart Healthcare and Control System for Electric Bikes.

This paper presents the development of an electronic system that converts an electrically assisted bicycle into an intelligent health monitoring system, allowing people who are not athletic or who have a history of health issues to progressively start the physical activity by following a medical protocol (e.g., max heart rate and power output, training time). The developed system aims to monitor the health state of the rider, analyze data in real-time, and provide electric assistance, thus diminishing muscular exertion. Furthermore, such a system can recover the same physiological data used in medical centers and program it into the e-bike to track the patient's health. System validation is conducted by replicating a standard medical protocol used in physiotherapy centers and hospitals, typically conducted in indoor conditions. However, the presented work differentiates itself by implementing this protocol in outdoor environments, which is impossible with the equipment used in medical centers. The experimental results show that the developed electronic prototypes and the algorithm effectively monitored the subject's physiological condition. Moreover, when necessary, the system can change the training load and help the subject remain in their prescribed cardiac zone. This system allows whoever needs to follow a rehabilitation program to do so not only in their physician's office, but whenever they want, including while commuting.

Children's intervention participation is associated with more positive beliefs towards active school transportation among parents.

Insufficient physical activity among children is a critical issue and health promoting initiatives are required to reverse this trend. In response to the current situation, a school-based intervention aiming to increase physical activity with the aid of active school transportation (AST) was implemented in one municipality in northern Sweden. By adopting the framework of the Theory of Planned Behavior, we aimed to analyse beliefs among parents whose children were or were not involved in the AST intervention. All municipality schools were included. There were 1024 responses from parents, comprising 610 who responded either 'yes' or 'no' to participating in the intervention. An adjusted linear regression analysis showed that children's intervention participation was significantly associated with more positive beliefs towards AST among parents. These results indicates that it is possible to influence beliefs that are important in the parental decision-making process by the use of an AST intervention. Therefore, to make children's active transport to school the more favorable choice for parents, it seems to be worthwhile to not only give children the opportunity to participate but also to involve parents and address their beliefs when designing interventions.

Not enough physical activity among children is an important issue and health promoting initiatives are needed to reverse this trend. In response to the current situation, a school-based intervention aiming to increase physical activity using active school transportation (AST) was implemented in one municipality in northern Sweden. Using the Theory of Planned Behaviour framework, we aimed to analyse beliefs among parents whose children were or were not involved in the AST intervention. Children's participation in the intervention was significantly associated with more positive beliefs towards AST among parents. These results indicate that it is possible to influence beliefs that are important in the parental decision-making process by the use of an AST intervention. Therefore, to make children's active transport to school the more favourable choice for parents, it seems to be worthwhile to not only give children the opportunity to participate but also to involve parents and address their beliefs when designing interventions.

Resilience-based optimization model for emergency bus bridging and dispatching in response to metro operational disruptions.

Bus-bridging evacuation services can significantly enhance metro resilience during operational disruptions. A resilience-based optimization model was proposed to generate a bus bridging and dispatching plan. The objective of the model is to maximize the resilience index of evacuated passengers while meeting pre-established restrictions on operational indicators and resources. The proposed approach consists of three steps: representing an integrated network based on a hyper-network, generating candidate bus-bridging routes using the K-shortest paths algorithm, and solving the optimization model using a genetic algorithm to determine the optimal vehicle allocation among the candidate routes. The Nanjing metro network was used to demonstrate the proposed model. The results show that the average waiting time is the main reason for travel delays, especially in short-distance travel. Furthermore, the cycling strategy is beneficial for reducing the average travel delay and improving evacuation efficiency with limited vehicles. In particular, when resources are very limited, the vehicle cycling strategy may have significant advantages over fixed vehicles for servicing fixed lines. The proposed model could be widely used in emergency response to quickly and efficiently evacuate passengers.