This paper will focus on the “town and gown” relationships between cities and universities and their combined planning efforts for bikeway networks. An examination of the bicycle plans, use of bicycle boulevards and bike lanes, etc. will be applied to towns known for their university populations such as Berkeley, California with the University of California and Palo Alto, California with Stanford University and how the City of Austin and the University of Texas-Austin compares in utilizing the same principles in their bicycle facilities planning efforts. / text

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Transport Policy and Planning / Master / Master of Arts in Transport Policy and Planning

Public transportation contributes to sustainable transportation in urban areas. Unfortunately, in some cases public transit systems have been underperforming. Over the years, factors such as urban sprawl and the increase in private vehicle ownership have led to challenges for public transportation providers. The lack of investment in transit infrastructure has resulted in transit agencies being under resourced which further limit the agencies’ ability to respond. Realizing the need to change and move towards a more sustainable and balanced transportation system, governments have begun to invest more and more in transportation infrastructure projects. In order to encourage public transportation, focus has shifted to improving the quality of transit service being provided. There are many ways in which transit improvements can be made. The problem that describes the design of a public transportation network is referred to as the transit network design problem (TNDP). Much of the existing literature that addresses the TNDP describes methods that are rigorous and complex and have limited application in practice. Given the emergence of geographic information systems (GIS), there exists new opportunities to address the TNDP. This thesis presents a customized GIS tool that assists transit network design. The approach utilizes GIS to identify desire lines or major travel demand corridors from which trunk transit routes are proposed and evaluated. The GIS tool is built using VBA scripting in ArcMap 9.3 part of ESRI’s general ArcGIS suite but the underlying GIS functionality needed by the tool is not limited to ESRI software. The tool offers a proven methodology for use within transit network design and evaluation at a level of resource requirement that is consistent with most transit agencies. The tool has been customized to minimize the need for GIS training and to maximize its adaptability for application in multiple cities. The analyst applying the tools must have substantial knowledge of local conditions. The tool is applied to the Regional Municipality of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, at the TAZ (traffic analysis zone) level using population and employment data. A street network with corresponding posted speeds on each link and the location of signalized intersections were also used in the analysis. The results of the analysis depicted major flows throughout Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge. Unique flows from students, major employers and an analysis of average income levels also provide input into the major demand corridors. From these results seven high order transit routes were designed to accommodate the major demand corridors. From the results it was found that GIS can be used to depict major demand corridors and inform transit network design. GIS is an excellent tool that can display complex information and visually identify spatial patterns. Further research includes the development of a model that evaluates network alternatives or the development of quantitative methods by which limits on aggregation can be automated.

This thesis presents the results from a survey of transit agencies on web-based feedback tools and their role in enabling communication between agencies and riders. Motivation for the survey stems from the growing importance of web-based feedback tools in improving transit services. Web-based feedback can improve transit agencies' knowledge of issues relating to their systems while enhancing the transit riding experience. As the availability of Internet and smartphones increases among transit users, the tools available to gather feedback have grown in response. Web- and smartphone-based tools are instrumental in collecting a wide range of feedback, including commendations and complaints, maintenance issues, transit services, safety and security, long-term planning and other transit operations related issues. At the same time, transit agencies must determine how to best respond and manage the growing presence of information on the web relating to their agencies performance. Through a web-based survey administered to 130 transit agencies in the United States and Canada, information was gathered on the current and planned use of web-based tools by transit agencies. The overall survey results show that most transit agencies focus on sorting and responding to unsolicited feedback being collected primarily through social media, email, and online forms. Additionally, transit agencies see the benefits of web-based customer feedback, noting that the key to managing their systems into the future will involve developing agency-wide digital feedback plans that allow automation and integration across all feedback channels. Finally, transit agencies also noted that the primary downside to web-based feedback involved a lack of staff resources to support their systems. This thesis provides further analysis focusing on three questions regarding the survey results: - How can agency size, based on unlinked trips, influence the survey responses collected from agencies regarding their use of web-based feedback tools? - What variables from the survey can influence a transit agencies ability to provide web-based feedback tools to their riders? - What factors might contribute to differences in transit agencies rider access estimates to Internet and smartphones? While the results show that larger agencies are able to offer more web-based feedback tools to their riders, there were problems with transit agencies incorrectly estimating their riders’ access to Internet and smartphones. This could cause issues regarding agencies ability to understand which web-based tools they should implement to engage their riders. This thesis details one portion of an overall project, which will provide framework for agencies to assess their needs and resources to determine how to create their own effective customer feedback systems in relation to what web-based feedback tools will most benefit themselves and their riders.

During the process of post-war Fordist suburban expansion, the American and Canadian city was expanded and built around the automobile as the dominant mode of transportation. This caused an inversion of the pattern of centrality and access in cities, and auto-accessible suburbs became the place of wealth and privilege, away from the city centre. There is reason to believe that these patterns are changing in this century. A re-investment in downtowns along with a loss of middle-class manufacturing jobs and income is resulting in changing suburban socioeconomic geographies. If auto-oriented suburbs are becoming the new location of affordability and decline, this would result in an unprecedented situation: car-dependent social peripheralization. This dissertation tests this possibility. Using statistics and spatial analysis, it presents public data on socioeconomics, urban form and public transit to try and understand the current geographies of housing affordability in relation to transit access in twenty large metropolitan regions. This research is concerned with how the spatial polarization of housing affordability to suburban areas impacts access to public transit for lower-income households. In a comparative survey of twenty North American cities, I demonstrate that the lowest-cost home ownership is often found outside of the zone served by frequent transit networks, while the lowest-cost rental housing is fragmented across both transit networks and outside them. Half of the cities studied did not have enough frequent transit lines to offer an accessible network at all. The results show that in cities with transit systems that offer metropolitan-scale access, there is commonly a misalignment between affordable home ownership opportunities and frequent transit networks. When incomes and other socioeconomic and built-in environment variables are taken into account, the cost of owner-occupied housing is higher in transit-accessible areas. This is problematic from the perspectives of social justice and economic efficiency: cities will not offer fair access to opportunity if large segments of the population are priced out. The issue of isolated suburbanisms calls for adding social utility to the criteria for transit extension, as well as for innovative land use policy to encourage affordable transit-oriented intensification in these areas. While this analysis offers a snapshot of current conditions, further quantitative and qualitative research would add to our understanding of these issues. This research suggests, at a comparative metropolitan scale in the North American context, that affordable home ownership is now often connected to automobile dependency and separated from access to alternative, less expensive mobilities. This lack of affordable access is a concern for social and environmental justice, for economic mobility and for personal and community agency.

Syfte – Syftet är att undersöka om en merge-in-transit-lösning kan användas vid distributionen av prover inom ett klädföretag för att säkerställa låga kostnader, korta ledtider och kontroll. Metod – En fallstudie har gjorts i samarbete med Didriksons för att uppnå studiens syfte. Datainsamlingsmetoder såsom intervjuer och dokumentstudier har legat till grund för insamlandet av empiri, som kontinuerligt har analyserats mot studiens teoretiska ramverk. Därigenom har studiens resultat utformats. Resultat - Resultatet visar på att en merge-in-transit (MIT)-lösning skulle vara att föredra inom klädbranschen på grund av de tidskrav som finns på snabba leveranser. Vidare framgår det att det är av största vikt att få kommunikationen mellan aktörerna i försörjningskedjan att integrera om en MIT-lösning ska användas. En MIT-lösning kan sänka de direkta transportkostnaderna med 69 procent, samtidigt som studien tyder på att kapitalbindningen och tullkostnaderna minskas. Ökade lagerhållningskostnader kommer att uppstå på grund av inhyrandet i en terminal med MIT-tjänsten som tillkommer. Vad gäller ledtiden kommer den totala ledtiden att reduceras med 15 procent, vilket innebär att leverantörerna fårlängre tid på sig att producera och kan minska antalet delleveranser. Genom att leverantörerna producerar mer till första delleveransen får försäljarna mer i sin första leverans, och därigenom genereras en bättre hel­hets­förståelse över kollektionen som i sin tur leder till bättre beställnings­underlag och mer intäkter. Gällande kontrollaspekten kan den likställas med den konroll som finns i dagsläget. Implikationer ­- Studiens resultat har tagits fram utan att ta hänsyn till prototypstadiet, vilket gör att den komplexitet som råder inom klädbranschen har utelämnats. Resultatet kan ändå vara till hjälp för företag som funderar på att förändra sin distributionskanal, men innan förändringen bör noggrannare kvantitativa kostnadsberäkningar utföras än de som gjorts i denna studie. Vidare rekommenderas det att utvärdera flertalet tredjeparts­logistiker om huruvida de kan vara aktuella partners vid en MIT-lösning, samt hur förutsättningarna för integrationen mellan aktörernas informationssystem ser ut. / Purpose - The purpose is to investigate if a merge-in-transit-solution can be used in the distribution of cloth samples within a cloth company to reduce costs, shorten lead time and maintain control. Method - A case study was conducted in cooperation with Didriksons to achieve the purpose of the study. Methods such as interviews and documentation studies were the basis for the collection of empirical data, which has continuously been analyzed against the study's theoretical framework. Thereby the study findings were generated. Findings - The findings show that a merge-in-transit (MIT) solution would be preferable in the clothing industry due to the time constraints available for fast delivery. Furthermore, it appears that it is vital to get the communication between actors in the supply chain to integrate if an MIT solution should be used. A MIT solution can reduce the direct transport costs by 69 percent, while the study shows that the capital and tariff costs are reduced. Increased inventory costs will be incurred due to hiring a terminal with the MIT service that will be added. As far as lead time, the total lead time is reduced by 15 percent, meaning that suppliers have more time to produce and can reduce the number of deliveries. If the suppliers produce more to the first delivery, it will generate that the salesman can get a better overview of the collection, which make the purchasing process easier and results in higher revenue. When it comes to the control, it can be equated with the control in the current situation. Implications - The study findings has been made regardless to the prototype stage, which means that the complexity of  the clothing industry has been omitted. The result can still be helpful for companies that are searching for a solution to transform their distribution channel. Thus more quantitative calculations need to be conducted before any implementations. Furthermore, it is recommended to evaluate the majority of third party logistics providers to whether they can be relevant partners for a MIT solution.

The spatial structure of Cape Town is characterised by segregated low density development patterns and urban sprawling. With a high population growth rate and urbanisation, these patterns are becoming more prominent. Due to the spatial nature of Cape Town, a large proportion of economic activities and employment opportunities are concentrated in patches across the city. In order to combat low-density sprawl and integrate spatially separated areas the key concept ?city densification? and the various elements thereof emerged. The segregated low density city structure, the concentrated nature of economic and employment opportunities along with an ever increasing population and inadequate public transport system resulted in issues such as long average travel lengths, low accessibility by poorer communities, greater use of private vehicles, and a sharp rise in traffic congestion. With the implementation of the Integrated Rapid Transport System (IRT), an initiative to transform the public transport sector to integrate all modal options, the opportunity is rendered to address these environmental, social and economical issues. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the City of Cape Town (CoCT) is utilising the full potential of the new Integrated Transport System currently being developed and implemented in Cape Town, namely the MyCiTi BRT System. It was determined that in terms of potential environmental benefits the CoCT, is utilising its full potential. Furthermore, although the potential social benefits were being utilised, the urgency of addressing social inequality is not reflected in the phased timeframe set out for the system. In terms of economic benefits, the options of using land-value add and environmental finance currently not sufficiently utilised and should be used to encourage a more sustainable public transport system. / Thesis (M.Art. et Scien. (Town and Regional planning))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.

The spatial structure of Cape Town is characterised by segregated low density development patterns and urban sprawling. With a high population growth rate and urbanisation, these patterns are becoming more prominent. Due to the spatial nature of Cape Town, a large proportion of economic activities and employment opportunities are concentrated in patches across the city. In order to combat low-density sprawl and integrate spatially separated areas the key concept ?city densification? and the various elements thereof emerged. The segregated low density city structure, the concentrated nature of economic and employment opportunities along with an ever increasing population and inadequate public transport system resulted in issues such as long average travel lengths, low accessibility by poorer communities, greater use of private vehicles, and a sharp rise in traffic congestion. With the implementation of the Integrated Rapid Transport System (IRT), an initiative to transform the public transport sector to integrate all modal options, the opportunity is rendered to address these environmental, social and economical issues. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the City of Cape Town (CoCT) is utilising the full potential of the new Integrated Transport System currently being developed and implemented in Cape Town, namely the MyCiTi BRT System. It was determined that in terms of potential environmental benefits the CoCT, is utilising its full potential. Furthermore, although the potential social benefits were being utilised, the urgency of addressing social inequality is not reflected in the phased timeframe set out for the system. In terms of economic benefits, the options of using land-value add and environmental finance currently not sufficiently utilised and should be used to encourage a more sustainable public transport system. / Thesis (M.Art. et Scien. (Town and Regional planning))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Michigan State University. Dept. of Civil Engineering, 2008. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on July 7, 2009) Includes bibliographical references (p. 196-201). Also issued in print.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 82-84). Also available in print.