There is a great number of studies which have proved that a new or improved transport system has an important impact on land uses and real estate prices. While there are many studies which examine the effect of a new urban public transport system on the values of neighbouring properties, the number of researches which focus on the identification of the benefits that businesses can expect is rather limited. The objective of the present paper is to identify parameters which have a significant impact on the business revenue, as well as to quantify that impact, focusing on the city of Thessaloniki, Greece, where a metro system is under construction A questionnaire-based survey took place, addressed to business enterprise owners and professionals in the surrounding area of ten of the planned locations of Thessaloniki metro stations. The data collected by this survey were reinforced with additional attributes of the businesses, such as their distance from the nearest metro station, and a statistical analysis has been conducted, utilizing also regression modelling techniques The results indicate that more benefits can be expected for businesses which are located closer to the metro stations, especially in areas with limited parking availability. The benefits are estimated to be higher for the land use category that includes restaurants/café/bars. Models of that type can be very useful in cases of implementing alternative funding/financing methods, such as Value Capture. For the implementation of such methods it is very important to accurately estimate the benefits that all the parties involved in an investment will gain.

In recent years, shared mobility services have had a growing presence in cities all over the world. Developing methodologies to measure and evaluate the impacts of shared mobility has therefore become of critical importance for city authorities. This paper conducts a thorough review of the different types of methods that can be used for this evaluation and suggests a classification of them. The pros and cons of each method are also discussed. The added value of the paper is twofold; first, we provide a systematic recording of the state of the art and the state of the practice regarding the evaluation of the impacts of shared mobility, from the perspective of city authorities, reflecting on their role, needs, and expectations. Second, by identifying the existing gaps in the literature, we highlight the specific needs for research and practice in this field that can help society figure out the role of urban shared mobility.

Introduction: The use of participatory techniques in the field of transport is coming to the forefront recently. In this frame, eight co-creation workshops and five online crowdsourcing campaigns took place in Thessaloniki, Southern Tuscany, Rotterdam/The Hague, and Frankfurt, from which many innovative ideas to enhance Public Transport were generated by citizens. Purpose: A simple list of innovations would not be very useful for Public Transport Operators, as they cannot implement all of them at once. There was an obvious need for their ranking and this is the purpose of this paper. Methods: The ranking was realized with the most used Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis method in transportation research, i.e. the Analytic Hierarchy Process, using three criteria: Feasibility, Utility, and Innovativeness. An online questionnaire was distributed to experts, using a modified snowball sampling technique, which yielded 97 completed questionnaires. Results: Utility (42.90%) was found to be the most important criterion, followed by Feasibility (40.10%), and Innovativeness (17.00%). Four lists of innovations were derived, ranked with respect to a) all three examined criteria, b) Feasibility, c) Utility, and d) Innovativeness. The highest ranked innovation for a) and c) was found to be Mobility as a Service and platform with real-time travel, comfort, and multi-modal information; for b) City marketing from a Public Transport perspective; and for d) Advanced e-ticketing system. Conclusion: The results revealed which of the innovations are the most promising and provide valuable insight into how to integrate innovation with Public Transport to make it more attractive. Public Transport Operators may use the results according to the peculiarities of their city and the importance they give to Feasibility, Utility, and Innovativeness.

Purpose: A family of innovative financial mechanisms and tools for urban public transport, based on the value increment caused by enhanced accessibility, are lately gaining much popularity as a solution to the challenges posed by public financial resources’ shrinkage: Value Capture Finance (VCF). The effectiveness of applied transport financing policies depends significantly on the level of agreement among stakeholders, making collaboration a prerequisite for success. The research presented herein assesses alternative financing options for urban public transportation which are based on the VCF concept. Method: The Multi - Actor Multi-Criteria Analysis (MAMCA) developed by Macharis [1] is used. The methodology is unique in its field, as it includes in-depth involvement of all relevant stakeholders and reveals their way of thinking. Results: The proposed methodological framework is applied to the real-world case study of the under construction metro system of Thessaloniki, Greece. Three different financing scenarios are tested, and the criteria weight elicitation is performed through personal interviews with 70 stakeholders belonging to six different groups, namely: Government/Local Authorities, Transport Authorities, Universities/Research Institutions, Private Sector, Society and Professional Associations. Noteworthy similarities but also contradictions among stakeholder groups emerged, highlighted by the different criteria used for each group. Conclusion: The paper introduces the MAMCA as an ex - ante evaluation method for different VCF mechanisms for urban transportation infrastructure. MAMCA emerges as a robust methodology for this assessment, as it is proved to be capable of dealing with the VCF complexity and multidisciplinary nature.

The relationship between accessibility, as a measure of the fixed location of the property, and land value is well recognized. Space Syntax theory was developed as a set of tools to analyze relationships between structures and functions of cities introducing accessibility measures of the urban grid. Even though admitted that location parameters comprise the most influential factors of urban property value, accessibility measures of centrality, based on network (integration and choice) quantifying urban morphology, have gained little attention in land value literature, despite the fact that urban grid morphology has a crucial role in property market structure. Recently, there has been growing interest for spatial statistics which count for spatial aspects of phenomena such as the land market. The frequently used OLS regression adopted for statistical inference on variables influencing a phenomenon is mostly inefficient for comprehension of spatial phenomena mainly due to instabilities caused by spatial autocorrelation and fixed parameter assumption. GWR extends the classic regression model by allowing spatially varying coefficient estimations while also accounting for spatial autocorrelation. The goal of the research presented herein is to estimate which spatial accessibility radius better explains objective land value and to explore local spatial relationships between geometric accessibility and land values using GWR, Space Syntax theory and GIS techniques, in Xanthi city, a medium sized city in Northern Greece. This research has led to inferences concerning the importance of Space Syntax geometric accessibility in the interpretation of land values, with local patterns of accessibility influence emerging.