Urban Currents

3D-Geo-Vis: A Web-Based Environment for Interactive 3D Thematic Geovisualisation and Its Usability Evaluation

Researchers developed 3D-Geo-Vis, an open-source web application that visualizes air temperature using seven distinct 3D thematic geovisualization methods with real-time parameter adjustments. A usability evaluation with 54 participants combined 60 Hz eye-tracking, a custom interaction logger that captured 15,457 interactions, and post-test questionnaires. The evaluation showed high success rates for value searching (87.0%) and parameter modification (85.2%), but lower success for voxel-based analytical tasks (77.8%) due to higher cognitive demands.

Why it matters — The study provides empirical evidence on how users interact with 3D thematic maps, identifying specific usability bottlenecks like voxel rendering performance and low salience in method switching, which directly informed design improvements for interactive 3D geovisualization interfaces.

Caveat: The usability evaluation was conducted using a single environmental variable, air temperature, which may not represent user performance or cognitive load when interacting with other types of spatial thematic data.

ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information · doi

Multi-index remote sensing assessment of Urban heat risk and vegetation cooling effects for sustainable planning in Errachidia a Pre-Saharan City in Southeastern Morocco

This study developed a Heat Risk Index (HRI) for the pre-Saharan oasis city of Errachidia, Morocco, during the record-breaking heat of July 2023. Using Landsat-8 thermal data, Sentinel-2 imagery, and a ResNet34-backed U-Net deep learning model for land cover classification (94.0% accuracy), the researchers mapped land surface temperatures (LST) ranging from 33.8 °C to 50.1 °C. The analysis revealed a marginal negative daytime Surface Urban Heat Island Intensity of -1.08 °C, but identified a rapid thermal decay of 5.39 °C within 25 m of dense vegetation, which diminished to less than 1 °C beyond 150 m.

Why it matters — It establishes the first quantitative heat risk framework and vegetation cooling threshold specifically for a pre-Saharan oasis city, proving that absolute urban heat stress remains extreme (averaging 45.3 °C) despite a negative urban-suburban temperature differential.

Caveat: The cooling thresholds and temperature dynamics are based on a single, record-breaking summer month (July 2023) in a single oasis city, which may limit direct generalization to other dryland regions or seasons.

Discover Cities · pdf · doi

Process justice in transit-oriented development in Hong Kong: The case of Kai Tak station development

This study analyzes process justice in the planning of the Kai Tak station transit-oriented development (TOD) in Hong Kong. Using the Rules-in-Use lens from the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework, the research evaluates stakeholder dynamics and interactions during the planning phase. The analysis identifies four systemic issues: government dominance, power imbalances between transit and housing stakeholders, conflicting rules-in-use between internal project teams and external actors, and pervasive ambiguity in planning rules.

Why it matters — It shifts the scholarly focus of transit-oriented development from outcome-based equity to process-based justice, revealing how institutional rules and power imbalances during the planning phase systematically marginalize external stakeholders.

Caveat: The findings are based on a single case study of a specific station development in Hong Kong, which may limit their direct applicability to different institutional and planning contexts.

Cities · doi

The personalized Healthy Route Planner for sensitive groups

The Healthy Route Planner (HRP) is a routing system built on a cloud-native microservices architecture that calculates walking and cycling paths based on air quality, allergens, and comfort factors. It uses a Personalized Complex Metric to weight and adjust critical pollutants according to specific health profiles, such as asthma. Tested in Valencia, Spain, using real-time monitoring station data, the system generated routes that reduced pollution exposure by up to 11.60% under heavily polluted conditions, with a maximum travel distance increase of 23.07% for asthmatic profiles, while maintaining response times under 1 second.

Why it matters — It introduces a scalable routing capability that dynamically balances travel distance against personalized pollution exposure, allowing vulnerable populations to actively minimize health risks during active travel.

Caveat: The system's performance and exposure reductions were validated using a combination of real and synthetic scenarios in a single city.

Journal of Transport & Health · doi

On the theoretical distribution of cost overruns: A lognormal baseline

This study establishes a theoretical foundation for infrastructure cost overruns by proving that when project risks compound multiplicatively, the cost ratio of actual to estimated costs follows a lognormal distribution. The model was validated using two international datasets, demonstrating that lognormal parameters vary systematically across different project types and planning phases.

Why it matters — It demonstrates that cost overruns are a mathematical consequence of planning at the peak of a right-skewed distribution rather than simple psychological optimism bias, providing a rigorous theoretical basis for forecasting and risk communication in log-space.

Transportation Research Part A Policy and Practice · doi

An intermodal freight optimization and routing model: Balancing cost, emissions, and time in multimodal network design

The Intermodal Freight Optimization and Routing Model (INFORM), a mixed-integer quadratic program, was developed to jointly minimize cost, transit time, and emissions while accounting for fuel technologies, facility siting, and up to two transfers per shipment. When applied to the St. Louis–Louisiana corridor, the model demonstrated that trucking remains the optimal choice under nominal conditions, and that rail and barge only become competitive at line-haul distances far exceeding those in the study corridor due to high access, egress, and transfer penalties.

Why it matters — The model demonstrates that the per-mile efficiency advantages of rail and barge are consistently negated by transfer frictions and access penalties, proving that intermodal infrastructure investments will fail to shift freight away from highways unless they directly target the structural cost and time advantages of trucking.

Caveat: The findings and break-even analyses are based on a single geographic corridor between St. Louis and Louisiana, which may not represent corridors with different infrastructure densities or geography.

Transportation Research Part C Emerging Technologies · pdf · doi

How E-Bicycle policy and infrastructure challenge sustainable transportation: an ethical assessment

This paper presents an applied-conceptual ethical framework to evaluate the impacts of e-bicycle policy and infrastructure on diverse stakeholder groups, including human populations, nonhuman animals, ecosystems, future generations, and urban artifacts. It applies the concepts of moral ordering and moral utility to resolve competing stakeholder interests and address the rising injuries and deaths associated with e-bike use.

Why it matters — It provides a structured ethical methodology to balance the environmental benefits of e-bikes against their negative social and health impacts, helping planners design policies that preserve the social pillar of sustainable mobility.

Caveat: The study is purely conceptual and does not provide empirical data, quantitative safety measurements, or specific case studies of e-bike infrastructure implementations.

Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives · doi

Predictive validity of the Addenbrooke’s cognitive Examination III for on-road driving outcomes in a clinical fitness-to-drive population: a prospective cohort study

This prospective cohort study evaluated the predictive validity of the Addenbrooke's Cognitive Examination III (ACE-III) against a standardized on-road driving assessment for 133 drivers aged 33 to 97 referred to a specialist clinic between August 2022 and June 2024. Using a two-cut-off model where scores of 81 or lower predicted failure and 88 or higher predicted passing, the cognitive screen achieved an overall accuracy of 79% and an area under the curve of 0.81. However, misclassification was notable: 27% of drivers classified as unimpaired failed the road test, 18% classified as impaired passed, and 26% fell into an indeterminate grey zone.

Why it matters — The study demonstrates that the ACE-III is not accurate enough to serve as a standalone tool for determining fitness-to-drive, establishing that on-road evaluations must remain the reference standard for high-stakes licensing decisions.

Caveat: The predictive validity of the cognitive screen was further constrained by the participants' years of education and communication limitations.

Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives · doi

The path and multi-level dependencies of three second-tier European cities – challenges to local social inclusion efforts

This study analyzes local social inclusion policies for migrants in three second-tier European cities—Cluj-Napoca (Romania), Bologna (Italy), and Halle/Saale (Germany)—using expert interviews. The research evaluates how these municipalities adapt to migration-related heterogeneity, fund services, and target vulnerable mobile EU citizens, finding that local efforts are constrained by outsourcing to NGOs and short-term policy interventions.

Why it matters — It demonstrates how fragmented multi-level governance and historical path dependencies actively preserve power inequalities and limit municipal capacity, showing that local integration efforts cannot be understood in isolation from supra-local constraints.

Caveat: The findings are based on qualitative expert interviews across three specific European case studies, which may not represent the institutional dynamics of first-tier metropolitan areas or different national welfare regimes.

Urban Geography · pdf · doi

“But we don't know, it could come back” temporalities and times of the Unbuilt Lamu Coal Power Plant

This paper analyzes the temporal dynamics of unrealized infrastructure projects using the case study of the unbuilt Lamu Coal Power Plant in Kenya, which is part of the LAPSSET corridor. It develops a three-part analytical framework that examines the historical conditions of racial capitalism and regional neglect, the contested phases of project planning and contestation, and the lived uncertainty experienced by local communities navigating an abandoned yet not fully canceled project.

Why it matters — It conceptualizes the 'unbuilt' not as a simple failure or void, but as an active state of suspension that shapes local realities, demonstrating how delayed or stalled mega-projects continue to exert social and political influence over communities.

Caveat: The study is based on a single qualitative case study of one infrastructure project in Kenya, which may limit its direct applicability to different institutional or regional contexts.

Urban Geography · pdf · doi

Global City as an Emergent Category of Practice in Jakarta: Conjuncture, Capaciousness and Contentions

This study analyzes the official designation of Jakarta as a global city in April 2024 following the decision to relocate Indonesia's capital. It traces how the global city concept emerged at this specific political conjuncture, acting as a capacious term that accommodates both elite development agendas and citizen aspirations for a progressive city, while also identifying early implementation conflicts.

Why it matters — It demonstrates the utility of treating 'global city' as a category of practice rather than just an analytical framework, revealing how the discourse is strategically deployed to build political legitimacy during major institutional transitions.

Caveat: The study is a qualitative policy analysis of a single city during the early stages of a transition, meaning the long-term outcomes of the global city plan remain highly uncertain.

Area · doi

Geographies of Inequalities: Towards Just Places

This paper outlines a conceptual framework for analyzing the spatial and temporal dimensions of inequalities, serving as the introductory theme for the RGS-IBG 2026 Annual Conference. It reviews the methodological techniques geographers use to investigate structural and institutional injustices and examines how professional and academic practices can actively resist these disparities.

Why it matters — It establishes a disciplinary agenda that connects theoretical critiques of inequality directly to institutional reform and professional practices, shifting the focus from merely documenting spatial disparities to actively constructing just places.

Caveat: The paper is a high-level conceptual intervention and agenda-setting piece rather than an empirical study presenting new datasets or quantitative measurements.

Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers · doi

The Coloniality of Measurement and the Making of Smallness as Deficit

This paper analyzes how global environmental governance frameworks convert the physical scale of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) into a deficit category of vulnerability and capacity constraint. Using examples from Caribbean SIDS, it examines how inherited systems of comparison and classification institutionalize these deficits, and contrasts them with Caribbean counter-metrics that challenge these dominant measurement regimes.

Why it matters — It exposes how standard international metrics carry colonial biases that pathologize smallness, offering a conceptual framework to reclaim local authority and redefine scale outside of deficit-based global governance models.

Caveat: The analysis is conceptual and qualitative, relying on illustrative examples from the Caribbean rather than a systematic empirical database of global metrics.

Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers · doi

Uneven Bus-based Accessibility to Essential Opportunities in Hanoi, Vietnam

This study measured bus-based transit access to nine types of essential opportunities in Hanoi, Vietnam, using open-source datasets. At a 60-minute travel threshold, citywide spatial coverage was low, ranging from 14.8% of hexagons for sports facilities to 29.1% for retail and grocery stores, with rural coverage peaking at 23.9%. The distribution of access was highly unequal and concentrated along transit corridors, yielding high population-weighted Gini coefficients between 0.603 and 0.654.

Why it matters — It provides empirical evidence of severe transit-based spatial inequality in a rapidly urbanizing Southeast Asian capital, quantifying a stark urban-rural divide and corridor-centric access patterns that were previously unmeasured.

Findings · pdf · doi

Does Perceived Neighborhood Walkability Matter? Associations with Health and Functioning Among Community-Dwelling Portuguese Older Adults

This exploratory cross-sectional study analyzed the relationship between perceived neighborhood walkability and the health, physical function, and psychosocial outcomes of Portuguese community-dwelling adults aged 50 and older. Researchers measured physical function, balance, and mobility objectively, alongside a validated walkability questionnaire covering safety, facilities, comfort, and accessibility. The results show that higher education, better self-perceived health, absence of urinary incontinence or osteoarthritis, and lower anxiety correlate with more positive walkability perceptions, while objective physical function measures show only weak and sparse associations.

Why it matters — The study provides the first empirical evidence from Portugal linking subjective neighborhood walkability to the functional capacity of older adults, demonstrating that walkability perceptions are heavily shaped by an individual's personal health status and psychological factors rather than physical environment alone.

Caveat: The study relies on a cross-sectional design, which prevents establishing causal directions between health conditions, anxiety, and walkability perceptions.

Urban Science · doi

Crowd-Sourced Geographies of Income: Using Google Maps Points of Interest as High-Frequency Proxies for Sub-Municipal Income Estimation in Sao Paulo, Brazil

This study predicts household income across 26,625 census sectors in Sao Paulo, Brazil, using crowd-sourced Google Maps Points of Interest (POIs). The researchers extracted POI counts, reduced their dimensionality using principal component analysis and non-negative matrix factorization, and trained gradient boosting regression models. The best-performing model achieved a held-out R² of 0.65 under a spatial validation design that prevents data leakage.

Why it matters — It demonstrates that commercial, crowd-sourced geospatial data can serve as a reliable, high-frequency proxy for sub-municipal income. This offers a low-cost method to update socioeconomic indicators during the long intercensal periods common in middle-income countries.

Caveat: The predictive performance relies on the density and distribution of commercial POIs, which may vary in accuracy or coverage between highly formal and informal urban areas.

arXiv · pdf