People
Ing. Pavla Pecherková, Ph.D.

2024, Transportation, ISSN 1572-9435

In this study, we conducted a comprehensive survey involving a substantial sample size (n = 6,405) of urban daily commuters across four European nations (Germany, the United Kingdom, Poland, and the Czech Republic). Our investigation contributes to an enriched comprehension of the user dynamics associated with Mobility-as-a-Service alternatives and their interrelation with public transit modalities in the context of travel preferences. Specifically, we researched the responsiveness of participants to variations in pricing and travel durations. Additionally, we examine the tendencies of various participant categories, stratified into distinct segments based on shared attributes, toward the adoption of public transportation, MaaS solutions, or private vehicular transport. Our findings highlight the essential role fundamental mobility determinants, such as price and travel time, play in influencing the likelihood of opting for a specific transportation modality. This phenomenon was particularly discernible within the "Unspecified Users" group, which gives us options to alter their behavior. The analytical framework used in our study that combined several mathematical modeling tools provided insight into the choices people make when choosing between different travel options, and our findings may be used by decision makers to create better and more informed approaches to promote sustainable alternatives to the use of cars in urban settings.

2023, Human Factors in Transportation, New York, Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics International), p. 281-291), ISBN 978-1-958651-71-1

In response to society’s volatile and changing mobility requirements, many new mobility concepts and business models are currently being developed and piloted. The Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) concept attempts to meet rising customer demands in a needs-based and situational manner. For the success of innovative mobility offers, user acceptance and thus a user-centred business model and product development is crucial. The aim of this study is to provide deeper insights in the perception of society’s usefulness in a potential MaaS use to derive recommendations for the design and development of MaaS business models from a user perspective. This is done under consideration of the Importance-Performance-Matrix. The question is investigated to what extent differentiated usefulness dimensions (functional, emotional, social, economical, and ecological) influence the intention to use Mobility-as-a-Service. By applying the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) in the context of an empirical study the relationships between perceived usefulness dimensions, attitude towards using MaaS and intention to use MaaS were examined. For that, an online survey with more than 6400 respondents from four European countries was conducted. In this, we took care to select latent constructs with the highest possible fit that had already been tested in other studies. This database allowed the proposed TAM to be modelled using structural equation models (SEM) to analyse the relationships between perceived usefulness and behavioural intention to use MaaS.The results show that the perceived emotional, functional, and economical usefulness dimensions significantly correlate with both, the attitude towards and the intention to use MaaS positively. Especially the perception of emotionally increasing elements were identified as main drivers for an intensified MaaS use: The more likely users are to enjoy, feel good about, or have fun using MaaS, the more likely they are to use such a system. One design approach for increasing emotional benefits is to add means of transport to a MaaS package whose use is characterized by a high degree of enjoyment, such as e-scooters and e-bikes. Here, we were able to investigate high correlations between the desire for those transport modes and the intention to use MaaS. Another approach is to remove "pain points" in the transaction process in the MaaS app. It is recommended to implement an integrated booking and payment function. Generally, a MaaS app should simplify the processes that users perceive as complicated in intermodal travel. However, no significant results could be found on the social dimension, which means there is currently no need for action in improving a MaaS system regarding social components. The ecological usefulness dimension shows a significant negative influence on the intention to use on the one hand, and a significant positive inf

2023, ISBN 978-80-01-07090-1

This work summarizes results and findings of a Czech national scientific project “SMART City – SMART Region – SMART Community” that took place between years 2018 and 2022. Its objective was to understand decision making processes related to the travel mode choice (travel behavior research). Particular focus has been put on shared mobility, micro mobility and mobility-as-a-service (MaaS) in general. Main driver of the study was the need to understand reasons why people choose cars as their preferred travel mode in order to propose and deliver policies leading to increase attractiveness of other transport modes.

2023, International Journal of Transportation Science and Technology, 12 (4), p. 986-995), ISSN 2046-0430

With the constant and ever-growing pressure from governing bodies for increased sustainability of transportation systems, the need for changes in the travel behaviours of the inhabitants of suburban and urban areas seems inevitable. Thus a shift from cars to vehicles with higher occupancy rates or other more environmental friendly travel modes needs to be a priority. This requires understanding the reasons why people choose cars as their preferred mode of travel for commutes in order to make informed decisions about how to encourage changes in commuter travel behaviors. This paper presents a case study of four medium-sized Czech towns, including a survey concerning pre- and post-COVID-19 travel habits focused on identifying and understanding the willingness of car-dependent commuters to change their mode of travel choice. This three-stage survey revealed a small, COVID pandemia -based effect on the habits of respondents and helped to identify sensitivities survey participants had to particular travel parameters and characteristics that might be used by municipalities to implement informed policies that could lead to changes in travel behaviours.

2022, Veterinarni Medicina, 2022 (67), p. 138-149), ISSN 0375-8427

Functional diploid Acipenser ruthenus, functional tetraploid Acipenser gueldenstaedtii and functional hexaploid Acipenser brevirostrum juveniles were sampled monthly for one year, and the white blood cell indicators were determined. The highest number of leukocytes was reached during September and October for A. ruthenus and A. brevirostrum, from October to January for A. gueldenstaedtii (a statistically significant finding). The data suggest a significant effect of ploidy level on the total number of leukocytes and morphological nuclear changes in the granulocytes and lymphocytes. The seasonalvariation in the differential leukocyte counts depends on the species and the influence of various external conditions rather than the ploidy level

2022, Travel Behaviour and Society, 2022 (27), p. 204-215), ISSN 2214-367X

Urban mobility is currently facing a variety of challenges. Increasing emission levels in cities, growing numbers of private vehicles and constantly changing needs and requirements of the population are only some of them. New mobility concepts and business models are currently emerging in response to these volatile conditions, primarily through improvements in IT infrastructure and the profitable collaboration of various players. Mobility as a Service (MaaS) is one of those innovative mobility concepts trying to cope with the current challenges. This paper provides first insights on the characteristics and attitudes of potential MaaS users in order to understand the drivers for a higher willingness to use. The results are gathered with an online survey based on a sample of n = 6000 regular commuters within England, Germany, Czech Republic and Poland. Additionally to the development of a User Behavior Model, the focus also lies on the analysis of undecided users. Comparing the attitudes of participants who show a high willingness to use MaaS with those who are still undecided provides important insights on how to attract a specific audience and increase the usage of Mobility as a Service. The data provides information that the average undecided user is of higher age and has a lower income. Furthermore, the results show significant evidence that the personal opinion towards shared economy, environmental friendliness, and social influence does impact the willingness to use MaaS. Contrary to existing research, travelled distance does not influence the likelihood to use MaaS.

2021, Case Studies on Transport Policy, 9 (2), p. 842-850), ISSN 2213-624X

Carsharing is a relatively new and growing mobility service in many cities. Although there are numerous carsharing initiatives in operation around the world, it is still not clear how they will affect overall travel behavior. Understanding the effects of carsharing when combined with other existing travel modes is an important pre-requisite for decision-makers for them to be able to positively utilise the benefits of carsharing services. Such new mobility services need to be incorporated into existing modelling tools to reliably evaluate the impact of specific measures and policies. The presented study provides an insight into one aspect of such models: the use of carsharing for various trip purposes by users with different socio-demographic characteristics and attitudes. We identify variables that should be used for computing the utility function for users with different backgrounds, perceptions, and preferences. In this study, existing users of a carsharing company operating in various Czech cities participated in a survey and their responses were paired with records of their real carsharing usage patterns. To reduce the number of variables, principal component analysis was used, mainly with attitudinal and perception questions. The principal components based on survey respondents' attitudes towards carsharing and socio-demographic and other variables were used in logistic regression to identify parameters that most significantly influence various purposes for trips. The results confirm the hypothesis that trip purposes differ significantly among carsharing users and need to be incorporated into macroscopic carsharing usage models. These findings can assist municipality representatives and transport companies in considering carsharing as a valid and sustainable travel mode in traffic models and studies.

2017, Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics, Madeira, SciTePress), ISBN 978-989-758-263-9

The paper deals with a task of initialization of the recursive mixture estimation for the case of uniform components. This task is significant as a part of mixture-based clustering, where data clusters are described by the uniform distributions. The issue is extensively explored for normal components. However, sometimes the assumption of normality is not suitable or limits potential application areas (e.g., in the case of data with fixed bounds). The use of uniform components can be beneficial for these cases. Initialization is always a critical task of the mixture estimation. Within the considered recursive estimation algorithm the key point of its initialization is a choice of initial statistics of components. The paper explores several initialization approaches and compares results of clustering with a theoretical counterpart. Experiments with real data are demonstrated.