Car dominance in urban landscapes poses environmental, health, and congestion challenges. This comprehensive study examines the potential of shared mobility in car-free areas. Specifically, it investigates the mobility behaviour of inner-city older adult residents (50 + ), traditionally heavy car users through a case study of small-medium-sized Dutch cities and a stated preference experiment. This study applies a Latent Class model to analyse the heterogeneity in passengers’ preferences, identifying four distinct groups: Price Sensitive & Private Car Enthusiasts, Time-Conscious Travellers, Pro-Cycling & Conventional travellers, and Micromobility Enthusiasts. The model predicts class membership based on travel behaviour data from the stated choice experiment and examines the role of key factors such as travel cost, travel time, and walking distance in shaping mode choices across five transport options: bike, e-bike, e-scooter, e-Brommobiel, and e-car. The findings reveal that a significant portion of travellers recognise the value of shared mobility options in reducing private car dependency, underscoring the need for targeted interventions to address barriers and enhance accessibility to promote shared mobility adoption. Based on these distinct passenger segments, the study proposes specific policy measures that not only enhance transport planning but also address existing challenges and user concerns in sustainable urban mobility.

Emerging access/egress transport modes to and from railway stations may play a vital role in the future performance and usage of public transport. To learn about these modes, their acceptability, and attractiveness, we performed a case study at Delft Campus train station in the Netherlands, using a stated preference experiment. We investigated travellers’ preferences towards shared bicycles, shared e-steps, shared e-scooters, automated vehicles (individuals and shuttles), and the importance of time, costs, and availability of these modes to access or egress this small-sized hub. Furthermore, we studied the impacts of two contextual situations: weather conditions and carrying luggage, affecting mode choice. The results indicate that travel costs have much higher importance than travel time for accessing or egressing from a small hub, and Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) usage is positively valued as first/last mile transport modes compared to other alternatives. Increasing 10% time and cost of all modes indicate that the demand for individual and collective AVs falls sharply, whereas the change in demands of shared bikes is negligible. A significant impact of context effect variables in the utility of travellers was also observed when these variables interacted with the leading travel attributes. The potential market share of the modes indicates that shared bike usage will continue to be strong, and automated vehicles will find their position at future stations. These findings could provide critical criteria for designing future small/medium multimodal hubs.

Like many other sectors, climate change strategies have put various restrictions on industry, the most prominent one being caps on CO₂ and other energy-related emissions. At the same time, and especially in many developing economies, the industry struggles with an increasing gap between the fast development of the sector and lagging energy supply capacity. Collective generation of renewable energy is seen as a promising means of transition, next to other forms of renewable energy generation (centralised, individual). The aim of this research is to investigate factors influencing willingness to participate in Industrial Community Energy Systems (InCES). Using existing literature on Industrial Symbiosis and Community Energy Systems, we formulate plausible hypotheses on the most relevant factors for the willingness of industries to join such initiatives. As one of the largest and most diversified industrial clusters in Iran, Arak industrial park is selected as the case study. Data were collected from the CEOs of 96 companies through survey research. Our results highlight the crucial role of awareness about the benefits of renewable power generation in an InCES. Social identity among industries and trust between them are also determining factors for their willingness to join InCES. Finally, proper institutional design for overcoming the partnership complexities (e.g., conflict resolution) was highlighted as a crucial factor for industries. It can be concluded from the results of this study that policymakers should avoid one-size-fits-all incentive design approaches and reach out to larger companies with targeted incentives, introduce specially designed bank loans for different target groups, and make use of consulting companies as intermediaries to increase the awareness of the industries regarding the benefits of investing in an InCES.

Human error including driving misbehavior contributes to over 90 percent of road vehicle accidents, and speeding is considered to be risky. Smart technologies, such as Connected Vehicle System (CVS) are among the interesting technical options to improve driving behavior, and Pay-As-You-Speed (PAYS) is an effective economic incentive to reduce speed violations. We investigated the acceptability of CVS with and without the presence of economic incentives, such as PAYS, in the context of a middle-income country: Iran. We used a Zero-Inflated Ordered Probit model (ZIOP) to estimate drivers’ willingness to pay for a CVS, and a hazard-based model for predicting the incentive level needed for accepting CVS via a PAYS scheme. ZIOP model indicated that drivers with the following characteristics were more likely to pay more for CVS: having a comprehensive insurance coverage, being younger than 60 years, owning more than one car, and having older vehicles. The hazard-based model also confirmed that drivers that speed relatively often have a lower tendency to adopt CVS, and drivers who experienced an accident in the past were more inclined to adopt CVS via PAYS. Also, drivers' opinion about CVS, vehicle characteristics, demographics, and driving experience influenced the effect of PAYS characteristics on acceptability of CVS. Finally, we offer recommendations for how to effectively implement CVS, in order to significantly reduce the high fatality and accident rates in middle-income countries such as Iran.

In order to decarbonize the energy sector, there is a widespread consensus that the role of end-users in the energy system should change from passive consumption to active prosumption and engagement. This is of particular importance as an increasing number of technologies and business models are focusing on the end-users. These developments provide new opportunities for further technical and social innovation to smarter, flexible and integrated systems such as community energy systems (CESs). Through system integration and community engagement CESs assist in transition to a low-carbon energy system. Despite the high importance, there is limited knowledge on willingness of local citizens to participate in the local energy systems such as CESs as well as associated factors determining such willingness. Through a survey among 599 citizens in the Netherlands, this research analyses the impact of demographic, socio-economic, socio-institutional as well as environmental factors on willingness to participate in CESs. Factor and multi-variate regression analysis reveals that the environmental concern, renewables acceptance, energy independence, community trust, community resistance, education, energy related education and awareness about local energy initiatives are the most important factors in determining the citizens’ willingness to participate in CESs. Citizens should be empowered to take active role in steering the local energy initiatives.

The number of historic vehicles is steadily increasing. Although, these vehicles are part of our cultural heritage with respect to road transport and mobility, they present (future) environmental concerns, which is a relevant development from policy perspective. Yet, as far as the authors are aware, there is hardly any academic literature addressing this issue. This study aims to provide a first exploration of historic cars and reasons for ownership and use and policy implications. To this end, a large explorative survey is conducted among HV owners of 15 European countries. Focusing on passenger car owners only, a latent class analysis is performed to identify possible segments among historic car owners. Seven latent classes are identified: recreational owners, reserved owners, repair men, die-hard fans, next generation fans, frequent drivers and collectors. Overall, the results indicate that there is large diversity in the ownership and use of historic cars and the reasons behind ownership. However, in general, historic cars are used much less than modern cars. Only the group of ‘frequent drivers’ (8% of the sample) represent a potential concern regarding emissions from a policy perspective. Finally, policy recommendations are provided for decision makers regarding historic cars.

Historic vehicles (HVs) are the heritage of road transport that have surprisingly received little attention in the academic literature. This study presents an overview of the literature on HVs, focusing on the three topics that dominate the policy debate on transport: environmental, safety and congestion impacts. We observed that polluting emissions of HVs are per kilometre much higher (often a factor 5 or more) than those of moderns vehicles. The annual average mileage per vehicle per year of HVs is much lower than other vehicles. The lower active and passive safety levels of HVs are compensated by the way these vehicles are driven, resulting in the risk factors per kilometre being roughly equal or lower than other vehicles. The contribution of HVs to congestion is negligible. However, the transport policy discourse is divided on the topic of HVs. More comprehensive and effective laws and regulation are needed to protect this aspect of the heritage of road transport whilst concurrently avoiding or limiting the problems caused by them.

While transport is essential for the functioning of the economy of each country, it is also contributing to CO2 emissions and other externalities, like safety risks and noise exposure. According to the Internal Energy Agency, around 23% of global CO2 emissions is related to the transport sector in 2015, making it second largest emitter after the energy sector (IEA, 2015). The energy sector has long started to stabilize its emissions through the large scale introduction of renewable and clean energy sources. If the transport sector continues to develop as before, this will make this sector perform even worse in terms of its relative emission contribution. Although top-down emission policies have been successful (for example, regulations regarding particulate filters), the increasing transport related emissions worldwide indicates that there is a need for more action. While regulations and technological innovations may decreased emissions, but not enough to reduce emissions to acceptable levels; behavioural change is also necessary (Bristow et al., 2008; Hickman & Banister, 2007). However, imposing behavioural restrictions may be associated with economic costs. Therefore, the existing dilemma is how to reduce the share of transport in global emissions while minimizing unfavourable economic implications.

Adverse environmental impacts caused by increasing air travel put pressure on governments and the airline industry to take mitigating actions. However, taking effective actions that are accepted by airline passengers requires an understanding of air travelers' preferences. To reach this understanding, a stated-choice experiment is conducted among Dutch air travelers. The survey is appended with measures of attitudes toward air travel and climate change. The heterogeneity in passengers' preferences is revealed by estimating a discrete-choice latent class model, which aims to identify classes in the population that are homogeneous in their preferences. The attitudinal constructs are additionally included in the model to predict class membership. Three classes are identified: price hunters, luggage lovers, and ecoflyers. Overall, the study indicates that a considerable portion of the air travelers derive utility from passenger-oriented environmental policies. Based on the revealed passenger segments, specific policy measures are proposed.