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The difficulty of travel for the elderly is a challenge for urban management. Quantifying the satisfaction of public transport services from the perspective of the elderly is a people-oriented scientific research method. Based on the survey data of 2019 and 2020 and by selecting the interview data of people over retirement age before analyzing the non-linear relationship between bus service elements and elderly satisfaction by the impact-asymmetry analysis and gradient boosting decision trees, the optimization strategy of ground public transportation for the elderly in Harbin was obtained. The results show that the following five factors have the greatest impact on overall satisfaction, namely, site broadcasting, complaint handling, awning facilities, driver driving habits, and the punctuality of bus operation. Among them, “awning,” the “punctuality of bus operation,” and “drivers’ driving habits” should be given priority to improve. The conclusion of this study provides a theoretical basis for the accurate optimization of public transport services.

Mobility is a subject of increasing importance in a time when cities have gained prominence, as they are home to over 56% of the world’s population and generate over 80% of global GDP. Urban planning principles have traditionally been developed to promote urban efficiency and enhance productivity. The emergence of ‘Smart Mobility’ has provided researchers and policy practitioners new ways to understand and plan cities. With rapid urbanization growth and the sustained mobility challenges faced in most global cities, this paper sets forth to understand and map the evolution of the concept of ‘Smart Urban Mobility’ through a bibliometric analysis and science mapping techniques using VOSviewer. In total, 6079 articles were retrieved from the Web of Science database over 5 decades, from 1968 to 2021, and divided into four sub-periods, namely 1968 to 2010, 2011 to 2015, 2016 to 2019, and 2020 to 2021. The paper provides a better understanding of the thematic focus and associated trends of smart mobility beyond technical issues related to Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS), where due to diverse dynamics, such as unprecedented growth and advancement in technologies, attention has extended to incorporating the impacts of the application of different technologies in urban mobility as well as associated fields. This paper further identifies major sources, authors, publications, and countries that have made more contributions to the development of this field. The findings of this study can help researchers better understand the evolution of the subject, and help policymakers make better-informed decisions on investable infrastructures for better mobility outcomes in urban regeneration pursuits and future cities.

With a goal of achieving net-zero emissions by developing Smart Cities (SCs) and industrial decarbonization, there is a growing desire to decarbonize the renewable energy sector by accelerating green buildings (GBs) construction, electric vehicles (EVs), and ensuring long-term stability, with the expectation that emissions will need to be reduced by at least two thirds by 2035 and by at least 90% by 2050. Implementing GBs in urban areas and encouraging the use of EVs are cornerstones of transition towards SCs, and practical actions that governments can consider to help with improving the environment and develop SCs. This paper investigates different aspects of smart cities development and introduces new feasible indicators related to GBs and EVs in designing SCs, presenting existing barriers to smart cities development, and solutions to overcome them. The results demonstrate that feasible and achievable policies such as the development of the zero-energy, attention to design parameters, implementation of effective indicators for GBs and EVs, implementing strategies to reduce the cost of production of EVs whilst maintaining good quality standards, load management, and integrating EVs successfully into the electricity system, are important in smart cities development. Therefore, strategies to governments should consider the full dynamics and potential of socio-economic and climate change by implementing new energy policies on increasing investment in EVs, and GBs development by considering energy, energy, techno-economic, and environmental benefits.

This editorial document provides the main motivations and a brief description of each paper published in the “Rethinking the Distribution Power Network Planning and Operation for a Sustainable Smart Grid and Smooth Interaction with Electrified Transportation” Special Issue. This Special Issue aims to present several innovative solutions on planning and operation of distribution power networks under smart grid paradigm where prosumers, electric vehicles, and other typical loads are usually connected. Some of those solutions and computational applications were covered in this Special Issue, namely probabilistic power flow, voltage and power factor control, agent-based simulation, digital twin, resilient energy scheduling, and uncertainty modeling are among the contributions. The published works are very timely and are of great interest, which will certainly drive the impact of future researchers in the near term concerning the field of this Special Issue.

One of the main challenges affecting development opportunities of peripheral areas, particularly the development of tourism, includes the provision of satisfactory solutions for mobility and transport accessibility. Therefore, there is a high demand for innovative and sustainable transport solutions, which would increase the competitiveness of these regions, as well as reduce the negative impact of transport on the environment. This paper includes indications of the main directions of research on sustainable transport, the analysis of innovative solutions for improving the tourist accessibility of peripheral areas, and the development of an intermodal model of tourist mobility. The developed model was verified in terms of tourists’ needs for sustainable and innovative transport solutions. The region of the Białowieża Forest, exhibiting high potential for tourism development due to its natural values—unique at the European and global scale—was selected for verification. The Białowieża Forest was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as one of the few cross-border World Heritage sites. The study applied heuristic research methods, including brainstorming, the Delphi method, case studies, and a diagnostic survey (421 respondents). The developed model of tourist mobility is based on the combination of the public transport network and the availability of electric bicycle and electric car rental. The survey of tourists in the region of the Białowieża Forest showed the demand for new mobile solutions, particularly in the field of e-mobility. The results of quantitative research indicate that around 40% of respondents express high and very high demand for sustainable and innovative mobile solutions, including e-mobility.

Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) offers tailored-made, on-demand mobility solutions to users by integrating on a single service subscription, public and private transport modes. However, the concept is still uncertain, and its current development and applicability is centered on developed countries. On the other hand, we advocate that MaaS is modular, adaptable, and applicable to several realities. In developing countries where public transport is mostly inefficient and insufficient, MaaS could help to “balance the scale” with private transport offerings, such as ridesharing. Casual carpooling could be an affordable alternative. Not only for being a low-tech transport mode but also for optimizing vehicle usage of idle seats. In that optics, we have identified drivers who would facilitate integrating casual practices into a MaaS. To identify the motivating factors behind casual carpooling and propose a strategy to implement it in a MaaS scheme, a quantitative survey was applied to 307 university students in the city Lavras, Brazil. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistical techniques. We assumed that casual carpooling is sustained by solidarity, simplicity, and agility; no costs to passengers; and institutionalized pickup points. Then, we identify principal strategic components to implement such an initiative. We concluded that casual carpooling as a low-tech transport mode could enhance local strategy for implementing an eco-innovative MaaS in places with inefficient public transport offerings.

Climate change has become one of the most serious challenges facing humanity; developing a low-carbon economy provides new opportunities for addressing this issue. Building a low-carbon city has been pursued by people with a high degree of enthusiasm in China. Different from actions at the national level and distinct from practices of developed countries, low-carbon development in Chinese cities should be placed on diverse concerns. Taking Suzhou of Jiangsu Province of China as a case city, this paper adopts a scenario analysis approach to explore strategic focal points in the transition to a low-carbon city. Within this transition, we mainly focus on the different contributions from two factors-economic restructuring and technological upgrading. Scenario analysis results show that 1) in the case of no breakthrough technologies, it is difficult to achieve absolute emission reductions; 2) technologies involved in optimizing energy structure and improving energy efficiency of basic service sectors should be highly emphasized in local planning; 3) in comparison with technological upgrading, economic structural adjustment could be a stronger contributor to mitigation, which is one of the main differences from developed countries. However, the key issue of economic restructuring is to promote the growth of emerging low-carbon industries, which requires not only a strategic choice of new industries but also an introduction of advanced low-carbon technologies. It is also found that establishing a local carbon emissions accounting system is a prerequisite and the first priority for realizing a low-carbon transition and government capacity buildings should be strengthened accordingly.

It is generally expected that the three dimensions of the economy, society and the environment must be included in any measurable sustainability pathway. However, these do not provide much guidance as to how to prioritize impacts within and between the dimensions. A conceptualized approach to sustainability based on the nested model is therefore presented seeking to provide an alternative approach to sustainable transportation assessment, namely the SUSTAIN Decision Support System (DSS) model. This model is based on a review of basic notions of sustainability presented by the Brundtland Commission report, which is used to validate the nested model of sustainability for countries operating under the paradox of affluence. This provides a theoretical rationale for prioritising longer-term ecological integrity over shorter-term economic concerns, in line with the stronger conceptualisation of sustainability supported by ecological economists. This conceptualisation is operationalized by the use of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) and a multiplicative version of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The planning and decisionmaking process related to a new connection across the Roskilde Fjord in Frederikssund, Denmark, is used as a case study. It is found that the SUSTAIN DSS model results provide a type of benchmark for connecting to the essence of sustainable development as well as to integrate sustainability more explicitly into the planning and assessment practice.