Expanding road networks to accommodate various activities has significantly increased urban noise pollution, adversely affecting human health and quality of life. Numerous factors influence the noise level in urban areas, including road characteristics, traffic characteristics, surrounding buildings, and weather conditions. While previous studies have considered many of these factors individually, this study aims to integrate all relevant variables to comprehensively monitor and analyze their combined effects on noise levels. The objective is to determine the most influential factors that could be incorporated into effective noise reduction strategies. This research focuses on Cairo, one of the most densely populated cities in the world, where high noise levels are a persistent issue. A detailed case study of Tahrir Street in Dokki, Cairo, provides the basis for this investigation. One of the most crowded areas is El-Tahrir Street in Al-Dokki, which was selected as a case study in this research. This area experiences high traffic volume, with up to 1700 vehicles passing through within a 15-min interval. This significant traffic volume is the primary driver of the elevated noise levels in the area. Traffic and noise level monitoring was conducted using a field survey using the sound level meter. Consequently, a statistical analysis was conducted to investigate the correlation between different factors and the noise level and determine the most influential factors. The study revealed that traffic volume and congestion are the most significant factors influencing noise levels on Tahrir Street, exhibiting strong positive correlations (R = 0.38). Additionally, the study found an inverse relationship between vehicle speed and noise level due to high traffic volumes and identified that building characteristics and wind direction also play roles, albeit to a lesser extent.

UNASSIGNED: Autistic adults are significantly unemployed or underemployed even compared with other disability groups. Employment is a social determinant that, when satisfied, closely influences health-related quality of life. For autistic adults, environmental barriers to transportation can impact the ability to get to employment resulting in limited employment opportunities. This study provides a closer examination of the association between transportation use and employment status.
UNASSIGNED: To examine the use of different types of transportation and barriers to public transit by employed and unemployed autistic adults.
UNASSIGNED: The data were from a large statewide study conducted between May 2017 and June 2018 using the Pennsylvania Autism Needs Assessment (PANA), in which information about employment and transportation use was obtained from autistic adults who were residents of Pennsylvania. The study sample included 1120 autistic adults (Mage = 28.03 years, standard deviation = 9.84; 70% men; 82% non-Hispanic White).
UNASSIGNED: Participants who were employed were more likely to drive themselves than those who were unemployed (45% vs. 21%, p < 0.001), while they were less likely to take rides from others (62% vs. 75%, p < 0.001) or use service transportation (11% vs. 18%, p = 0.001). For barriers to public transit, the results identified that employed participants reported fewer barriers to public transportation than unemployed participants with a small effect size (1.98 vs. 2.54, d = 0.22).
UNASSIGNED: Employed autistic adults exercise more transportation independence. Unemployed autistic adults report more barriers to participation and lower ability to independently use public transportation. Future transportation and employment studies are necessary.
Why is this an important issue? Employment is important for income, quality of life, and the ability to get the supports or services a person needs. Autistic adults are more likely to be unemployed or underemployed when compared with neurotypical adults and people with other disabilities. There are many environmental barriers to participating in adult activities in the community, but issues with transportation are a primary barrier. In previous research, a high number of autistic adults (72%) reported that they had missed some of their desired activities due to lack of transportation. It is important to understand the relationship between transportation and employment to know how to overcome barriers and improve employment options for autistic adults who want to work. What was the purpose of this research? The purpose of this research was to look at transportation and employment status (i.e., employed or unemployed). Specifically, this study compared types of transportation used and perceived barriers to transportation between autistic adults who were employed and those who were unemployed. What did the researchers do? Information was collected from 1120 autistic adults through a large statewide survey, which included questions about employment and transportation. Information from autistic adults who were employed and those who were not employed was compared. What were the results of the study? Results of this comparison showed that participants who were employed were more likely to drive themselves and less likely to take rides from other people or to use service transportation. Those who were employed also reported fewer barriers to public transportation. Barriers such as crime, planning a trip, treatment by fellow passengers, cost, knowledge on how to use public transportation, and sensory overload were identified by more people who were unemployed than by people who were employed. How will these findings help autistic adults now or in the future? The study identified specific barriers to transportation for autistic adults who are unemployed. This information can help to guide supports and policies to reduce barriers for travel needed for employment. In addition, results of this study can help guide future research to develop or identify the transportation skills needed for travel to work for autistic adults.

BACKGROUND: As the aging population in the United States continues to increase rapidly, preserving the mobility and independence of older adults becomes increasingly critical for enabling aging in place successfully. While personal vehicular transport remains a popular choice among this demographic due to its provision of independence and control over their lives, age-related changes may heighten the risk of common driving errors and diminish driving abilities.
OBJECTIVE: This study aims to investigate the driving practices of older adults and their efforts to maintain safe and confident driving habits. Specifically, we sought to identify the factors that positively and negatively influence older adults\' driving performance and confidence, as well as the existing efforts put into sustaining their driving abilities.
METHODS: We recruited 20 adults aged ≥65 years who remained active drivers during the recruitment from the greater New York area. Then, we conducted semistructured interviews with them to examine their perceptions, needs, and challenges regarding safe and confident driving.
RESULTS: Our findings uncovered a notable disparity between older adults\' self-perceived driving skills and the challenges they face, particularly caused by age-related limitations and health conditions such as vision and memory declines and medication routines. Drawing on these findings, we proposed strategies to bridge this gap and empower older adults to drive safely and confidently, including fostering a realistic understanding of their capabilities, encouraging open dialogue regarding their driving, encouraging regular assessments, and increasing awareness of available resources.
CONCLUSIONS: This study uncovered a noticeable disparity between the perceived driving competence of older adults and the actual challenges they confront while driving. This divergence underscores a significant need for better support beyond the existing aid available to preserve older adults\' driving skills. We hope that our recommendations will offer valuable insights for practitioners and scholars committed to enhancing the overall well-being and quality of life for older adults as they age in their homes.

Outsourcing of health-commodity supplies to third-party logistics providers is one of the ways of reducing costs and/or improving service levels in the public sector. This paper evaluates three forms of outsourcing: full outsourcing of inventory management, partial outsourcing of specific activities, and contingent partial outsourcing of specific logistics activities. It notes that, in Africa, contracting-out supply logistics has mostly taken the form of partial outsourcing of transportation only or storage and transportation of specific health commodities to all or selected geographical regions. Partial outsourcing offers limited benefits since it cannot provide adequate pressures on public-sector logistics to be efficient or maintain uninterrupted supplies in times of catastrophes. Improvements in logistics performance achieved through partial outsourcing should not mask the need for more expansive arrangements that support not only partial outsourcing but also full outsourcing in situations of inefficiency and in times of supply-disruption catastrophe.

Telehealth use among individuals with and without transportation challenges remains understudied. This study aims to compare telehealth utilization and types of healthcare services between subjects with and without transportation challenges. Using data from the 2021 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS), we identified telehealth use for office visits by adults (≥18 years old) in 2021, categorizing the type of healthcare services received, such as checkups and mental health counseling. Weighted logistic regression was employed to identify factors associated with telehealth usage. The total population analyzed was 204 621 985 (unweighted n = 17 674). The average (SD) age of the subjects was 49 (18) years old, and 53% were female. On average, individuals with transportation challenges had 1.40 telehealth visits, while those without such challenges had 0.87 visits (P = .03). Additionally, individuals with transportation challenges had more visits related to behavioral health compared to those without transportation challenges (22% vs 11%, P < .01). Those facing transportation challenges were 40% more likely to use telehealth compared to those without transportation challenges (OR = 1.40, P = .01). The findings suggest that telehealth could serve as a viable solution to overcome transportation barriers and improve access to care. However, it is crucial to assess access to care through telehealth to enhance the health outcomes for individuals facing transportation challenges.

Travel times between different locations form the basis for most contemporary measures of spatial accessibility. Travel times allow to estimate the potential for interaction between people and places, and is therefore a vital measure for understanding the functioning, sustainability, and equity of cities. Here, we provide an open travel time matrix dataset that describes travel times between the centroids of all cells in a grid (N = 13,132) covering the metropolitan area of Helsinki, Finland. The travel times recorded in the dataset follow a door-to-door approach that provides comparable travel times for walking, cycling, public transport and car journeys, including all legs of each trip by each mode, such as the walk to a bus stop, or the search for a parking spot. We used the r5py Python package, that we developed specifically for this computation. The data are sensitive to diurnal variations and to variations between people (e.g. slow and fast walking speed). We validated the data against the Google Directions API and present use cases from a planning practice. The five key principles that guided the data set design and production - comparability, simplicity, reproducibility, transferability, and sensitivity to temporal and interpersonal variations - ensure that urban and transport planners, business and researchers alike can use the data in a wide range of applications.

During the preslaughter phase, cattle are transported from their place of origin to a slaughter facility, experiencing transportation, lairage, environmental factors, and novel environments. Although research exists that has focused how the preslaughter phase impacts cattle welfare and meat quality, some significant preslaughter management factors and subsequent welfare and meat quality outcomes have not been thoroughly explored. The objective of this study was to assess the effects of preslaughter management factors on welfare and meat quality outcomes in fed beef cattle in the United States. Transportation factors, environmental characteristics, lairage factors, cattle characteristics, and several meat quality variables were collected from 5 federally inspected commercial processing facilities in the United States. After excluding slaughter lots that included <75% complete datasets, a total of 619 slaughter lots representing 84,508 head of cattle were used for further analysis. Predictor variables of interest included processing plant, cattle breed, sex class, operation shift at the plant, distance traveled to the plant, truck waiting time to unload at the plant, lairage duration and space allowance, temperature humidity index, and windspeed. Outcome variables of interest included cattle mobility, carcass bruising, dark cutting (DC), quality grades, and hot carcass weights. Logistic and linear regressions were used to analyze the associations between the predictor and outcome variables of interest. Increased distance traveled and truck waiting time were associated with higher odds of mobility impairment (P = 0.0009 and P = 0.007, respectively), with each 10 km increase in distance traveled having an odds ratio (OR) of 1.001 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.000 to 1.001) and each 1-min increase in waiting time having an OR of 1.003 (CI: 1.001 to 1.004). Conversely, a 10-km increase in distance traveled decreased the odds of carcass bruising (OR: 0.997, CI: 0.996 to 0.998; P < 0.0001). Longer lairage was associated with increased odds of DC (P = 0.0415), with each 60-min increase in duration having an OR of 1.034 (CI: 1.001 to 1.068). The results demonstrate the importance of truck arrival management (i.e., scheduling, prioritizing unloading) on mobility. Focusing on lairage management (i.e., density and time) may provide some opportunities to improve meat quality.

This research investigated spatial inequalities in transportation accessibility to social infrastructures (SIs) in South Korea, using a multi-dimensional methodological approach, including descriptive/bivariate analysis, explanatory factor analysis (EFA), K-Mean cluster analysis, and multinomial logit model (MNL). Our study confirmed pronounced spatial disparities in transportation accessibility to SIs, highlighting significantly lower access in rural and remote regions compared to urban centers and densely populated areas, consistent with existing literature. Building on prior findings, several additional findings were identified. First, we uncovered significant positive correlations among accessibility to different types of SIs in four critical categories: green and recreation spaces, health and aged care facilities, educational institutions, and justice and emergency services, revealing prevalent spatial inequality patterns. Second, we identified three distinct accessibility clusters (High, Middle, and Low) across the critical SI categories. Specifically, residents within the High cluster benefited from the closest average network distances to all SIs, while those in the Low cluster faced significant accessibility burdens (e.g., 22.9 km for welfare facilities, 20.1 km for hospitals, and 19.2 km for elderly care facilities). Third, MNL identified factors such as population density and housing prices as pivotal in spatial stratification of accessibility. Specifically, areas with lower SI accessibility tended to have a higher proportion of elderly residents. Also, decreased accessibility correlated with diminished traffic volumes across all transportation modes, particularly public transportation. This research contributes to enhancing our understanding of spatial inequalities in transportation accessibility to SIs and offers insights crucial for transportation and urban planning.

In response to global challenges in resource supply, many industries are adopting the principles of the Circular Economy (CE) to improve their resource acquisition strategies. This paper introduces an innovative approach to address the environmental impact of waste Glass Fiber Reinforced-Polymer (GFRP) pipes and panels by repurposing them to manufacture structural components for new bicycle and pedestrian bridges. The study covers the entire process, including conceptualization, analysis, design, and testing of a deck system, with a focus on the manufacturing process for a 7-m-long prototype bridge. The study shows promising results in the concept of a sandwich structure utilizing discarded GFRP pipes and panels, which has the flexibility to account for variabilities in dimensions of incoming products while still meeting mechanical requirements. The LCA analysis shows that the transportation of materials is the governing contributing factor. It was concluded that further development of this concept should be accompanied by a business model that considers the importance of the contributions from the whole value chain.

From 2020 to 2023, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) conducted a national pilot of a rideshare program to support homeless patients\' transportation needs to obtain critical resources and attend medical appointments. This study linked Lyft rideshare data in 2022 to VA administrative data to examine characteristics and changes in service use among VA homeless service users. The results showed that VA homeless service users who used the VA Rideshare program were more likely to have psychiatric diagnoses and urgent care visits than those who did not use the program. When we controlled for past VA service use, use of the VA Rideshare program was associated with greater use of VA outpatient and inpatient services and fewer no-show medical appointments six months after the veterans\' index date. VA Rideshare users had three to eight more program visits over the course of six months than non-Rideshare users. These findings indicate benefits associated with providing transportation assistance to vulnerable patients in a nationwide health system.