Alberto Dianin

Over the past five years, the Covid-19 pandemic has highly boosted the adoption of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), and especially of teleactivities (e.g. teleworking, teleshopping, telemedicine). This shift has raised new questions around the implications of teleactivities, including their effects on transport and mobility. Among these, the accessibility impacts of teleactivities may be very relevant. However, they are still limitedly explored in scientific research, both methodologically and empirically. As such, our study aims to review the literature on the accessibility implications of teleactivities, with the purpose of pointing out gaps and suggesting research directions. To this end, we select 61 studies by following the PRISMA approach, and we review them through five thematic keys covering complementary aspects of the accessibility analysis in the context of teleactivities. Based on our review, we provide two outputs: (1) a conceptual scheme based on our thematic keys pointing out research gaps in the study of the accessibility implications of teleactivities; and (2) a selection of potential research directions inspired from the identified research gaps. The latter include e.g. the role of teleactivities in the land-use transport feedback cycle, the potential usage of activity-based accessibility models to estimate teleactivities’ implications, or the analysis of the impacts that a teleactivity (e.g. telework or teleshopping) may have on accessibility to other in-presence activities (e.g. leisure or healthcare). We believe this review may represent a useful interpretation of the existing literature; and that readers may profit from it to define new research questions and directions.

DOI: 10.1016/j.trip.2026.101904

Journal article2026

Mobility of care in daily trip chaining: an exploratory analysis in Turin, Italy

Dianin A, Ceccato R, Diana M

The Mobility of Care (MoC) has been gaining increasing interest in transportation research. Previous studies have contributed to the identification of some recurring characteristics of the MoC, like its prevalence in daily mobility, gendered role, tendency to imply short and frequent trips, inclination to be performed by car or by walking, and its tendency to be organised in chains. While many of these aspects are explicitly analysed, the extent and manner in which the MoC is chained on daily basis is still under-observed. This study aims to fill this gap, by investigating the role of the MoC in daily trip chaining through an exploratory analysis of the daily routine of a sample of Turin (Italy). To this end, we first establish a set of activity, trip-segment, trip-chain and tour categories based on previous literature. Then, we define an approach to trip-chaining analysis focused on the MoC. This includes descriptive statistics and Multiple Correspondence Analyses to reveal potential relationships between activity-travel patterns and sociodemographic, geographic and travel traits. Results reveal that over 40% of daily tours include at least one care activity. About 65% of these have a simple primary conformation (home-care-home), 25% show a complex trip-chaining pattern (e.g. home-work-care-home), while 10% are simple secondary tours performed before or after another home-based tour (e.g. home-work-home-care-home). Simple tours are typically associated with females and unemployed older people living in small households, people residing in the belt area, and people mainly travelling by transit or car. Complex tours with chains are instead especially linked to employed (male) adults in larger households, people living in the city centre and urban area, and people mostly traveling by car. These results provide novel details on how the MoC is chained within daily routines, enriching our understanding of its potential influence on daily activity-travel patterns.

Alberto Dianin, Elisa Ravazzoli

DOI: 10.1016/j.urbmob.2026.100208

Journal article2026

The role of the Mobility of Care in rural areas: An exploratory analysis in South Tyrol

Chizzali C, Ravazzoli E, Dianin A

Mobility of Care (MoC) encompasses all trips made for unpaid care work, including caregiving and domestic responsibilities. Previous studies have shown the prevalence of the MoC in daily mobility, its disproportionate impact on women, and its key characteristics. However, research has mostly focused on urban residents, while rural dwellers are underexplored, despite their challenges in accessing care services. In this study, we aim to explore the role of the MoC in rural areas through three steps. First, we conduct a literature review to derive the main findings from previous MoC studies. Second, we perform an exploratory analysis of the MoC in a rural case study by investigating its daily prevalence, who undertakes it, and how. Third, we compare the nuances of our case study with the literature. In line with previous research, our exploratory analysis shows that care trips represent about 35% of all daily trips in our rural case study. Women, seniors, and non-working people are the main caregivers in the sample. Private cars and active modes account for 90% of the care-related modal split. Notably, 30% of care trips are 5–15 km long, 50% take place during off-peak hours, and 60% are destinated for villages. Although our results cannot be generalised due to the limited sample size, they provide novel nuances of the potential rural specificities of MoC, which may be explored in future research. Moreover, they highlight the potential need for more flexible collective transport options for rural caregivers, beyond the peak-hour requirements of commuters and students.

DOI: 10.1016/j.rspp.2026.100295

Journal article2025

Assessing scenarios of rural public transport automation by integrating the stakeholders’ viewpoint: Two case studies from Italy and Austria

Dianin A, Fian T, Ravazzoli E, Hauger G

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) possess significant potential to augment the efficiency of collective transport systems in rural areas, thereby enhancing transport accessibility for rural populations. Further modelling studies focusing specifically on rural collective transport automation are necessary to fully realise this potential, as current research remains disproportionately oriented towards urban contexts. Beyond modelling efforts, it is imperative to involve policymakers in assessing rural AV models, given their critical role in the practical implementation of these solutions within decision-making processes. To address this research lacuna, the present study evaluates AV-based public transport schemes for rural areas, incorporating stakeholder perspectives to provide a holistic analysis. The study proceeds in three phases. Initially, five AV-based public transport schemes (AV scenarios) are defined for two rural case study areas in Italy and Austria. Subsequently, the impacts of these scenarios on both individual and collective accessibility of rural residents are estimated. Finally, the model results are assessed in collaboration with stakeholders from the public transport sector through Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA). The MCDA framework incorporates both “manifest” decision criteria directly derived from our accessibility model, and “latent” decision criteria identified through stakeholder engagement, which capture dimensions of accessibility not explicitly quantified by the model. The results reveal that stakeholder input provides a complementary perspective to the model, which sometimes leads to modifications of the preliminary model outcomes. This underscores the importance of integrating modelling studies with stakeholder consultations to enrich the evaluation of rural collective transport automation, thereby facilitating a more nuanced and comprehensive assessment of the benefits and limitations of AV-based transport solutions for rural accessibility.

DOI: 10.1016/j.cstp.2025.101556

Journal article2025

Collective accessibility impacts of public transport automation on rural areas: the case study of Mühlwald, South Tyrol

Dianin A, Gidam M, Ravazzoli E, Hauger G

Collective autonomous vehicles (AVs) might change the accessibility of rural areas in the following decades. For instance, the operating cost savings triggered by automation could allow upgrading traditional bus lines or introducing alternative on-demand services. These improvements could benefit rural dwellers as a whole, and especially people who rely on collective transport. Nevertheless, few studies focus on the applications and accessibility impacts of AVs in rural areas, with most research focused on urban centres. This study aims to fill this gap by analysing the potential effects of five collective automation scenarios on the accessibility of a rural study area: the Alpine valley of Mühlwald in South Tyrol (Italy). The AV scenarios propose line-based and on-demand services and combinations of both over space and time. The study measures their accessibility impacts at the collective level. However, accessibility is not estimated through a traditional place-based approach like a gravity model. Instead, a space-time model performs person-based accessibility calculations for a sample of residents and aggregates the results at the collective and spatial level. Results show that scenarios replacing today’s system with on-demand and rideshared AVs could provide the highest collective accessibility gains, especially when considering the destinations outside Mühlwald. However, also a mix of line-based and on-demand services combined over space and time could achieve similarly high benefits, especially within Mühlwald. With these results, policymakers may get a picture of the pros and cons of different AV applications for rural accessibility and start discussing how to improve current systems in future based on their policy priorities and desired accessibility effects.

DOI: 10.1016/j.ijtst.2024.11.004

Journal article2025

Collective transport automation in rural areas: Policy recommendations emerged from the RAAV project

Dianin A, Fian T, Hauger G

Research on autonomous vehicles (AVs) in public transport predominantly focuses on urban areas, leaving rural contexts understudied. The "RAAV: Rural Accessibility & Automated Vehicles" project addresses this gap by exploring the deployment of AVs in rural collective transport and its potential accessibility implications. Five AV-based transport supply scenarios are designed in two rural areas, proposing autonomous bus lines, on-demand rideshare vans, and hybrid combinations of both across time and space. Their accessibility impacts are estimated using a modified space-time accessibility model, to highlight the most promising AV scenarios. Finally, a stakeholder integration process is conducted to complement the assessment of the AV scenarios and derive policy recommendations for those considered most preferable based on the accessibility model and stakeholder view. This paper summarises the key RAAV findings and focuses on the policy recommendations emerged at the process’s end. Results suggest that a comprehensive assessment of the AV scenarios and definition of recommendations can only be achieved by integrating accessibility model results with the findings from the stakeholder consultation, since they provide complementary viewpoints.

DOI: 10.1016/j.trpro.2025.04.082

Journal article2025

Needs and norms shaping the mobility of care of women in rural areas: A case study in the Alps

Chizzali C, Dianin A, Rabbiosi C

The mobility of care encompasses trips made to fulfil caregiving and domestic responsibilities, like escorting children, visiting seniors in need, or grocery shopping. Although it plays a prominent role in adults' daily life, the mobility of care is still limitedly explored and most studies focus on its role in large cities. Conversely, it is understudied in rural areas despite the significant challenges their inhabitants face, such as availability and accessibility of care amenities, coordination of work and care duties, or population aging. To address this research gap, our study explores the needs and norms shaping the mobility of care of women in rural areas, by focusing on a case study in the Italian Alps. Specifically, we explore the needs and norms that 1) foster or hinder the care mobility practices of rural female caregivers, and 2) encourage or discourage them to make care trips by collective or active transport. To this end, we use the framework of the Social Practice Theory to interpret the mobility practices described in 12 semi-structured interviews with as many rural female caregivers. The results show some overlaps with urban research and some (partially) novel findings. The latter concern e.g. the third-place value attached to care practices by rural caregivers, the influence of residential dispersion on rural care trips, or the potential chances and barriers of carpooling to decrease the dependency of rural care practices on private car. We use these findings to suggest potential future research directions about the mobility of care in rural areas.

DOI: 10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2025.104288

Journal article2025

The railway accessibility of peripheral areas to the TEN-T network: a case study in the Alps

Dianin A, Chizzali C

Project: Sustainable public transport solutions and innovative governance schemes for improving connectivity in Central Europe

European transport planning highly fosters the railway Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T), while giving ancillary attention to the secondary railways that should enable the access of peripheral areas to this network. Even in the academic debate, considerable work focuses on the high-speed railways and their implications, while fewer studies discuss the role of secondary railways in peripheral EU areas. This gap may exacerbate the disparities between central and peripheral EU regions. As such, the aim of this paper is to direct the attention towards the secondary railway lines serving the peripheral EU areas, by measuring the railway accessibility of these peripheral areas to the main nodes of the TEN-T network. We focus on a cross-border case study in the Alps, and we measure the accessibility provided by nine secondary railways to the main TEN-T nodes within it. On average, results show that the observed secondary-railway nodes register ca 20% lower accessibility figures than the TEN-T ones. However, this mismatch varies significantly among the secondary nodes belonging to our study area (from ca a min of 2% to a max of 40%). It is crucial to address such unbalances at the EU and regional level since a significant portion of the EU population resides outside the TEN-T catchment area, and thus depends on the secondary railway system to access the TEN-T network in a sustainable way.

Alberto Dianin, Agnieszka Stawinoga, Elisa Ravazzoli

DOI: 10.1016/j.trpro.2025.04.052

Journal article2024

Individual accessibility impacts of public transport automation on (groups of) rural dwellers

Dianin A, Gidam M, Ravazzoli E, Stawinoga AE, Hauger G

Rural areas typically register low accessibility. This fact negatively affects their attractiveness, the well-being of their population in general, and population subgroups with limited access to private cars or strong space-time constraints (like minors, the elderly or members of large households). Collective autonomous vehicles (AVs) might improve this situation, e.g. by enhancing standard line-based services or introducing alternative shared schemes. Nevertheless, the collective usage of AVs in rural transport and their potential impacts on accessibility are still underexplored, with most research focused on the urban context. This study aims to fill this gap by analysing the public transport accessibility impacts that five alternative AV supply scenarios might generate in the rural valley of Mühlwald (South Tyrol, Italy). To this end, a variant of the standard space-time accessibility model developed by the authors is used. This focuses on accessibility by public transport specifically, and measures it to both fixed activities and discretionary opportunities. Accessibility impacts are first estimated at the person-based level for a sample of residents. Then, they are aggregated for the whole sample and six subgroups that tend to experience more substantial accessibility issues based on the literature. Results show that line-based AV applications provide limited accessibility benefits. Conversely, time-flexible applications like ride-shared vans or combinations of line-based trunks and on-demand feeders over peak and off-peak hours may provide the most evident advantages, especially for the subgroups with the tightest space-time schedules. Although these results do not reflect other possible impacts of AVs (e.g. environmental effects), they provide policymakers with valuable insights into the collective AV usages that could be most suitable in the rural context regarding person-based accessibility gains.

DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubtr.2024.100098

Journal article2024

Measuring public transport accessibility to fixed activities and discretionary opportunities: a space–time approach

Dianin A, Gidam M, Hauger G, Ravazzoli E

The Space–Time Accessibility (STA) model is broadly used to measure person-based accessibility based on the space, time, and transport constraints experienced at the individual level in connection to the actual modal choices of observed individuals. In this paper, we propose to adjust the STA model (by introducing a so-called PT-STA model) with three core purposes: (1) focusing on public transport accessibility specifically, (2) measuring accessibility to both fixed activities and discretionary opportunities, and (3) integrating travel-time thresholds in the accessibility measurement. These three elements aim to make the PT-STA model a suitable tool to evaluate the impacts of public transport interventions on person-based accessibility and extend the evaluation of public transport accessibility to its fixed and discretionary dimensions. The PT-STA model is tested with a sample of 118 residents of the rural municipality of Mühlwald (South Tyrol, Italy). Results show that the accessibility to fixed activities and discretionary opportunities are limitedly correlated. It is possible to identify people with high accessibility to fixed activities and poor access to discretionary opportunities (typically pensioners and homemakers living in remote locations) and vice versa (e.g. people with articulated rural–urban commutes but daily visiting locations with several amenities). These results preliminarily confirm the importance of combining both accessibility dimensions in the PT-STA model since they tell complementary and not overlapped stories that are relevant for policymakers to evaluate the pros and cons of alternative public transport interventions.

Alberto Dianin, Elisa Ravazzoli

DOI: 10.1186/s12544-024-00636-2

Database2023

Collected data from mobility diaries from people surveyed in the RAAV project. (1.0.0) [Data set]

Gidam M, Dianin A, Hauger G, Ravazzoli E

The project "Rural Accessibility and Automated Vehicles (RAAV)" project aims to investigate the impacts on individual accessibility through the implementation of automated vehicles in public transport systems in remote areas. By interviewing more than 200 people in the municipalities of Sooß (Austria) and Mühlwald (Italy) the RAAV project was able to collect individual travel diaries collecting detailed information about and mobility behaviour as well as travel preferences and attitudes.

Alberto Dianin, Elisa Ravazzoli

DOI: 10.48436/hq7b7-xsa12

Database2023

Quantitative analysis of transport performance and agency costs for five scenarios of the implementation of automated vehicles in public transport. (1.0.0) [Data set].

Gidam M, Dianin A, Hauger G, Ravazzoli E

Data set

DOI: 10.48436/h0mwh-grx90

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Journal article2025

Assessing scenarios of rural public transport automation by integrating the stakeholders’ viewpoint: Two case studies from Italy and Austria

Dianin A, Fian T, Ravazzoli E, Hauger G