{"title":"The long journey towards a shift to rail in the European long-distance passenger transport market.","authors":"Oded Cats","doi":"10.1038/s44333-025-00025-9","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44333-025-00025-9","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The European long-distance passenger transport market is rapidly changing. There is a striking discrepancy between the relevance of long-distance travel for emission reduction goals and the lack of knowledge to support its design, planning and policy making. A conceptual representation of this market is provided, and four key scientific challenges are identified and discussed along with a brief review of the state-of-the-art, related knowledge gaps and a corresponding research agenda.</p>","PeriodicalId":501714,"journal":{"name":"npj Sustainable Mobility and Transport","volume":"2 1","pages":"7"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11790481/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143257772","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Guillaume Chevance, Baptiste Andrieu, Nicolas Koch, Cathryn Tonne, Mark Nieuwenhuijsen, Paquito Bernard
{"title":"How gasoline prices influence the effectiveness of interventions targeting sustainable transport modes?","authors":"Guillaume Chevance, Baptiste Andrieu, Nicolas Koch, Cathryn Tonne, Mark Nieuwenhuijsen, Paquito Bernard","doi":"10.1038/s44333-024-00017-1","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44333-024-00017-1","url":null,"abstract":"The current study aims to quantify the moderating role of gasoline price on the effectiveness of interventions targeting healthier and more sustainable transport modes. This multi-level meta-analysis provides an analysis of 52 interventions targeting a change in driving, public and active transport across four continents in interventions mixing “carrot/stick” strategies. Gasoline price significantly moderates the effectiveness of interventions targeting healthier transport modes in Europe (standardized mean difference 4·43, 95% CI 1·11 to 7·74) but not in the other continents. Interventions conducted in Europe were more effective with higher gasoline price. Gasoline price also significantly interacted with access to public transport in the four continents, with the moderating role of gasoline price on interventions’ effectiveness being stronger in places with higher access to public transport. Gasoline price is a significant moderator of interventions’ effectiveness but mostly in context where infrastructures are available.","PeriodicalId":501714,"journal":{"name":"npj Sustainable Mobility and Transport","volume":" ","pages":"1-8"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s44333-024-00017-1.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142906133","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Simone Daniotti, Vito D. P. Servedio, Johannes Kager, Aad Robben-Baldauf, Stefan Thurner
{"title":"Systemic risk approach to mitigate delay cascading in railway networks","authors":"Simone Daniotti, Vito D. P. Servedio, Johannes Kager, Aad Robben-Baldauf, Stefan Thurner","doi":"10.1038/s44333-024-00012-6","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44333-024-00012-6","url":null,"abstract":"Delay cascades may significantly disrupt the regular operation of public transportation systems. What are the origins and processes involved in delay-spreading in public railway systems? How can delay propagation in national railway systems be efficiently managed with a minimum of effort? With a network-based systemic risk approach, we quantify the impact of trains on the system. This allows us to find which train assignments play the leading roles in transmitting delays to following trains. This identification of weak spots in the system now enables us to effectively reduce delay cascades by adding very few specific short-distance train services. Reducing delays encourages people to use public transportation, thereby lowering emissions and promoting sustainability. Agent-based simulations validate our results.","PeriodicalId":501714,"journal":{"name":"npj Sustainable Mobility and Transport","volume":" ","pages":"1-9"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-12-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s44333-024-00012-6.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142798604","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Estimating emissions reductions with carpooling and vehicle dispatching in ridesourcing mobility","authors":"Ximing Chang, Jianjun Wu, Zifan Kang, Jianju Pan, Huijun Sun, Der-Horng Lee","doi":"10.1038/s44333-024-00015-3","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44333-024-00015-3","url":null,"abstract":"Ride-hailing services provide on-demand transportation solutions by connecting passengers with nearby drivers through mobile applications. However, carpooling often fails to attract passengers as expected due to inefficient order-matching strategies. This study estimates emissions reductions with order matching and vehicle dispatching in ridesourcing mobility. An explainable machine learning with a hierarchical framework is constructed for arrival time prediction. Considering pick-up and drop-off locations within the expected departure time, on-demand order matching and vehicle dispatching optimization models are built to determine the minimum fleet size and efficient route planning. Real-world experiments are conducted with large-scale ridesharing orders in Beijing, China. In comparison to the current operations, a reduction of 25.25% in fleet size and a simultaneous decrease of 21.65% in pollutant emissions are achieved. Results demonstrate that carpooling and vehicle dispatching processes lead to a slight increase in passenger waiting time while enhancing the operational efficiency of ride-hailing services and reducing pollutant emissions.","PeriodicalId":501714,"journal":{"name":"npj Sustainable Mobility and Transport","volume":" ","pages":"1-15"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-12-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s44333-024-00015-3.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142778622","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Kevin Riehl, Anastasios Kouvelas, Michail A. Makridis
{"title":"Karma economies for sustainable urban mobility – a fair approach to public good value pricing","authors":"Kevin Riehl, Anastasios Kouvelas, Michail A. Makridis","doi":"10.1038/s44333-024-00014-4","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44333-024-00014-4","url":null,"abstract":"City road infrastructure can be considered a public good, and congestion is the intersection of demand for mobility with the limited available transportation supply. Congestion pricing is effective in reducing demand to sustainable levels below network capacity limits, but also controversial, as it introduces equity issues and systematically discriminates against lower-income groups. Karma is a non-monetary, fair, and efficient resource allocation mechanism that employs an artificial currency different from money, incentivises cooperation amongst selfish individuals, and achieves a balance between giving and taking. Where money does not do its job, Karma achieves socially more desirable allocations by being aligned with consumers’ needs rather than their financial power. This work highlights the value proposition of Karma, provides guidance on Karma mechanism design, and equips the reader with a useful software framework to model Karma economies and predict consumers’ behaviour. A case study of road pricing demonstrates Karma’s potential.","PeriodicalId":501714,"journal":{"name":"npj Sustainable Mobility and Transport","volume":" ","pages":"1-17"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s44333-024-00014-4.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142762871","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Changlong Ling, Junqing Tang, Pengjun Zhao, Lei Xu, Qiuchen Lu, Linchuan Yang, Fengjue Huang, Wei Lyu, Jiawen Yang
{"title":"Unraveling the relation between carbon emission and carbon footprint: A literature review and framework for sustainable transportation","authors":"Changlong Ling, Junqing Tang, Pengjun Zhao, Lei Xu, Qiuchen Lu, Linchuan Yang, Fengjue Huang, Wei Lyu, Jiawen Yang","doi":"10.1038/s44333-024-00013-5","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44333-024-00013-5","url":null,"abstract":"Transportation decarbonization has drawn enormous attention globally, and two concepts play vital roles: transportation carbon emission (TCE) and transportation carbon footprint (TCF). However, their overlapping definitions and mixed uses in relevant literature have caused ambiguities and misunderstandings, resulting in a pressing need to clarify their subtle relationships in a more introspective manner. Therefore, we performed an in-depth literature review to investigate their essential commonalities and differences, with a focus on two aspects: understanding the scientific progress in terms of research trends, foci, and clusters to capture their connotations and use cases; and diagnosing how they are inherently estimated and how misuses can be alleviated. Accordingly, we developed an integrated life cycle analytical framework to relate TCE and TCF in an interdisciplinary landscape. Implications regarding systematic and explicit quantification standards were identified and discussed. Finally, we proposed three research gaps and four possible directions for future sustainable transportation studies.","PeriodicalId":501714,"journal":{"name":"npj Sustainable Mobility and Transport","volume":" ","pages":"1-12"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s44333-024-00013-5.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142737644","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Eleanor M. Hennessy, J. Robert Wolfinbarger, Irfan Batur, Nehal Ansh Srivastava, Mattheus Porto, Gabriel I. Cotlier, Madison Horgan, Ian Searles, Ryan M. Sparks, Mikhail V. Chester
{"title":"Changing boundaries, distributed control, and implications for transportation sustainability","authors":"Eleanor M. Hennessy, J. Robert Wolfinbarger, Irfan Batur, Nehal Ansh Srivastava, Mattheus Porto, Gabriel I. Cotlier, Madison Horgan, Ian Searles, Ryan M. Sparks, Mikhail V. Chester","doi":"10.1038/s44333-024-00016-2","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44333-024-00016-2","url":null,"abstract":"Transportation systems are rapidly integrating with cybertechnologies and into cyberphysical ecosystems. Emerging cognitive capabilities are leading to the diffusing of traditional boundaries between transportation and other infrastructure and increasingly distributed control. This requires a new approach to sustainability, reflecting distributed cognitive capabilities of transportation systems, increasingly diffuse boundaries that challenge the historical nature of transportation, and Anthropocene complexity. Public agencies should reassess their roles to manage this increasingly complex environment.","PeriodicalId":501714,"journal":{"name":"npj Sustainable Mobility and Transport","volume":" ","pages":"1-6"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s44333-024-00016-2.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142737642","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The role of parsimonious models in addressing mobility challenges","authors":"Marc Barthelemy","doi":"10.1038/s44333-024-00011-7","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44333-024-00011-7","url":null,"abstract":"Mobility is a complex phenomenon encompassing diverse transportation modes, infrastructure elements, and human behaviors. Tackling the persistent challenges of congestion, pollution, and accessibility requires a range of modeling approaches to optimize these systems. While AI offers transformative potential, it should not be the sole solution. Parsimonious models remain crucial in generating innovative concepts and tools and fostering collaborative efforts among researchers, policymakers, and industry stakeholders.","PeriodicalId":501714,"journal":{"name":"npj Sustainable Mobility and Transport","volume":" ","pages":"1-5"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s44333-024-00011-7.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142588280","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"An integrated model of electric bus energy consumption and optimised depot charging","authors":"Johannes N. Hendriks, Björn. C. P. Sturmberg","doi":"10.1038/s44333-024-00008-2","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44333-024-00008-2","url":null,"abstract":"The electrification of buses, and the depots servicing them, is a high priority for sustainability but is hindered by challenges at the intersection of the mobility and electricity systems, such as trade-offs of charging infrastructure and scheduling with the stress placed on the grid. This paper presents a model for studying and co-optimise these variables. The model has two standout features. Firstly, that it integrates a data-driven model for predicting the energy consumption of electric buses based on route details with a bus depot charging optimisation algorithm that minimises the loading on the grid. Secondly, it is compatible with the publicly available route and schedule data published by bus operators and is available open-source for extension. The results foreground the impact of route topology, temperature, and traffic congestion on energy consumption, and the interdependencies of these with timetabling, charging infrastructure and battery designs in driving grid loading.","PeriodicalId":501714,"journal":{"name":"npj Sustainable Mobility and Transport","volume":" ","pages":"1-14"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s44333-024-00008-2.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142588278","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Electric vehicles limit equitable access to essential services during blackouts","authors":"Yamil Essus, Benjamin Rachunok","doi":"10.1038/s44333-024-00007-3","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44333-024-00007-3","url":null,"abstract":"Electric vehicles (EVs) link mobility and electric power availability, posing a risk of making transportation unavailable during blackouts. We develop a computational framework to quantify the impact of EVs on mobility and access to services and find that existing access issues are exacerbated by EVs. Our results demonstrate that larger batteries reduce mobility constraints, but their effectiveness is dependent on the geographic distribution of services and households. We explore the trade-offs between mobility and quality-of-life improvements presented by vehicle-to-Grid technologies and the feasibility and trade-offs of public charging infrastructure as a solution to access inequalities. Equitable access to essential services (supermarkets, schools, parks, etc.) is the most important aspect of community resilience, and our results show vehicle electrification can hinder access to essential services unless properly incorporated into policy and city-scale decision-making.","PeriodicalId":501714,"journal":{"name":"npj Sustainable Mobility and Transport","volume":" ","pages":"1-10"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-10-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s44333-024-00007-3.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142443611","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}