Dimensionality of an urban transport system based on ISO 37120 indicators for the case of selected European cities

Abstract

The study aims to assess transport systems in terms of ISO 37120 indicators in selected European cities. Using the principal components analysis, the research identified significantly correlated variables associated with urban transport. Three principal components explained almost 87% of input data variability. The first principal component was mainly related to transportation fatalities, the second component — to the length of bicycle paths, and the third component — to the length of the network used by light passenger public transport. A strong correlation was found between the length of high capacity public transport and transportation fatalities. Furthermore, the analysis proved that the Aalter transport system was an outlier. The paper concludes by identifying several recommendations on the improvement of urban transport management and the development of low-carbon mobility systems.

Application of Open Government Data to Sustainable City Indicators: A Megacity Case Study

“…Regarding the "ISO 37120", "ISO 37122", or "ISO 37123" indicators, the bibliometric study shows some papers analyze the numerical data available in the open platform [23,52], while others evaluate the historical values of standardized indicators to assess a city's performance and quality of life [24,26,27]. However, those studies do not check the adherence of indicator-calculating formulas to the ISO standards.…”

“…The research by [52] studied the ISO 37120 transport indicators in several European cities, using principal component analysis-a method also used in this research. An important question is if the authors have used data from the World Council on City Data (WCCD) (https://www.dataforcities.org/, accessed on 3 July 2022), which certifies compliance to the ISO 3712x series.…”

“…While some authors have selected indicators from the ISO 3712x series due to their relevance, others chose them because of a theme, such as energy [51] and mobility [52,53]. The authors in [51] analyzed energy indicators of 21 cities from the WCCD database, such as Hague, Zwolle, Oslo, Valencia, and Porto.…”

“…The authors in [51] analyzed energy indicators of 21 cities from the WCCD database, such as Hague, Zwolle, Oslo, Valencia, and Porto. The research in [52] used ISO 37120 transport indicators from several cities in the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Portugal, United Kington, and Belgium.…”

“…Similar to study [52], in which PCA was performed on ISO 37120:2014 in relation to data on essential transportation indicators of cities in Europe (available in open data platform), PCA was used on ObservaSampa indicators, conforming to ISO 3712x indicators. The free software RStudio 4.2.0 version was used to perform calculations and prepare the matrices, tables, and graphics referring to the principal component analysis.…”