Oxford University researcher wins ITF 2019 Award

Oxford University’s Dr. Rafael H. M. Pereira has won the International Transport Forum’s (ITF) 2019 Young Researcher of the Year Award.
May 28, 2019 Read time: 2 mins

Pereira - part of the University’s transport studies unit and Brazil’s Institute for Applied Economic Research – was honoured at the 2019 Summit of Transport Ministers in Leipzig, Germany.

His winning paper investigated the impact of Rio de Janeiro’s TransBrasil bus project on the accessibility and employment opportunities for different income groups in the Brazilian city.

TransBrasil is a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) corridor which currently links Rio’s Deodoro and North region with the city centre.

The full implementation of the proposed 32km corridor is expected to improve access for up to 58% of the city population and is expected to increase accessibility to jobs by 11%.

ITF says Pereira’s findings show that well-integrated public transport can deliver accessibility gains for lower-income groups and reduce inequalities in access to opportunities.

Based on 2010 Brazilian census data, Pereira identified the number of formal jobs accessible to different income demographics in Rio via public transport and walking within 30, 60, 90 or 120 minutes of travel. He found that the BRT’s impact on accessibility changes depending on how this travel time threshold is set. With journeys of 90 and 120 minutes, the TransBrasil BRT would deliver much smaller accessibility gains. But at 30 or 60 minutes, the accessibility gain for users would be larger.

According to the findings, the travel time thresholds also affect social equity, as the distribution of accessibility improvements is different across income levels. With lower travel time thresholds of 30 or 60 minutes, users from low-income groups would benefit more from better access. In case of higher travel time thresholds, accessibility gains would be more even across the different income groups.

Young Tae Kim Secretary-General of the ITF says Pereira’s “detailed analysis shows in a nuanced manner how choosing a travel time threshold has important implications for transport equity analysis”.

Classification & Data Collection

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Will driverless cars increase reliance on roads?
    February 29, 2016
    Researchers warn that driverless vehicles could intensify car use, reducing or even eliminating promised energy savings and environmental benefits. Development of autonomous driving systems has accelerated rapidly since the unveiling of Google’s driverless car in 2012, and energy efficiency due to improved traffic flow has been touted as one of the technology’s key advantages. However, new research by scientists from the University of Leeds, University of Washington and Oak Ridge National Laboratory,
    Read More
  • Study ranks accessibility to jobs by transit in top US cities
    October 10, 2014
    New research from the Accessibility Observatory at the University of Minnesota ranks 46 of the 50 largest (by population) metropolitan areas in the US for accessibility to jobs by transit. The new rankings, part of the Access Across America study begun last year, focus on accessibility, a measure that examines both land use and transportation systems. Accessibility measures how many destinations, such as jobs, can be reached in a given time. In the study, rankings were determined by a weighted average
    Read More
  • European sustainable urban mobility winners announced
    March 24, 2015
    An imaginative and systematic approach to monitoring and evaluation has won Bremen, Germany the European Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP) Award, while Östersund in Sweden has been presented with the European Mobility Week Award for its work on sustainable travel options. Bremen’s interactive web platform was used to obtain feedback from residents and a SWOT (strength, weakness, opportunity and threat) analysis was carried out using this and other data. Five different scenarios were then examined showi
    Read More
  • TomTom traffic index shows increase in UK congestion
    April 1, 2015
    TomTom’s today 5th annual Traffic Index, the barometer of traffic congestion in over 200 cities worldwide, reveals rising congestion levels around the globe In addition, for the first time, the Index took an in-depth look at the true impact of rush hour traffic on the work week, uncovering that evening rush hour nearly doubles the journey time for car commuters. The analysis of 12 trillion pieces of traffic data worldwide revealed that the evening rush hour is the most congested time of day. Traffic co
    Read More

Highlighted Content