BACKGROUND Air pollution from road traffic is a serious health hazard, and people with preexisting respiratory disease may be at increased risk. We investigated the effects of short-term exposure to diesel traffic in people with asthma in an urban, roadside environment. METHODS We recruited 60 adults with either mild or moderate asthma to participate in a randomized, crossover study. Each par...

This work proposes a design methodology using ergonomics and anthropometry concepts applied to traffic sign and street name sign projects. Initially, a literature revision on cognitive ergonomics and anthropometry is performed. Several authors and their design methodologies are analyzed and the aspects to be considered in projects of traffic and street name signs are selected and other specific...

pollution control is based on correctly measuring pollutant concentrations but, at the moment,the principal european cities only monitor pollution levels by means of a few fixed stations co-located inselected points of the urban layout far from hotspots and/or by means of meteorological prediction models offuture pollution. few cities integrate the information from both sources. the implementat...

The influence of vegetation on the concentrations of traffic pollutants in urban street canyons is examined using numerical simulations with the CFD code OpenFOAM. This CFD approach is validated against literature wind tunnel data on traffic pollutant dispersion in street canyons. The impact of avenues of trees is simulated for a variety of vegetation types and the full range of approaching win...

Centrality measures describe structural properties of nodes (and edges) in a network. Betweenness centrality (Freeman 1977) is one of them, characterizing on how many shortest paths a node is. So far, network analysis concentrates on structural, i.e., topological properties of networks, and on static formulations of centrality. Although travel networks can be studied this way, they deviate from...

BACKGROUND Crossing a street can be a very difficult task for older pedestrians. With increased age and potential cognitive decline, older people take the decision to cross a street primarily based on vehicles' distance, and not on their speed. Furthermore, older pedestrians tend to overestimate their own walking speed, and could not adapt it according to the traffic conditions. Pedestrians' be...

Street Networks, knitted in the urban fabric, facilitate spatial movement and control flow of urbanization. The interrelation between a city’s network how residents travel over it has always been high interest to scholars. Over years, multifaceted visualization methods have emerged better express this trend from small large scale. This study proposes novel approach 1) visualize city-wide patter...

Pedestrians are among the most vulnerable road users. Speed of vehicles is considered as one of the major causes of danger for pedestrians crossing the street. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to devise suitable solutions to reduce speed of vehicles. One of these solutions is installation of Pedestrian Refuge Islands (PRI) in very wide midblocks. With regard to fluctuations in pedestrian a...