No abstract

This research addresses the critical but understudied issue of gender differences in travel behaviors in traditional societies, in general, and in the Arab world, in particular. To avoid known problems of data collection, a careful and labor-intensive survey process was undertaken in two Arab communities in northern Israel. The data gathered through this process were analyzed by a variety of statistical means to reveal that rather stark gender distinctions in travel behavior exist. On the whole, men make more tours, spend more time traveling, make more stops, and spend more time at activities at those stops than women. Men disproportionately travel by private vehicle modes, whereas women disproportionately walk. In the communities surveyed, the amount of transit provided was low and had a correspondingly low mode share. This dearth of transit seems to impair women's travel further. An extensive comparison of adult female and male tour frequencies was undertaken by using bivariate correlations and an ordered logit model. The most striking finding of this analysis was that 1/6th of Arab women do not leave the house to make even a single tour, whereas this proportion is 1/30th for men. The more nuanced statistical analyses revealed that demographic factors affect tour frequency differently for women and men. Effective policy interventions must consider these gender distinctions to address in the best way possible the travel needs of individuals in communities in the Arab world.

Nitrogen oxides and ozone impact air quality in many parts of the United States, Europe, China, and many other countries. The greatest air quality challenge in Los Angeles, some other areas of California, and some parts of China is to reduce ozone levels to meet regulations. Background ozone is a major factor which makes it more difficult to reduce urban concentrations in Los Angeles and some other locations. Air pollution from China affects the background ozone entering California. More than 50 years of history are reviewed with an emphasis on reducing concentrations of nitrogen oxides and ozone. During this time period, there has been significant progress in reducing levels of these pollutants in urban air in the United States and Europe; however, ozone concentrations in China have increased since 2013. Cost and benefit analysis has shown that benefits associated with the Clean Air Act of 1970 have greatly exceeded costs to improve air quality in the U.S. over the past 50 years. Further actions to consider to improve air quality include reducing combustion of coal and petroleum products and transitioning to renewable energy. Public education is recommended to inform citizens that the benefits of reducing emissions far exceed costs.

Cities in transitional economies are experiencing a proliferation of newly constructed suburban shopping malls. Curiously, travel habits to these new malls are quite distinct from those generally experienced in North America, particularly regarding trip chaining. While most weekday afternoon mall trips in developed nations are chained, few are linked in countries with transitional economies. Because trip chaining is a behavior strongly associated with sprawl, this research seeks to examine the nascent trip chaining at the four new peripheral malls in Prague, Czech Republic, to identify factors that contribute to such travel patterns. This research explores two types of trip chaining among a survey sample of 782 people. External trip chaining considers activities made before and after the mall stop, while internal trip chaining considers activities made during the mall stop. Overall, only 18.1% of patrons made external trip chains, while 42.3% made internal trip chains. This general finding suggests that, in the absence of many retail alternatives, mall patrons in transitional economies may substitute internal trip chaining for the external trip chaining that characterizes travel patterns in North America. This research demonstrates that male gender, high income, working age, small household size, ownership of multiple cars, suburban home location, few additional car passengers, weekly mall trip frequency, a long access travel time, poor mall accessibility, and a short mall activity duration are tied to higher rates of external trip chaining. Concomitantly, female gender, high income, working age, large household size, private vehicle use, additional passengers in the car, mall trip frequency, poor mall accessibility, grocery shopping, high mall expenditure, and long mall activity duration are tied to higher rates of internal trip chaining. These findings suggest that land use policies may be effective in limiting the growth of external trip chaining and maximizing internal trip chaining among suburban mall patrons.

Air pollution from motor vehicles is an acute urban problem in many rapidly developing countries. Air quality monitoring in Israel has both demonstrated the severity of the problem in Israel and identified transportation emissions to be the major contributor to its etiology. Currently, a major concern is the high level of nitrogen oxide nonattainment in Tel Aviv. Thousands of nitrogen oxide violations are recorded there every year. This pollution both affects the local population and provides the driving factor behind the ozone formation downwind in Jerusalem and the West Bank. This paper presents the innovative effort to compile varying streams of data to create an urban vehicle emissions inventory for the city of Tel Aviv. The inventory provides an excellent understanding of the relative contributions of four air pollutants between and within each vehicle cluster. The major findings are that, of total urban vehicle emissions, cars purchased before 1993, when catalytic converters became mandatory, produce 60 percent of carbon monoxide and 55 percent of hydrocarbon emissions. City buses produce 67 percent of nitrogen oxide and 39 percent of particulate matter emissions. Trucks and taxis each contribute about an eighth of total nitrogen oxide and a quarter of total particulate matter emissions. The major policy direction suggested by these findings is diesel fleet vehicle mitigation. In short, an effective approach is presented for industrializing nations to quickly assess their mobile pollution sources, and the foundation data are compiled for further mobilesource analyses in Israel.