Contemporary urban planning models include urban trail paths. These are paths that create active transportation corridors within a city’s built environment, providing more sustainable travel, especially for short trips. The benefits of their use are plentiful, including improvements in commuters’ health, reductions in energy footprint, and socio-economic benefits for the entire society. In modern urban planning approaches such as the “15-minute city”, urban trail paths serve as connectors, facilitating access to amenities beyond the close-proximity concept of a “neighborhood”. They act as a way of connecting residents to other 15-minute cities/neighborhoods via safe routes, reducing extensive car use. Micromobility constitutes a novel approach to short trips with proven results. This paper explores the possibility of introducing micromobility as a means of connecting 15-minute cities/neighborhoods through urban trail paths. Through a literature review, an analysis is conducted of the opportunities arising from the introduction of micromobility, as well as on the factors influencing its sustained use in urban mobility and the public realm.

Promotion of cycling can improve the sustainability level of a city or an urban area. This study presents a methodology that audits the bikeability level of the urban road environment across three selected routes in the city of Volos, Greece. This methodology is a useful toolkit in order to evaluate and improve the bikeability level of the urban road environment and also evaluate existing bikeways. Four suitably trained auditors rode their bikes and evaluated the bikeability level using an audit tool in order to audit specific features that influence bicycling suitability across the road segments and intersections of the selected routes. Furthermore, the auditors graded specific features of the road environment in order to set a bikeability score for each tested route. Finally, this study concludes that the bikeability level of the selected routes was moderate and certain actions are necessary in order to be improved.

The European Union’s path towards zero carbon dioxide emissions for new passenger vehicles necessitates a transitional period in which conventional vehicles coexist with zero-emission alternatives. This shift requires targeted strategies from engineers and policymakers, particularly in the area of road design, to reduce pollution. This study aims to investigate the environmental benefits of converting a two-lane urban roundabout into a turbo-roundabout through a virtual microsimulation approach using PTV VISSIM. The simulated model was calibrated and validated with real-world daily traffic data by properly adjusting the driving behavior parameters and comparing observed and modeled traffic volumes and queues. The Vehicle-Specific Power (VSP) emission method was applied to model, calculate and illustrate emissions by analyzing vehicle trajectories for the examined scenarios. Results show a statistically significant reduction in emissions for nearly all trips, with emissions decreasing by up to 44% across the intersection and its surrounding areas, and up to 23% at the intersection itself. Emissions are largely influenced by trip duration and traffic efficiency, both of which are enhanced by the improved geometric configuration of the case study intersection. These findings highlight that turbo-roundabouts represent an effective, environmentally sustainable design solution for urban intersections.

The impact of cycling-related traffic crashes on public health has increased significantly in recent decades, with cyclists being among the most vulnerable road users. The risk of severe injury in traffic crashes is notably high for cyclists, especially when distracted. Research indicates that distraction while cycling significantly increases the crash risk. This study investigates cycling distraction through a field operational test involving 100 participants. Riders followed a predetermined course while being exposed to external visual and auditory stimuli, including alarms, advertising signs, and car horns. Distraction levels were measured using eye-tracking technology. Data were analyzed by means of descriptive statistics, cluster, and correlation analyses. Our findings showed that auditory stimuli distract a higher percentage of cyclists, while audiovisual stimuli from road-related factors cause longer-lasting distractions. Additionally, five distraction clusters were identified based on stimulus duration. Lastly, it was found that males were more likely to belong to high-distraction clusters, whereas females and daily cyclists were more likely to fall into the lowest-distraction group.