From prehistoric settlements to modern cities, vegetation has played a central role in human environments as a source of food and medicine, an element of religious rituals, a natural calendar, a protective barrier, a medium for artistic expression, and a source of materials for tools and weapons. Today, it continues to sustain life by addressing ecological challenges and promoting mental well-being by reconnecting humans with nature, which is progressively disappearing in urban landscapes.

Novi Sad, a city in northern Serbia, has a rich urban history, particularly from the Austro-Hungarian era and the reign of Empress Maria Theresa, who promoted public health through well-maintained outdoor spaces featuring lawns, flowers, and rows of fruit trees in front of homes. Nearly three centuries later, the city is heavily built up, with its green legacy surviving only in fragments. Family houses have been replaced by multi-story buildings, greenery by concrete, and urban vegetation has significantly declined, affecting residents’ quality of life.

This study examines urban greenery during the urban transformation of the district Podbara in Novi Sad. It questions whether vegetation still exists or the focus has been shifted to minimal coverage. The study aims to assess environmental quality in response to the effects of urban transformation. The methodology included vegetation inventory, tree age assessment, and biodiversity indicators. The applied methodology revealed a considerable loss of vegetation resulting from urbanization. Nevertheless, the persistence of diverse species remnants yielded a satisfactory biodiversity index that does not fully reflect the on-site conditions.

Although the biodiversity index shows a satisfactory environment, vegetation suffers from construction dust, negligence, or removal for building. Nature persists—but can humans thrive without it? Restoring green heritage and reaffirming the human–nature connection is not merely desirable, but imperative in the face of intensive urbanization and increasingly challenging urban living conditions.

Public passenger vehicles are subject to external environmental conditions in the city and a high level of occupancy inside. To promote occupant comfort conditions, these vehicles should adapt to different climates and external environment conditions. When developing more energy-sustainable public passenger vehicles, it is important to consider not only these factors but also the vehicle design and HVAC systems. The main contribution of this work to the state of the art focuses on adapting the vehicle design, the internal occupation, and the HVAC system to the urban environment, namely external environmental variables. Air temperature and humidity, wind velocity, carbon dioxide concentration, solar radiation, occupancy levels, and HVAC systems were considered in evaluating passenger thermal comfort and indoor air quality. Numerical software will be used to simulate the thermal response of passenger transport vehicles. This software evaluates several layers of opaque (i.e., vehicle panels) and transparent (i.e., surrounding glass surfaces, such as lateral, back, frontal, and roof) bodies and respective temperatures, thermal comfort (i.e., PMV index), and indoor air quality (i.e., CO2 level). The solar radiation, convection and radiative coefficients, energy flux, mass flux, and other factors are also calculated by the software. This numerical study considers a bus equipped with glass bodies on the lateral, frontal, back and roof surfaces, a high occupancy level, and the internal HVAC system. This study will be conducted in winter conditions, namely on the winter solstice on a clear day without clouds in a Mediterranean environment. External environments (e.g., solar radiation) and heat generated by passengers will be used to promote thermal comfort conditions. Air quality will be guaranteed through air renewal rates and ventilation topologies. According to the results obtained, the applied methodology ensures acceptable thermal comfort conditions and contributes to sustainable transportation in urban environments.

Introduction:
Romania’s 22 metropolitan areas exhibit significant disparities in commuting behaviors, shaped by uneven urban development, infrastructure investment, and transit accessibility. As the country seeks to align with the European Union's sustainable mobility goals, understanding how railway station development influences commuting patterns is critical for informed metropolitan planning.

Methods:
This original research integrates Geographic Information System (GIS) spatial analysis with a structured social survey conducted across all 22 Romanian metropolitan regions. GIS tools were employed to map the spatial distribution of railway stations, commuting corridors, and urban expansion from 2006 to 2021. Accessibility analyses modeled travel times to city centers by car and rail. Concurrently, the author conducted a stratified survey that captured commuter behaviors, modal preferences, and perceptions of station quality and transit integration.

Results:
Findings reveal stark regional disparities in modal split, with private car usage exceeding 80% in most metros, while rail accounts for less than 5% of daily commutes. Regions such as Bucharest-Ilfov and Cluj-Napoca, which have initiated metropolitan rail projects, demonstrate higher accessibility indices and emerging transit-oriented development (TOD) patterns. In contrast, smaller metros remain car-dependent, with limited rail integration and sprawling suburban growth. Survey data indicate that travel time, reliability, and station amenities significantly influence mode choice.

Conclusions:
The study underscores the critical role of integrated railway station development in shaping sustainable commuting patterns and spatial structure within metropolitan regions. Effective outcomes depend on the alignment of transport investments with land-use planning, institutional coordination across jurisdictions, and the implementation of multimodal accessibility strategies. The findings support a paradigm shift in Romanian metropolitan planning toward polycentric development models, where railway nodes function as catalysts for compact, mixed-use urban growth. This research contributes to the broader discourse on sustainable urban mobility by providing empirical evidence from a post-socialist context undergoing rapid metropolitan transformation.

Parks provide essential health and environmental benefits in cities. Park utilization refers to the extent to which residents use parks for recreational activities. It is substantially influenced by public transport accessibility. Existing research examines this relationship as a single outcome without distinguishing effects across different utilization types. This study investigates the differentiated effects of public transport accessibility on park utilization across Singapore. We integrated public transport stop data, park characteristics, and crowdsourced mobility data. Public transport accessibility was measured by stop density and nearest stop proximity within 500 m catchments around parks, differentiated by transport mode. Park utilization was quantified along two dimensions: routine utilization intensity, derived from GPS activity traces, and organized utilization frequency, identified from geotagged social media imagery using computer vision. Hotspot analysis and regression modeling at the park and district levels examined the effects of transport accessibility on each dimension. At the park level, higher public transport accessibility significantly predicted organized utilization frequency but not routine utilization intensity. Routine utilization was instead associated with park characteristics such as trail network density. At the district level, central and eastern districts formed significant utilization hotspots, while peripheral districts with limited transport accessibility showed persistent underutilization. These findings reveal that public transport accessibility selectively enables park utilization, with a stronger effect on organized than routine utilization. This distinction suggests that accessibility assessments in urban transport planning should account for different utilization dimensions to develop more targeted strategies for enhancing equitable and effective park utilization.

Rapid urbanization and rising private vehicle ownership have intensified traffic congestion in Tier-2 Indian cities such as Nagpur. The Comprehensive Mobility Plan (CMP-2025) identifies major Origin–Destination (OD) corridors with high Passenger Car Unit (PCU) volumes experiencing recurrent congestion, indicating the need for systematic assessment and planning interventions. This study evaluates traffic congestion levels, traffic flow behaviour, and the key causes of congestion across selected priority corridors in the Nagpur Metropolitan Region, with a focus on route reallocation as a decongestion strategy.

The methodology integrates primary data from classified traffic volume counts, speed–delay studies, and route-choice surveys with secondary data from CMP reports, RTO records, and GIS-based road network layers. Congestion severity is assessed using Volume–Capacity (V/C) ratio, Level of Service (LOS), and Travel Time Index (TTI). Spatial analysis using GIS is employed to identify bottleneck locations, while traffic flow behaviour is examined through fundamental traffic flow relationships and peak-hour variability.

Results show that one of the critical corridors generates approximately 76196 peak-hour passenger trips, with the corridor Humpyard Road carrying the highest demand. Congestion is primarily attributed to the absence of service lanes, constrained right-of-way, dominance of two-wheelers in work trips, and poorly integrated land-use patterns. Peak-hour travel speeds across most corridors remain below 30 km/h, with signal delays contributing significantly to travel time losses, indicating scope for signal optimization and route reallocation.

The study reveals a substantial mismatch between road capacity and traffic demand, exacerbated by roadside parking, geometric deficiencies, encroachments, and inefficient traffic management. Route reallocation, combined with targeted traffic management and signal improvement measures, is proposed as an effective short-term strategy for reducing congestion. The research offers a structured framework for congestion assessment and provides evidence-based planning recommendations applicable to similar urban contexts.

The unequal urban growth of Lima has produced physical discontinuities in peripheral districts. Such is the case in the district of San Martín de Porres, located in the so-called Cono Norte, where unequal access to the available cycling infrastructure is evident.

This research examines the physical conditions for cycling mobility and their effects on the travel experience and the users' sense of appropriation of the road space. To this end, an exploratory-analytical approach is used. First, a cartographic survey of the main bike lanes was conducted, recording their continuity, physical and operational barriers. Then, attributes of connectivity and urban permeability were measured, such as intersection density, block size, and the quality of intersections. With this information, a synthetic fragmentation indicator was built, which allowed for a more precise analysis of the conditions affecting cycling mobility in the district. Finally, mobile ethnography was applied, in which conflicts of use, diversion strategies, and moments of tension were recorded.

The results show that, although there is a cycling network of approximately 20 km, it is disjointed. The mobile ethnography revealed that users are in constant dispute over the lane. Examples of this are observed at the intersections of Av. Universitaria with Av. Santiago Antúnez de Mayolo and Av. Universitaria with Av. Perú, where interruptions are noticeable, especially at the crossings. In these areas, the bike lane narrows and lacks safe separation from the highway, while deteriorated pavement and the invasion of trash worsen the conditions. The research highlights the importance of improving the existing bike lanes in peripheral districts, as the current deficiencies generate circulation conflicts and affect user safety. Improving them before expanding would ensure a more efficient and safer cycling network.

The Kolkata Metropolitan Area (KMA) has grown very fast over the last few decades, but this rapid urban growth has also damaged the natural environment. This has raised serious concerns about the city's future sustainability. In this study, we analysed land-use changes, examined how urban growth is linked to vegetation loss, and studied how ecological conditions have changed across the region. We used satellite images from 1991 to 2025 and predicted land-use changes up to 2050. The results show that built-up areas increased from 21.97% in 1991 to 50.46% in 2025, and they are expected to reach 65.41% by 2050. At the same time, vegetation cover decreased sharply from 26.08% to only 6.33% by 2050. This means that as built-up areas increase, green cover decreases. However, urban growth is not the only reason; other social and spatial factors also influence vegetation loss. Satellite indices also confirm this change. The Normalised Difference Built-up Index (NDBI) increased from 0.26 to 0.55, while the Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) decreased from 0.68 to 0.43. This clearly shows that natural green areas are being replaced by concrete and impervious surfaces. Moreover, per capita green space in most municipalities has dropped below the World Health Organization’s recommended minimum of 9 square meters per person. These changes show that the region is facing a large-scale biophilic deficit, meaning there is a shortage of nature within the urban environment. This leads to ecological fragmentation, loss of ecosystem services, and lower environmental resilience. Overall, the findings highlight the urgent need for better urban planning. Policymakers and planners should promote nature-based solutions, green infrastructure, and biophilic planning strategies to ensure sustainable and climate-resilient development in the KMA.

Nowadays, mobility between districts in Metropolitan Lima (from San Miguel to San Isidro) is complex and presents difficulties due to the inefficiency and saturation of the formal public transportation system. The main problem is that bus corridors operate overcrowded during peak hours, bus stops are congested, and routes are rigid. As a result, people resort to informal minivans or shared taxis to reduce their travel time. Thus, informal or “pirate” transport emerges as a rapid solution to the shortage of sufficient formal corridors.

This research develops a comparative analysis between formal and informal transportation along Avenida La Marina at the intersections with Avenida Universitaria and Avenida Brasil. The study consists of conducting counts over periods of 15 to 20 minutes to record the number of minivans and corridor buses, as well as the number of passengers who prefer each service. In addition, the routes used by each type of transport are documented, and a statistical table is generated based on the collected data and surveys conducted.

The results demonstrate that informal transportation is significantly more prevalent than formal transportation, especially during peak hours. Through the counts, it is verified what percentage of users chooses minivans over corridor buses. The study concludes that minivans maintain faster connectivity between these two districts compared to formal transport.

This research aims to provide evidence for authorities, such as the Ministry of Transport, to recognize that although formal transport is safer, it does not meet current demand. The solution is not to prohibit informal transport, since statistics show that minivans reduce travel time and serve as an alternative to the lack of sufficient corridors, but rather to develop a new transportation system that complements these services while remaining formal.

Active mobility, particularly cycling, has become a relevant component of sustainable urban mobility in several Latin American cities. However, the existence of bike lanes does not necessarily guarantee adequate conditions of safety, comfort, and connectivity for users. In this context, La Marina Avenue, located in the district of Pueblo Libre, represents one of the main road corridors in Metropolitan Lima. Along this corridor there is a heavily used bike lane, despite physical deterioration and deficiencies present in several of its sections.

This research aims to evaluate the quality of cycling infrastructure along the sections of La Marina Avenue between Brasil Avenue and Universitaria Avenue. It also seeks to analyze whether the design and current condition of this infrastructure adequately respond to its role within the city’s active mobility system.

To achieve this, the study proposes a methodology based on a multidimensional evaluation approach, taking as reference the work of Zhaoqiu Tan and Jinru Wang (2025). This approach integrates criteria related to structural connectivity, mixed-traffic interference, cycling environment comfort, and continuity in the presence of urban barriers. The research also adapts the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to the urban conditions of the case study. The analysis is supported by field observation, spatial analysis of the corridor, and systematic recording of the physical and functional variables of the bike lane.

The results reveal significant contrasts in infrastructure quality along the studied corridor. Sections with higher levels of traffic conflict, pavement deterioration, lighting issues, and discontinuities in the cycling network are identified. Finally, the study establishes a precedent for the analysis of other urban corridors and contributes to planning efforts aimed at improving active mobility and road safety in Metropolitan Lima.

Urban complexity is expressed through the diversity of uses and activities present in public spaces primarily designed for pedestrians. However, contemporary cities have been designed by prioritizing automobile circulation, allowing them to reach high speeds. This condition affects the sense of security and the free use that pedestrians can make of the street, thereby removing its social role and consequently leading to a loss of urban complexity. Therefore, this study proposes that the speed of automobiles is a variable that influences the loss of complexity in the city. The study will be carried out through data collection in sections of avenues with different levels of vehicle flow. In each of these sections, the average speed of automobiles and buses was recorded to obtain a representative value of traffic speed. In parallel, urban complexity in each avenue was calculated using the formula proposed by Shannon, based on Information Theory, which allows quantifying the diversity of activities and urban actors present. In this way, the collected data was related and analyzed through a scatter plot. It was evidenced that streets with higher speeds have lower diversity and social interaction, while those with lower speeds show greater urban activity. This established an inverse relationship between average vehicular speed and levels of urban complexity. The research provides evidence on how urban complexity is shaped by vehicular speed, thereby contributing to the debate on the design and management of street space from an urban perspective that prioritizes pedestrians.