Modelling journey‐to‐work fuel consumption: a case study of Bayridge subdivision

Fuel consumption is calculated using a modelling procedure for automobiles travelling on three alternative street patterns designed for a subdivision in Kingston Township, Ontario. The modelling procedure is described. The results indicate that grid and solar superblock street patterns, compared to the existing street pattern, offer small fuel savings to a tripmaker in the portion of the work trip travelled in the subdivision.     

The EEZ and the progress of fisheries negotiations January to May 1977

This paper discusses negotiations, relative to sea fisheries, in terms of international arrangements—arrangements between the European Economic Community (EEC) and Third Countries; and those between member states of the EEC.     

Improving the efficiency of demand-responsive paratransit services

State agencies responsible for ADA-eligible paratransit services are increasingly under pressure to contain costs and maximize service quality. Many do not operate vehicles themselves; instead, they contract out the provision of services. Contractors are paid for each hour of service. They are responsible for hiring crew, forming routes, dispatching, and operating and maintaining agency-owned vehicles. In the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Metro Mobility, the agency responsible for providing paratransit services, requires contractors to use agency-approved software for booking trips dynamically and sets parameters that guide contractors’ practices. Customer trips booked in this fashion may not utilize capacity in the most efficient manner. Therefore, beginning with the daily trip schedules generated by the software, this paper proposes two approaches for improving the efficiency of paratransit operations and estimates the benefit of using these approaches via experiments that utilize Metro Mobility data. The first approach re-optimizes routes developed at the end of each day. The second approach evaluates the benefit to state agencies of selectively using non-dedicated service providers such as taxis. Both approaches are tested on actual data obtained from Metro Mobility. The study shows that a conservative estimate of savings from re-optimization would be approximately 5% of Metro Mobility’s operating costs. Savings from the use of taxis are smaller and in the range of hundreds of dollars per day.     

Estimation of the effects of aircraft noise on residential satisfaction

This study assesses the effects of aircraft noise on residential satisfaction, an important indicator of subjective well-being. A structural equation model is specified that estimates the relationships between objective variables, noise annoyance variables and residential satisfaction. Secondary data-analysis is used to estimate the model. The survey was conducted in 1996/1997 among the population living within a 25-km radius of Amsterdam Schiphol, the largest airport in the Netherlands. The effect of aircraft noise annoyance is found to be relatively small. In addition, the objective level of aircraft noise exposure is found to be a better predictor of residential satisfaction than its subjective counterpart. The most important determinants of residential satisfaction are found to be road traffic noise annoyance, age and neighbor noise annoyance.     

Review of flywheel based internal combustion engine hybrid vehicles

Hybrid vehicles of different configurations and utilizing different energy storage systems have existed in development for many decades and more recently in limited production. They can be grouped as parallel, series or complex hybrids. Another classification is micro, mild and full hybrids which makes the distinction on the basis of functionality. The common energy storage systems in hybrid vehicles are batteries, supercapacitors and high speed flywheels. This paper aims to review a specific type of hybrid vehicle which involves the internal combustion engine (ICE) as the prime mover and the high speed flywheel as an energy storage device. Such hybrids are now attracting considerable interest given their potential for low cost. It is hence timely to produce a review of research and development in this subject. The flywheel is coupled to the drive line with a continuous variable transmission (CVT). The CVT can be of various types such as electrical, hydraulic or mechanical but usually in this case it is a non-electrical one. Different configurations are possible and the paper provides a timeline of the development of such powertrains with various examples. These types of hybrid vehicles have existed as prototypes for many decades and the authors believe that their development has reached levels where they can be considered serious contenders for production vehicles.     

Location of bus garages

The location of bus garages is a complex issue that has received recent attention in the literature. Given a bus system, the number of bus garages and their locations depend on garage cost, deadheading cost and environmental impacts. An approximate analytical model is used to determine the number of bus garages that minimizes the above costs. The concept of a slowly varying density of bus-route origins (hence deadheads) per unit area is used to model deadheading costs. The increased deadheading caused by breakdowns and accidents is also considered. The garage cost is modeled as a function of the number of buses stored. A closed-form solution is obtained for the optimal density of garages, when the garage cost function is linear. The actual locations of garages and the allocations of buses to the garages are found using a discrete space location-allocation model formulated so as to consider the environmental impact associated with buses deadheading through populated neighborhoods.