Abstract
Weather conditions have a major impact on citizens’ daily mobility. Depending on weather conditions trips may be delayed, demand may be changed as well as the modal shift. These variations have a major impact on the use and operation of public transport, particularly in transport systems that operate close to capacity. However, the influence of weather conditions on transport demand is difficult to predict and quantify. For this purpose, an artificial neural network model – the Multilayer Perceptron – is used as a regression model to estimate the demand of urban public transport buses based on weather conditions. Transit bus ridership and weather conditions were collected along a year from a medium-size European metropolitan area (Oporto, Portugal) and linked under the assumption that individuals choose the travel mode based on the weather conditions that are observed during the departure hour, the hour before and two hours before. The transit ridership data were also labelled according to the hour, day of the week, month, and whether there was a strike and/or holiday or not. The results demonstrate that it is possible to predict the demand of public transport buses using the weather conditions observed two hours before with low error for the entire network (MAE = 143 and RMSE = 322). The use of weather conditions allow to decreases the error of the prediction by ~8% for the entire network. © 2021, The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Abstract
The multiplicity of stakeholders in urban contexts can greatly increase the complexity of transportation systems. Since all stakeholders depend, to varying degrees, on the same data to get the information for their mobility, this work considers that an integrated information system, focused on their different needs, will significantly improve the efficiency of transportation systems. A stakeholder-focused system makes the provided information more relevant, while an integrated system fosters the sharing of the data that generates this information. To build such a system, a conceptual framework focused on stakeholders and their decision processes was developed. This new framework takes advantage of existing ones, such as the Zachman framework, the Enterprise Architecture Design, and the Multilevel Service Design. The proposed multidisciplinary approach, putting together information systems (IS) and service design concepts, has considerable potential in ensuring that the right information reaches each stakeholder at the right time.

Abstract

Abstract
Societies face complex challenges, which require a harmonious transition to future patterns. A strategic response to reconfigure society should assure the provision of critical resources and the resilience of the socio-technical systems in the long-term. The implementation of a new dominant technology and paradigm in the transport context is a complex process: it is multidimensional, requires seamless integration of various features and entails trade-offs in the decision-making process. The authors use general morphological analysis (GMA) as a theoretical framework that supports decision making in the transition management of transport to a new powertrain technology. This example is just an illustration of a broader representation of all the possible solutions of a large-scale problem as it is the case of any multi-level process of governance, leading to the pursuit of new paradigms. The originality of the paper lies on using a GMA that addresses sustainable challenges in a transport system from a multi-level perspective.

Abstract
Achieving a balanced healthcare workforce requires health planners to adjust the supply of health human resources (HHR). Mathematical programming models have been widely used to assist such planning, but the way uncertainty is usually considered in these models entails methodological and practical issues and often disregards radical yet plausible changes to the future. This study proposes a new socio-technical methodology to factor in uncertainty over the future within mathematical programming modelling. The methodological approach makes use of foresight and scenario planning concepts to build tailor-made scenarios and scenario fit input parameters, which are then used within mathematical programming models. Health stakeholders and experts are engaged in the scenario building process. Causal map modelling and morphological analysis are adopted to digest stakeholders and experts' information about the future and give origin to contrasting and meaningful scenarios describing plausible future. These scenarios are then adjusted and validated by stakeholders and experts, who then elicit their best quantitative estimates for coherent combinations of input parameters for the mathematical programming model under each scenario. These sets of parameters for each scenario are then fed to the mathematical programming model to obtain optimal solutions that can be interpreted in light of the meaning of the scenario. The proposed methodology has been applied to a case study involving HHR planning in Portugal, but its scope far extends HHR planning, being especially suited for addressing strategic and policy planning problems that are sensitive to input parameters.

Abstract
Service operation vessels are becoming the dominant mode for the maintenance of most offshore wind farms. To minimize turbine downtime, it is essential to bring the right components to the wind farm, while budget and volume constraints prohibit having excess inventories on board. This setting can be interpreted as a repair kit problem, which seeks to define a set of components that may be necessary for on-site maintenance operations in a given time period during which emergency resupply is costly. Current repair kit problem approaches however, do not cater sufficiently for some of the characteristics of offshore wind farm maintenance, including weather-dependent deterioration and the possibility to perform emergency resupplies. We propose mixed-integer programming models both to determine (tactical model) and validate (operational model) repair kits when maintenance operations are performed under different weather conditions. The models are flexible enough to be used with real world data considering multiple turbines composed of different deteriorating components, service operation vessels characteristics (speed and volumetric capacity), different weather conditions, and emergency resupplies. An important feature of this approach is its ability to consider detailed maintenance and vessel routing operations to test and validate repair kits in realistic wind farm environments. We provide valuable insights on the composition of repair kits and on relevant business indicators for a set of different scenarios. The practical implications are that repair kits should be adapted depending on weather forecasts and that considerable downtime reductions can be achieved by allowing emergency resupplies. © 2021 The Author(s)