The implications of using hydrocarbon fuels to generate electricity for hydrogen fuel powered automobiles on electrical capital,hydrocarbon consumption,and anthropogenic emissions

This paper considers some of the impacts of adopting hydrogen fuel cell powered electric automobiles in the US. The change will need significant adjustments to the electrical generation industry including additional capital and hydrocarbon fuel consumption as well as impacting anthropogenic greenhouse emissions. Examining the use of three fuels to generate hydrogen fuels, using three production methods, distributed in three geographic scenarios, we determine that while the change reduces anthropogenic greenhouse emissions with minimal additional electrical generation capital expenditures, it accelerates the use of natural gas. Electrolysis provides a sustainable, longer-term solution, but requires more capital investment in electrical generation and yields an increase in anthropogenic greenhouse emissions.     

Characterization and comparison of traffic flow on reversible roadways

Reversible traffic operations have become an increasingly popular strategy for mitigating traffic congestion associated with the directionally unbalanced traffic flows that are a routine part of peak commute periods, planned special events, and emergency evacuations. It is interesting that despite its widespread and long‐term use, relatively little is known about the operational characteristics of this form of operation. For example, the capacity of a reversed lane has been estimated by some to be equal to that of a normal lane while others have theorized it to be half of this value. Without accurate estimates of reversible lane performance it is not possible to confidently gauge the benefits of reversible roadways or model them using traffic simulation. This paper presents the results of a study to measure and evaluate the speed and flow characteristics of reverse‐flow traffic streams by comparing them under various operating conditions and locations. It was found that, contrary to some opinions, the flow characteristics of reverse‐flowing lanes were generally similar to normally flowing lanes under a variety of traffic volume, time‐of‐day, location, and type‐of‐use conditions. The study also revealed that drivers will readily use reversible lanes without diminished operating speeds, particularly as volumes increase. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Transport bottlenecks and Tanzania's economic problems

Abstract

The paper discusses Tanzania's transport problems in the context of the prevailing acute economic crisis. It looks at the development of the transport system, especially the rail and road network, from the German days to the new Chinese‐built Tanzania‐Zambia Railway. The East‐West orientation of the major parallel rail lines and roads reflects the dependency of the economy on export‐import trade. A major challenge to the transport system is the haulage of agricultural products, mainly for export but also for the internal market, not to mention the haulage of imported commodities.

The provision and utilization of transport services is discussed in the context of the historical, and institutional setting of the road haulage industry, particularly its public and private sector configurations. Due to scarcity of foreign exchange, both sectors, especially the private, are starved of vehicles and spare parts.

The operation of ocean and lake shipping services and Air Tanzania are discussed. It is recommended that the latter should concentrate on essential domestic services plus some limited regional services. External financing of transport projects and its implications are also considered.

It is concluded that despite the break‐up of the East African transport system, the Tanzanian transport system, although shaky, has avoided major breakdowns and in some cases, especially in trade, has provided the foundation for at least medium‐term improvements. More attention is recommended to organizational problems of track use by freight and passenger carriers and to making the best use of existing facilities.     

Measuring the sustainability of marine fuels: A fuzzy group multi-criteria decision making approach

The use of alternative energy sources instead of HFO has been recognized as a promising way for reducing emissions from shipping and promoting the development of green shipping. However, it is usually difficult for the decision-making to select the best choice among multiple alternative marine fuels. In order to address this, a complete criteria system for sustainability assessment of alternative marine fuels was firstly established, and a fuzzy group multi-criteria decision making method has been developed to rank the alternative marine fuels by combining fuzzy logarithmic least squares and fuzzy TOPSIS (Technique for Order Performance by Similarity to Ideal Solution). Fuzzy logarithmic least squares method has been employed to determine the weights of the criteria for sustainability assessment, and fuzzy TOPSIS was employed to determine the sustainability order of the alternatives. An illustrative case with three alternative marine fuels including methanol, LNG and hydrogen has been studied by the proposed method, and hydrogen has been recognized as the most sustainable scenario, follows by LNG, and methanol in the descending order. The results show that the proposed method is feasible for prioritizing the alternative marine fuels; it also has the ability to help the decision-makers to select the most sustainable option among multiple marine fuels.     

Energy conservation in urban public transport

Urban public transport energy use is determined largely by the weight of the vehicle, and frequency of intermediate stops, imposing repeated acceleration/steady running/braking cycles, in which much of the kinetic energy is dissipated. Energy consumed for the same capacity and vehicle performance may be reduced by coasting, cutting vehicle weight, and use of regenerative braking, on electrically‐powered systems, to convert the otherwise wasted braking energy into useful form. Particular attention is paid to the last‐named, identifying results of past experience and recent simulations. Practical constraints limiting the amount of energy actually recovered are discussed, including proportion of vehicle weight braked electrically, receptivity of the supply system, stop spacing and number of vehicles operated simultaneously. Reference is also made to battery vehicles and flywheel energy storage.

It is suggested that considerable scope exists in urban electric rail operation for reduced energy consumption, as existing fleets are replaced by lighter weight vehicles, fitted for regenerative braking. Further savings may come from use of inverter equipment. Rate of fleet renewal may be an important factor. Buses are already much more energy efficient, and dramatic gains are unlikely. However, there is some scope for use of flywheel energy storage, and regenerative braking on trolleybuses.     

Assessment of hybrid‐drive bus fuel savings for Brazilian urban transit

Buses are the main transit mode in Brazil, transporting more than 55 million passengers per day. Most of these vehicles run on diesel oil causing a dependence on oil, extensive greenhouse gas emissions and increasing air pollution in urban areas. In order to improve this situation, options for Brazilian cities include the use of alternative fuels and new propulsion technologies, such as hybrid vehicles. This paper proposes a procedure for evaluating the performance of a recently developed hybrid‐drive technology. A simple procedure is presented to compare hybrid‐drive buses with conventional diesel buses in urban operations, particularly with respect to fuel economy. Next the potential for reducing diesel oil consumption through the use of hybrid‐drive buses is assessed. Field tests carried out by the authors indicate that fuel consumption improvement through the use of hybrid‐drive buses would certainly exceed 20%, resulting in lower fuel costs and carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions.     

An international study on land‐use and transport interaction

This paper underlines the important role played by the interaction between transport and land use in the way cities develop and the need to use a fully integrated land‐use/transport model to assess the longer‐term impacts of urban policies. Since most of the models of this type had never been properly tested, the Transport and Road Research Laboratory in the early 1980s set up a collaborative study to examine critically their performance and to assess the impacts of a range of commonly applied policies.

The paper briefly describes the first phase of the study in which nine models from seven countries were subjected to a rigorous set of tests covering a variety of policies. For practical reasons each model was applied to the city on which it was originally calibrated. To overcome some of the problems of comparison, a second phase of the study was conducted in which some models were applied to several cities each so that the differences due to the particular characteristics of the cities could be identified. In carrying out this phase, some cities were examined by several models and discrepancies in the results analysed. The setting up of the second phase of the study is outlined in this paper, but not the results, which are given in later papers in this and subsequent issues of Transport Reviews.     

The treatment of traffic in the Dutch environmental outlooks: the role of science in policy making and policy evaluation

The Dutch National Institute of Public Health and Environmental Protection publishes Environmental Outlooks in which 25‐year projections are made. These Outlooks quantifying the environmental problems, form the scientific basis for Dutch environmental policy. Traffic and transport is one of the main sectors causing environmental problems. The emissions and energy use of all relevant categories (road traffic, non‐road traffic) are based on model simulations with models. This paper describes the main models used.

If present policy is implemented only a minority of the environmental targets will be met.

If a sustainable transport system for the Netherlands means a large reducton in CO₂ emissions and energy use after 2010 a stronger emphasis on both technical and non‐technical measures (such as land‐use planning combined with public transport improvements) for the period until 2010 is needed than proposed in the Second Transport Structure Plan, unless a sustainable energy source becomes available.     

Goods transport in Etarea

Etarea is a planned satellite town for Prague, the capital of Czechoslovakia, located some 10 km from the outskirts of the capital. Its projected population of 135,000 will live in 13 residential areas, each of which will have its own retail centre in addition to the main retail centre.The plans for Etarea incorporate a unique approach to the related problems of the storage and distribution of goods within urban areas. All incoming goods will be delivered by road or rail, and possibly in the future by water, to a central storage complex. Goods for the retail trade are distributed from this central store by automated trains pulled by battery-powered trucks, each train having a capacity of 8.75 tons. The trains, which run in a network of underground tunnels, 2 \sX 2.5 meters in cross section, are guided by an optical sensing system. The underground network comprises 3 main routes with branches serving the individual centres. Secondary storage facilities are planned for each of the 14 retail centres where unit loads received from the main storage centre are subdivided for retail sale.One of the proposed methods of retail distribution provides for the fully automated delivery of goods from the retail centres direct to the consumer's household. This is accomplished by means of a pneumatic tube system similar to that used for handling cash in some large stores. Orders will be placed by dialling the code number assigned to the required item, given in a catalogue of available goods. Provided that the customer's account is in credit the order will be accepted and the goods automatically dispatched from the local centre; delivery is estimated to take between 2.5 and 11.5 minutes depending on the distance of the customer's house from the centre. The same system is utilised for the delivery of regular orders for such items as newspapers and magazines as well as for mail and for the the removal of household refuse. In addition to the automated system each retail centre will also have over-the-counter, self-service and slot machine facilities for the sale of goods.All proposals for goods storage and distribution planned for Etarea are based on existing technologies.     

Road pricing—some of the more neglected theoretical and policy implications

The intention of this paper has been to raise some doubts about the extent to which the control of congestion is understood, not as an engineering problem, but as a socio‐economic one concerned with making the most appropriate use of scarce resources.

Despite some doubts, it seems that the basic theory, as applied to a highly simplified situation, is technically correct. What is much less clear, however, is the extent to which the acceptance of this analysis as a basis for policy making in the real world is justified. Even if, qualitatively, its implications are correct, there are significant quantitative uncertainties. Given that governments, local and national, are still pouring considerable sums of money, both through subsidies and investment, into the relief of congestion, it is desirable to change this state of affairs. There seems to be ample scope for the transport economist, the transport planner and the transport engineer to contribute to a debate which has a long and, in places, distinguished pedigree, but where the outcome is as yet considerably outstripped by the importance and complexity of the problems which must be solved.

     

Citizen involvement in the transportation planning process: What is and what ought to be

Public involvement in the transportation planning process is an effort to ensure that citizens have a direct voice in public decision‐making. Through shared goals, such involvement enriches the planning, implementation, operation and management process. Various strategies of involving the public in the planning process have been tried in the past thirty years, but the overall effort has been lumpy and at times disappointing. In the last few years some forms of communicative action have been applied, following its appearance in current literature, but we still have a long way to go. This paper has four main objectives. First, it surveys the citizen involvement effort as it is practiced today and the problems it faces. Second, it describes teleogenic systems that are particularly suited for tackling conflictual problems. Thirdly, it presents the interplay of virtuous and vicious cycles in reinforcing or retarding collective decision making. And lastly, the process of harvesting the potential of citizen groups in collective decision‐making through critical systems thinking is described.     

A Comment on ‘The Myth of Travel Time Saving’

Abstract

This paper reports on what appears to be the first attempt to map the perceived holistic dynamics at work in contemporary Brazilian railway development. The published perspectives of recognized experts in the Brazilian railway industry were mapped using the problem structuring methodology known as Strategic Options Development and Analysis (SODA). SODA is essentially a cognitive mapping approach and, in this case, it enabled a classification of the issues involved in railway development, as well as the detailed analysis of particular causes and effects acting upon the issues. Two particularly disturbing results are discussed in some length: the detrimental effects of the alleged misappropriations of public funds, and the identification of a degenerative feedback loop system at the heart of railway decision‐making. Overall, the paper shows that the situation faced by railway development in Brazil is constituted by a dynamic interaction of non‐independent problems, indicating the presence of a complex problem‐system requiring conceptual structure in a manner that permits analysis without ignoring systemic integrity. As such, the paper serves as a platform from which further use of SODA in this context might be considered as a decision support tool.     

Electric vehicles and the urban environment

Abstract

Due to the increased traffic volume, especially in urban areas, cars have become the dominant source of atmospheric pollution. Actions taken to limit the pollution have not been able to counteract the polluting effect of this increase in cars. Limited petroleum resources have initiated the search for alternative fuels for vehicles. These alternatives, except for hydrogen and electricity, will however only give a limited decrease of pollution and for some components, such as aldehydes, the pollution will increase.

Electric vehicles are attractive from both energy and environmental points of view and substantial development programmes are devoted to high energy density batteries which are expected to increase the range and market for this alternative.

The scope of this paper is to compare the overall atmospheric pollution for electric vehicles with the corresponding figures for internal combustion engined (ICE) vehicles using either gasoline or such alternatives as methanol and liquid petroleum gas.

It is shown that the total atmospheric emission for electric vehicles, including what is produced from the power plant, would on a per mile basis be 20% of the comparative figure for an ICE vehicle meeting Californian legislation, which is among the most stringent in the world. For ground emission, which is the most important parameter regarding influence on man and environment the corresponding figure will be substantially lower. Also, the noise level for electric vehicles is radically lower than for cars with internal combustion engines.     

Rail freight efficiency and competitiveness in Australia

In 1994/95, the Australian rail freight task was approximately 100 billion tonne kilometres (btkm). This freight task included some 37 btkm for the haulage of iron ore in Western Australia, 28 btkm for coal haulage in Queensland and New South Wales and about 16 btkm for interstate rail freight. This paper mainly concerns how improvements can be made to the efficiency and competitiveness of interstate rail freight services through the upgrading of sections of mainline track that currently have severe speed‐weight restrictions. Recent improvements in rail freight efficiency are discussed, with emphasis on two indicators: average unit revenues (cents per net tonne km), and average energy efficiency (net tonne km per MJ). Rail freight efficiency is high for the Western Australia iron‐ore operations, Queensland coal operations and Adelaide‐Perth general freight operations. However, between Australia's three largest cities of Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, some 36% of the mainline track fails to meet basic fast freight train standards with a ruling grade of 1 in 66 and no curve radius less than 800 m. The contraints on efficient rail freight operations imposed by severe terrain, and how the effects of terrain may be reduced by improved track alignment, are discussed. Some economically warranted rail track investment measures are outlined, including those identified for a National Transport Planning Taskforce. These measures have the potential to reduce liquid fuel use by over 250 million litres a year. Factors affecting competitive neutrality between road and rail freight that are outside of the present scope of Australia's National Competition Policy are broadly considered. These factors include the extensive upgrading of the National Highway System with full Federal funding, and low levels of road cost recovery from heavy trucks operating over long distances.     

A KBS application for market research advice in transport

This paper presents some results of a knowledge based system (KBS) development applied to market research (MR) issues in transport. This application represents a rule production approach to decisions associated with the definition of appropriate survey procedures for various operation‐management problems in a transport enterprise or agency. The basic idea is to provide an aid for the user (manager, student or practitioner), who is concerned with MR, but is not very familiar with this field or has some concerns over data‐gathering and the use of that information. It focuses on specific applications in the transport environment and gives the user some support in maintaining greater consistency in his (her) decisions.

The objective of this paper is to describe the system structure, to point out some important aspects and problems arising during its development and also to make some comments with respect to the further development of this and similar systems.     

Traffic Performance Models for Dynamic Traffic Assignment: An Assessment of Existing Models

Abstract

This paper provides a review of the traffic performance models for dynamic traffic assignment (DTA) and it identifies the strength and weakness of existing models. Requirements for traffic performance models are identified and various forms of existing traffic performance models for DTA are reviewed and analysed according to the requirements. Non‐linear travel time models are shown to have some deficiencies that make them unsuitable for the analysis of time‐varying transportation networks. Even though linear‐type travel time models are identified as good candidates for the analysis of dynamic transportation networks, they have limitations from the practical point of view that travel time increases only linearly with the amount of traffic on the link. This poses a dilemma and it seems to be one whose resolution is an imminent precondition for DTA modelling to progress in a way that is both theoretically coherent and plausible in practical terms.     

Short‐term prediction of traffic parameters—performance comparison of a data‐driven and less‐data‐required approaches

The travel decisions made by road users are more affected by the traffic conditions when they travel than the current conditions. Thus, accurate prediction of traffic parameters for giving reliable information about the future state of traffic conditions is very important. Mainly, this is an essential component of many advanced traveller information systems coming under the intelligent transportation systems umbrella. In India, the automated traffic data collection is in the beginning stage, with many of the cities still struggling with database generation and processing, and hence, a less‐data‐demanding approach will be attractive for such applications, if it is not going to reduce the prediction accuracy to a great extent. The present study explores this area and tries to answer this question using automated data collected from field. A data‐driven technique, namely, artificial neural networks (ANN), which is shown to be a good tool for prediction problems, is taken as an example for data‐driven approach. Grey model, GM(1,1), which is also reported as a good prediction tool, is selected as the less‐data‐demanding approach. Volume, classified volume, average speed and classified speed at a particular location were selected for the prediction. The results showed comparable performance by both the methods. However, ANN required around seven times data compared with GM for comparable performance. Thus, considering the comparatively lesser input requirement of GM, it can be considered over ANN in situations where the historic database is limited. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Site selection for EVCS in Istanbul by GIS and multi-criteria decision-making

Considering the depletion of fossil fuels and the environmental impact of transport, reducing the use of such fuels is a globally accepted priority. Thus, when moving towards alternative energy types, the first will undoubtedly be electrical energy. In order to accelerate and contribute to this process, electric vehicles (EV) must be preferred over conventional motor vehicles. However, there are various problems associated with the use of EVs, such as range and recharge status. Optimal planning of electric vehicle charging stations (EVCS) is a solution to these problems. For this purpose, parameters affecting EVCS locations have been determined in the paper. Considering these parameters and the current EVCS locations, the most suitable alternative EVCS locations were identified using Geographical Information Systems (GIS). Both the current and alternative EVCS locations were evaluated by Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), Preference Ranking Organization Method for Enrichment of Evaluations (PROMETHEE), and VlseKriterijuska Optimizacija I Komoromisno Resenje (VIKOR) from multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods. The results show that, in Istanbul, the southeast of the European side and the southwest of the Anatolian side were most suitable for EVCS.     

The viability of pure vegetable oil as an alternative fuel for large ships

Heavy fuels are likely to remain the dominant fuel source for two-stroke, low-speed diesel engines for large ship propulsion for the next decade or more. There is however, potential for increased use of pure vegetable oils (PVO) as an alternative and, by emitting lower levels of several pollutants, this can help the attainment of Annex VI of the MARPOL 73/78 convention aimed at large ships using fuels with less than 4.5% sulphur or 1.5% sulphur in SO_X emission control areas The use of alternative fuels can also influence the attainment of the Kyoto protocol that requires greenhouse gas emissions to be reduced by 5% by 2010 compared to 1990. This paper analyses the physical and chemical properties of various pure vegetable oils as an alternative to heavy fuel oil for large ship propulsion.     

Distributed algorithm for empty vehicles management in personal rapid transit (PRT) network

In this paper, an original heuristic algorithm of empty vehicles management in personal rapid transit network is presented. The algorithm is used for the delivery of empty vehicles for waiting passengers, for balancing the distribution of empty vehicles within the network, and for providing an empty space for vehicles approaching a station. Each of these tasks involves a decision on the trip that has to be done by a selected empty vehicle from its actual location to some determined destination. The decisions are based on a multi‐parameter function involving a set of factors and thresholds. An important feature of the algorithm is that it does not use any central database of passenger input (demand) and locations of free vehicles. Instead, it is based on the local exchange of data between stations: on their states and on the vehicles they expect. Therefore, it seems well‐tailored for a distributed implementation. The algorithm is uniform, meaning that the same basic procedure is used for multiple tasks using a task‐specific set of parameters. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.