The growing demand for the transportation of goods and people has led to an increasing reliance on transportation infrastructure, which, in turn, subjects the pavements to high traffic volumes. In order to maintain adequate service and safety standards for users, it is essential to establish effective maintenance strategies that ensure the preservation of pavement conditions. As a result, emerging innovations in pavement surface inspection methods, surpassing traditional techniques in terms of inspection and data processing speed and accuracy, have garnered significant attention. One such groundbreaking innovation in inspection systems that has been tested and used in recent years to assess infrastructure condition is the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). This study aims to present a critical open-access literature review on the use of UAVs in the inspection of transportation infrastructure pavement in order to assess the type of equipment used, the technology involved, applicability conditions, data processing, and future evolution. The analysis of relevant literature suggests that the integration of intelligent technologies substantially enhances the accuracy of data collection and the detection of pavement distress. Furthermore, it is evident that most applications and research efforts are oriented towards exploring image processing techniques for the creation of 3D pavement models and distress detection and classification.

Innovative, non-invasive, digital, and cost-effective instruments for systematic inventory, monitoring and promotion are a valuable resource for managing tangible and intangible cultural heritage. Due to its powerful and effective inventory and analysis potential, which allows supporting central and local entities responsible for cultural heritage management, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have proven to be an appropriate information technology for developing these kinds of instruments. Given the above, this work aims to introduce a GIS-based instrument to support inventorying, safeguarding, tourism, and cultural promotion of the traditional Portuguese glazed tile (‘azulejo’, in Portuguese) to raise general awareness of the importance of this unique Portuguese heritage. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, there is no other instrument available with inventory and safeguarding management functions that is accessible and affordable, developed to be used at a municipal level and that contributes to the enrichment of the cultural and tourist information. Information from 70 tile works located in the Portuguese city of Covilhã was used to test the proposed GIS tool, resulting in a georeferenced alphanumeric, graphical, image and drawing inventory and in three pedestrian routes for touristic and cultural heritage promotion. The results were validated by both the research team and the municipality of Covilhã, foreseeing its expansion and daily use in the management of the heritage of the traditional Portuguese glazed tile. The proposed instrument can be replicated in other locations and easily implemented and managed by municipalities or institutions dealing with the protection of cultural heritage.

Geographical Information Systems (GISs) in architecture were initially limited to regional and urban development applications. Over recent years its potential has been recognized and its use has evolved to address urban planning and architectural heritage management subjects. Nevertheless, evidence shows that its use in architecture teaching is scarce and uneven. Directive 2007/2/EC, establishing the infrastructure for spatial information in the European Community (EU), is, in this way, an opportunity to develop a greater knowledge and application of GIS in the framework of higher education. In architecture, this can be achieved by problem solving based on real case scenarios, which can benefit from GIS-based techniques and analysis capabilities. In this paper, the authors aim to present a review of the use of GIS in teaching and research in architecture to assess its level in different European programmes. Experiences from three European universities (University of Seville, Spain, University of Beira Interior, Portugal, and Technical University of Crete, Greece), which are among the few in their respective countries that promote the inclusion of GIS in architectural education, particularly in the fields of urban and regional planning and architectural heritage, are compared and framed within the European scenario. The paper concludes with a reflection on the three universities’ practice compared to the leading European architecture programmes listed in the main international university rankings. Main trends of future evolution on the use of GIS in architecture teaching are also presented.

The shift to low-emission mobility, embedded in a growing need for sustainable development, makes soft modes a highly promoted transport alternative in national and international mobility policies. Soft mobility modes, especially cycling, is an alternative capable of reversing the trend of private car use in urban areas, being one of the main strategies of Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMP). Several factors can influence travel mode choice, between them, demographic, economic, land use, travel distance and time, and climatic and physical factors are the most reported in the literature. This study presents a framework of the main European cycling strategies and focuses on the development of a methodological approach to assess the cycling suitability of existing road networks. The approach is based on a spatial multi-criteria analysis that combines population density, trip generation points service areas and road characteristics (hierarchy and slope). Consideration of the topography was particularly relevant in the cycling suitability model definition. The model was tested in the hillside city of Covilhã (Portugal) and compared with the recently planned and implemented city cycling network. The main conclusions point to the adequacy, flexibility, and applicability of the proposed model by municipalities, contributing to a more sustainable urban environment and healthier communities. Results obtained in the Covilhã case study also denote the possibility of implementing cycling mobility in hillside cities, especially using e-bikes. For future works, an expansion of the approach is proposed to include a detailed and sustained cycling network definition model and a process to assess cycling routes hierarchy/solutions.

The sustainable development goals “Good health and well-being” and “Sustainable cities and communities” of the United Nations and World Health Organization, alert governments and researchers and raise awareness about road safety problems and the need to mitigate them. In Portugal, after the economic crisis of 2008–2013, a significant amount of road assets demand investment in maintenance and rehabilitation. The areas where these actions take place are called work zones. Considering the particularities of these areas, the proposed work aims to identify the main factors that impact the occurrence of work zones crashes. It uses the statistical technique of multinomial logistic regression, applied to official data on road crashes occurred in mainland Portugal, during the period of 2010–2015. Usually, multinomial logistic regression models are developed for crash and injury severity. In this work, the feasibility of developing predictive models for crash nature (collision, run off road and running over pedestrians) and for type of person involved in the crash (driver, passenger and pedestrian), considering only one covariate (the number of persons involved in the crash), was studied. For the two predictive models obtained, the variables road environment (urban/rural), horizontal geometric design (straight/curve), pavement grip conditions (good/bad), heavy vehicle involvement, and injury severity (fatalities, serious and slightly injuries), were identified as the preponderant factors in a universe of 230 investigated variables. Results point to an increase of work zone crash probability due to driver actions such as running straight and excessive speed for the prevailing conditions.