GI_Forum publishes high quality original research across the transdisciplinary field of Geographic Information Science (GIScience). The journal provides a platform for dialogue among GI-Scientists and educators, technologists and critical thinkers in an ongoing effort to advance the field and ultimately contribute to the creation of an informed GISociety. Submissions concentrate on innovation in education, science, methodology and technologies in the spatial domain and their role towards a more just, ethical and sustainable science and society. GI_Forum implements the policy of open access publication after a double-blind peer review process through a highly international team of seasoned scientists for quality assurance. Special emphasis is put on actively supporting young scientists through formative reviews of their submissions. Only English language contributions are published. Starting 2016, GI_Forum publishes two issues a Year. Joumal Information is available at: GI-Forum GI_Forum is listed on the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)

The movement and transport of people and goods is spatial by its very nature. Thus, geospatial fundamentals of transport systems need to be adequately considered in transport models. Until recently, this was not always the case. Instead, transport research and geography evolved widely independently in domain silos. However, driven by recent conceptual, methodological and technical developments, the need for an integrated approach is obvious. This paper attempts to outline the potential of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) for transport modeling. We identify three fields of transport modeling where the spatial perspective can significantly contribute to a more efficient modeling process and more reliable model results, namely, geospatial data, disaggregated transport models and the role of geo-visualization. For these three fields, available findings from various domains are compiled, before open aspects are formulated as research directions, with exemplary research questions. The overall aim of this paper is to strengthen the spatial perspective in transport modeling and to call for a further integration of GIS in the domain of transport modeling.

In this paper we present a visual analytics approach for deriving spatio-temporal patterns of collective human mobility from a vast mobile network traffic data set. More than 88 million movements between pairs of radio cells—so-called handovers—served as a proxy for more than two months of mobility within four urban test areas in Northern Italy. In contrast to previous work, our approach relies entirely on visualization and mapping techniques, implemented in several software applications. We purposefully avoid statistical or probabilistic modeling and, nonetheless, reveal characteristic and exceptional mobility patterns. The results show, for example, surprising similarities and symmetries amongst the total mobility and people flows between the test areas. Moreover, the exceptional patterns detected can be associated to real-world events such as soccer matches. We conclude that the visual analytics approach presented can shed new light on large-scale collective urban mobility behavior and thus helps to better understand the “pulse” of dynamic urban systems.

Sedentary lifestyle is a major modifiable risk factor for many chronic diseases. Global guidelines recommend for maintaining health in adults, at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity of physical activity throughout the week, but compliance is insufficient and health problems arise. One obvious way to overcome this is to integrate physical activity into the daily routine for example by active commuting to work. Scientific evidence, however, is scarce and therefore we set out to perform this systematic review of the available literature to improve understanding of the efficiency of active commuting initiatives on health. Literature searches were performed in PubMed and Cochrane database. Altogether, 37 studies were screened. Thereof, eight publications were reviewed, which included 555 participants. The mean study duration of the reviewed research was 36 ± 26 (8‐72) weeks. Overall, active commuting in previously untrained subjects of both sexes significantly improved exercise capacity, maximal power, blood pressure, lipid parameters including cholesterol, high‐density lipoprotein, and waist circumference. Improvement was independent of the type of active commuting. Despite relatively few studies that were previously performed, this review revealed that active commuting has health beneficial effects comparable to those of moderate exercise training.

A continued shift of human mobility towards sustainable and active mobility modes is a major concern for society in order to reduce the human contribution to climate change as well as to improve liveability and health in urban environments. For this change to succeed, non-motorized modes of transport need to become more attractive. Cycling can play a substantial role for short to medium distances, but perceived safety and stress levels are still major concerns for cyclists. Therefore, a quantitative assessment of cyclists’ stress sensations constitutes a valuable input for urban planning and for optimized routing providing low-stress routes. This paper aims to investigate stress sensations of cyclists through quantifying physiological measurements and their spatial correlation as an intersubjective indicator for perceived bikeability. We developed an automated workflow for stress detection and aggregation, and validated it in a case study in the city of Salzburg, Austria. Our results show that measured stress generally matches reported stress perception and can thus be considered a valuable addition to mobility planning processes.