The impact of rail-based stations on passengers’ safety perceptions. A systematic review of international evidence

Feeling safe in public transport is essential for mobility, and fear of crime can be a larger problem for the individual than crime itself. The aim of the present paper is to systematically review the international evidence in rail-bound environments regarding (a) characteristics impacting safety perceptions and (b) behavioural consequences of unsafety, using the databases ScienceDirect, Scopus, PsycInfo, and Google Scholar. From a selection of 3226 publications, 52 were selected. The sample sizes range from 16 to 137 513 rail users or potential users. A social-ecological framework was adopted to categorize the findings in which place, social, individual, and temporal characteristics were identified along with short-term and long-term behavioural consequences of unsafety. Among the most important characteristics affecting passengers’ safety are lighting, surveillance, other persons’ behaviour, time of day, and one’s own gender. Future studies should further explore the complexity in interactions between characteristics connected to perceived safety.     

Basic psychological need frustration scale: Adaptation and validation to active commuting to school in Spanish children and adolescents

Based on self-determination theory (SDT), the aims of this study were to adapt the Psychological Need Thwarting Scale to active commuting to and from school, as well as to gather information about validity and reliability of the Basic Psychological Need Frustration Scale in Active Commuting to and from School (BPNFS-ACS). A total of 285 children and adolescents, aged 10–17 years, participated (49.47 % girls; M_age = 12.88, SD_age = 2.16). Need satisfaction and frustration, as well as motivation for ACS were measured. The results of the confirmatory factor analysis supported the 12-item three-factor correlated model, which was invariant across gender and age. Convergent validity was met with suitable values for average variance extracted. Discriminant validity was obtained by acceptable values for the heterotrait–monotrait ratio of correlations and the correlations among the three latent factors. Reliability was also supported by adequate scores on Cronbach’s alpha, Raykov’s coefficient, and intra-class correlation coefficient. Criterion validity was evidenced by a negative prediction from need frustration to active commuting to school, and a positive association of need satisfaction with active commuting to school. Results support the use of the BPNFS-ACS for the purpose of gaining deeper insight into the “dark side” of motivation for active school transport among Spanish children and adolescents.     

Coparenting Interventions for Fragile Families: What Do We Know and Where Do We Need To Go Next?

With a large and growing share of American families now forming outside of marriage, triangular infant–mother–father relationship systems in “fragile families” have begun to attract the interest of family scholars and clinicians. A relatively novel conceptualization has concerned the feasibility of intervening to support the development of a sustained and positive coparenting alliance between mothers and fathers who have not made an enduring relationship commitment to one another. At this point in time, there are very few published outcome studies of programs explicitly conceived to help build coparenting alliances in such families. This article reviews what we currently know from this evolving field of study, and from those related responsible fatherhood and marriage and relationship enhancement (MRE) initiatives that included any explicit targeting, strengthening, and assessment of fragile family coparenting in their designs. We summarize lessons learned thus far from Access and Visitation (AV) programs for non‐residential fathers, from MRE programs for low‐income, unmarried couples, and from newer programs for fragile families directly designed to target and support coparenting per se. We close with recommendations for charting this important new family process terrain.     

Sustaining and Expanding Systems of Care to Provide Mental Health Services for Children, Youth and Families Across America

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration has been instrumental in supporting the development and implementation of systems of care to provide services to children and youth with serious mental health conditions and their families. Since 1993, 173 grants have been awarded to communities in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, Guam, the District of Columbia, and 21 American Indian/Alaska Native communities. The system of care principles of creating comprehensive, individualized services, family-driven and youth-guided care and cultural and linguistic competence, supported by a well-trained and competent workforce, have been successful in transforming the field of children's mental health and facilitating the integration of child-serving systems. This approach has achieved positive outcomes at the child and family, practice and system levels, and numerous articles have been published using data collected from system of care communities, demonstrating the effectiveness of this framework. This article will describe lessons learned from implementing the system of care approach, and will discuss the importance of expanding and sustaining systems of care across the country.     

Electric transport properties of Pt/Permalloy bilayers in the presence of an external magnetic field

A recent experimental study of the electric properties of Pt/Permalloy bilayers based on a simultaneous application of an in-plane microfrequency current and an external magnetic field is simulated on a fully relativistic ab initio level by considering the resistivity as an implicit function of the free energy. It is found that the oscillations detected experimentally are caused by the different behavior of out-of-plane and in-plane resistivities in the vicinity of that value of the free energy that corresponds to the resonant field induced by the applied current. A necessary precondition for such oscillations is a sizeable perpendicular anisotropy, which is not the case in systems consisting only of Permalloy. It is shown that the observed phenomenon is essentially an interface effect.     

Primitive Drivers: Racial Science and Citizenship in the Motor Age

Lay participation in the deliberation of techno-scientific issues has become an important objective of policy making in many countries. Using the example of a series of Round Table discussions dealing with genome research allows us to analyse the ways in which the participants of this event construct their arguments during the discussion. Explaining the observed discursive strategies we focus on performative aspects of the deliberation process. In such a way it is taken into account how the setting of a given participatory process influences the ways in which participants are enrolled and enact their participation accordingly. In the analysed case, the setting was not taken as a given, but public participation and its discursive framework became itself subject to negotiation during the process. Hence, the discursive power of individual experiences and the legitimacy of personal interests as the argumentative basis were negotiated during the Round Table discussions. The participants only rarely grounded their statements in practical knowledge and individual experiences. Instead we saw them performing other discursive repertoires, e.g. drawing on societal benefits. Individual perspectives were often transcended and articulated in the form of super-individual arguments which endowed participants' statements with substantial discursive power and provided an alternative rationale for contributing to the deliberation without explicit reference to personal experiences. More broadly, the observed reluctance of the participants to speak-up for their personal interests can be seen as a result of a political culture that favours the advancement of de-individualised perspectives in public deliberation.     

The (Mis)understanding of Scientific Uncertainty? How Experts View Policy-Makers,the Media and Publics

Abstract

Frequent claims that publics ‘misunderstand’ science ignore the contested definition of scientific uncertainty itself. Scientific uncertainty means different things in the natural sciences, social sciences and the humanities, while public controversies show that interpretations of scientific uncertainty have different implications for policy and decision-making. This prompts analysis of the ways that experts view scientific uncertainty and how they characterise the (mis)understandings of this uncertainty by policy-makers, media and publics. Experts from diverse academic fields define scientific uncertainty differently depending on their disciplinary background. For example, mathematics provides experts from the natural sciences with a practice language that facilitates communication with those sharing this cultural competence, but it does not suffice for engaging with wider audiences. Further, experts’ views of diverse publics come across as folk theories, in Arie Rip's terms, which, compiled from disparate pieces of information, can be used to fill a gap in the knowledge about publics.     

Leader endorsement in social dilemmas: Comparing the instrumental and relational perspectives

This chapter examines the role of leadership in overcoming social dilemmas within groups. First, based on prior theorising and research we present two alternative perspectives on leader endorsement in social dilemmas, an instrumental and a relational perspective. Next, we systematically compare these perspectives in a series of experiments investigating leadership in social dilemmas created within small groups in the laboratory. The results of our studies suggest that when their personal identity is salient, group members more strongly endorse leaders who are perceived to be instrumental in solving the freerider problem. In contrast, when a social identity is salient, members more strongly endorse leaders who fulfil their relational needs. Based on these findings we propose a differential needs model of leader endorsement in social dilemmas.     

Level of service delivery of public transport and mode choice in Accra,Ghana

Worsening traffic congestion and air quality has been associated with the proliferation of informal operation of private microbus and minibus in African cities. It is recognised that large buses hold the promise of relieving the growing congestion of African cities if they are managed efficiently and sustainably.It is in line with this that this study seeks to explore the reasons behind commuters’ non-preference of Metro Mass Transit (MMT) for intra-city commuting in Accra, Ghana. A revealed preference survey was administered to 134 commuters to find out the reasons behind their non-preference and their perception of the level of service (LOS) delivery of the Metro Mass Transit.The Study revealed that though Metro Mass Transit was 20% cheaper in terms of price, commuters perceived its service delivery as poor. Over-crowding of buses, non-adherence to time schedule, long in-vehicle time, perception of not getting access to seats, non-availability of bus at respondents’ origins and destinations, accessibility of alternative modes and long waiting times for buses accounted for the major reasons for non-preference.Metro Mass Transit Limited’s improvement in its service attributes especially in-vehicle time, waiting time, comfort, reliability and accessibility is a means of increasing its modal share. Adherence to these is the surest way to achieving the objective of promoting mass transit in Accra by shifting people from the use of unsustainable modes such as mini-buses and taxis to the use of efficient high capacity systems as Metro Mass Transit.     

Key challenges in tram/streetcar driving from the tram driver’s perspective – A qualitative study

Tram drivers have a difficult task in controlling one of the heaviest vehicles on the road whilst negotiating a complex road environment with multiple road users. Like all public transport drivers, tram drivers need to ensure passenger safety and to run on time. However, very little research has been conducted evaluating tram driving tasks and even less on evaluating tram drivers opinion on how other road users are affecting tram road safety. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate the key tram driving challenges, to identify the key road user factors affecting tram road safety as well as to explore the potential safety improvement initiatives on tram routes from the tram drivers’ viewpoint. The study incorporated five focus groups involving thirty tram drivers in Melbourne. The key themes emerged inductively from focus groups were identified through a data coding process. Outcomes of the focus groups revealed seven major challenges in tram driving: ensuring safety for all people in and around the tram, pressure for running on-time, maintaining constant concentration on roads, predicting other road users’ behavior in advance to avoid any crash incident, preventing passenger falls on board, accepting the operational constraints of trams and managing fatigue workloads. Tram drivers identified that other road users are unaware of safety issues around trams, have a poor understanding of road rules about driving with trams and often violate road rules around trams, and they mentioned this road user behaviors as the key challenges for safe tram driving. Tram drivers proposed rendering greater law enforcement on the tram network to penalize road users who are violating road rules around trams, introducing more safety campaigns and safety education to increase awareness among road users to improve tram road safety. Findings of this research enhance understanding of tram driving challenges, provide an in-depth knowledge of road user factors affecting tram road safety and suggest effective planning strategies for transit agencies to improve road safety.