In Germany, public transport organizations are mainly owned by public authorities. Procurement in Hamburg involves the buses and infrastructure instead of transport services. The procurement process for buses and infrastructure is performed by the transport companies. Such processes must meet German and European public regulations. Therefore, public tender and procurement procedures for buying buses by German Public Transport Operators (PTOs) can be more complex and lengthier than procurement by private PTOs in other countries. As a result, the public transport companies are not primarily driven by profitability, but also by obligations towards the public and political aims. Obligations can comprise to provide affordable, environmentallyfriendly transport services for the citizens. In Hamburg, the public authority incorporates obligations (requirements) for the e-buses in their tendering documents. In Utrecht, as well as most of the rest of the Netherlands, public transport is carried out by private companies, under an operating contract (concession) with a public transport authority. In Utrecht, this authority is the province of Utrecht. The e-buses are the operators’ private property and they are obliged to account to the province of Utrecht for their implementation of public transport. When the province of Utrecht procures the operation of public transport services by means of a European tendering process, private transport companies can offer a bid for this tender. Both, the authority and operators, want to provide good public transport for their customers, but they both have different goals. The operators want to earn a reasonable profit margin on public transport, while the authority wants to fulfil certain public policy goals. The tendering process is where these two come together. It is a strong mechanism to get the best ‘value for money’ out of the market – for example, the most public transport, or the highest number of e-buses running in the area, within the available budget of the public transport authority.
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This paper reports on the first stage of a research project1) that aims to incorporate objective measures of physical activity into health and lifestyle surveys. Physical activity is typically measured with questionnaires that are known to have measurement issues, and specifically, overestimate the amount of physical activity of the population. In a lab setting, 40 participants wore four different sensors on five different body parts, while performing various activities (sitting, standing, stepping with two intensities, bicycling with two intensities, walking stairs and jumping). During the first four activities, energy expenditure was measured by monitoring heart rate and the gas volume of in‐ and expired O2 and CO2. Participants subsequently wore two sensor systems (the ActivPAL on the thigh and the UKK on the waist) for a week. They also kept a diary keeping track of their physical activities, work and travel hours. Machine learning algorithms were trained with different methods to determine which sensor and which method was best able to differentiate the various activities and the intensity with which they were performed. It was found that the ActivPAL had the highest overall accuracy, possibly because the data generated on the upper tigh seems to be best distinguishing between different types of activities and therefore led to the highest accuracy. Accuracy could be slightly increased by including measures of heartrate. For recognizing intensity, three different measures were compared: allocation of MET values to activities (used by ActivPAL), median absolute deviation, and heart rate. It turns out that each method has merits and disadvantages, but median absolute deviation seems to be the most promishing metric. The search for the best method of gauging intensity is still ongoing. Subsequently, the algorithms developed for the lab data were used to determine physical activity in the week people wore the devices during their everyday activities. It quickly turned out that the models are far from ready to be used on free living data. Two approaches are suggested to remedy this: additional research with meticulously labelled free living data, e.g., by combining a Time Use Survey with accelerometer measurements. The second is to focus on better determining intensity of movement, e.g., with the help of unsupervised pattern recognition techniques. Accuracy was but one of the requirements for choosing a sensor system for subsequent research and ultimate implementation of sensor measurement in health surveys. Sensor position on the body, wearability, costs, usability, flexibility of analysis, response, and adherence to protocol equally determine the choice for a sensor. Also from these additional points of view, the activPAL is our sensor of choice.
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This paper reports on an experiment comparing students’ results on image-rich numeracy problems and on equivalent word problems. Given the well reported problematic nature of word problems, the hypothesis is that students score better on image-rich numeracy problems than on comparable word problems. To test the hypothesis a randomized controlled trial was conducted with 31,842 students from primary, secondary, and vocational education. The trial consisted of 21 numeracy problems in two versions: word problems and image-rich problems. The hypothesis was confirmed for the problems used in this experiment. With the insights gained we intend to improve the assessment of students’ abilities in solving quantitative problems from daily life. Numeracy, word problem, image-rich problem, randomized controlled trial, assessment
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The AR in Staged Entertainment project focuses on utilizing immersive technologies to strengthen performances and create resiliency in live events. In this project The Experiencelab at BUas explores this by comparing live as well as pre-recorded events that utilize Augmented Reality technology to provide an added layer to the experience of the user. Experiences will be measured among others through observational measurements using biometrics. This projects runs in the Experience lab of BUas with partners The Effenaar and 4DR Studio and is connected to the networks and goals related to Chronosphere, Digireal and Makerspace. Project is powered by Fieldlab Events (PPS / ClickNL)..
Mode heeft een cruciale functie in de samenleving: zij maakt diversiteit en inclusiviteit mogelijk en is een middel voor individuen om zich uit te drukken. Desalniettemin is mode ook een raadsel op het gebied van duurzaamheid, zowel aan de sociale als aan de milieukant. Er bestaan echter alternatieven voor de huidige praktijken in de mode. Dit project heeft tot doel de ontwikkeling van een van die initiatieven te ondersteunen. In samenwerking met twee Nederlandse MKB bedrijven in de mode-industrie, willen we een of meer business modellen co-designen voor het vermarkten van circulair ontworpen laser geprinte T-shirts. Door lasertechnologie te introduceren in plaats van traditionele inktopties, kunnen de T- shirts hun CO2 voetafdruk verder verkleinen en een verstandig alternatief zijn voor individuen, die op zoek zijn naar duurzame modekeuzes. Maar hoewel de technologische haalbaarheid vaststaat, vereist het vermarkten sterke, schaalbare, bedrijfsmodellen. Via een haalbaarheidsstudie willen we dergelijke businessmodellen ontwikkelen en de commercialisering van deze producten ondersteunen. Wij zijn van plan de reacties van de consument op een dergelijke innovatie te bestuderen, evenals de belemmeringen en stimulansen vanuit het oogpunt van de consument, en de inkoop-, toeleveringsketen- en financiële kwesties die kunnen voortvloeien uit de schaalbaarheid van een potentieel bedrijfsmodel. Om praktische relevantie voor de bredere industrie te verzekeren, streven we ernaar om de resultaten te presenteren op evenementen georganiseerd door een van de consortiumpartners (in 2023), als ook om een teaching case en een wetenschappelijk artikel te ontwikkelen op basis van de resultaten van het project.
This project aims to develop a measurement tool to assess the inclusivity of experiences for people with varying challenges and capabilities on the auditory spectrum. In doing so, we performed an in-depth exploration of scientific literature and findings from previous projects by Joint Projects. Based on this, we developed an initial conceptual model that focuses on sensory perception, emotion, cognition, and e[ort in relation to hearing and fatigue. Within, this model a visitor attraction is seen as an “experienscape” with four key elements: content, medium, context, and individual. In co-creative interviews with experts by experience with varying challenges on the auditory spectrum, they provided valuable insights that led to a significant expansion of this initial model. This was a relevant step, as in the scientific and professional literature, little is known about the leisure experiences of people with troubled hearing. For example, personal factors such as a person’s attitude toward their own hearing loss and the social dynamics within their group turned out to greatly influence the experience. The revised model was then applied in a case study at Apenheul, focusing on studying differences in experience of their gorilla presentation amongst people with varying challenges on the auditory spectrum.Societal issueThe Netherlands is one of the countries in Europe with the highest density of visitor attractions. Despite this abundance, many visitor attractions are not fully accessible to everyone, particularly to visitors with disabilities who sometimes are not eligible to ride due to safety concerns, yet when eligible generally still encounter numerous barriers. Accessibility of visitor attractions can be approached in various ways. However, because the focus often lies on operational and technical aspects (e.g., reducing stimuli at certain times of the day by turning o[ music, o[ering alternative wheelchair entrances), strategic and community-focused approaches are often overlooked. More importantly, there is also a lack of attention to the experience of visitors with disabilities. This becomes apparent from several studies from Joint Projects, where visitor attractions are being visited together with experts by experience with various disabilities. Nevertheless, experience is often being regarded as the 'core product' of the leisure sector. The right to meet, discover, develop, relax and thus enjoy this core product is hindered for many people with disabilities due to a lack of knowledge, inaccessibility (physical, digital, social, communicative as well as financial) and discrimination in society. Additionally, recreation entrepreneurs still face a significant gap in reaching the potential market of guests with disabilities and their networks. Thus, despite the numerous initiatives in the leisure sector aimed at improving accessibility on technical and operational fronts, often people with disabilities are still not being able to experience the same kind of enjoyment as those without. These observations form the pressing impetus for initiating the current research project, tapping into the numerous opportunities for learning, development and growth on making leisure offer more inclusive.Benefit to societyIn total, the current project approach comes with a number of enrichments in terms of both knowledge and methodology: a mixed-methods approach that allows for comparing data from different sources to obtain a more complete picture of the experience; a methodological co-design process that honours the 'nothing about us without us' principle; and benchmarking for a group (i.e., people with challenges on the auditory spectrum) that despite the size of its population has thus far mostly been overlooked.
