Making do: The effects of a mass transit strike on travel behavior

A brief transit strike in early December 1976 disrupted bus services to the city of Pittsburgh and surrounding Allegheny County. That strike provided an opportunity for testing a variety of approaches to increase ride-sharing and to reduce traffic congestion, and for examining the effect of the strike on traffic congestion and on individual travel behavior. Even though over 60% of the commuters to the CBD use transit, the effects of the strike were relatively mild. There was some increase in traffic flow into the CBD and some spreading of the peak period. The largest proportion of the transit commuters who made trips to the CBD during the strike were dropped off by a non-commuter, increasing highway traffic. The most severe impact was felt by those transit commuters who had no cars in the household; 25% of these commuters (only 3% of the total CBD commuters) stayed home from work on the first day of the strike. Most attempts to mitigate the impact of the strike had little effect, largely because most commuters were able to manage adequately during the short strike. The anticipated parking problem, on which much of the contingency planning was focused, did not emerge, largely because of the use of carpooling and drop-off mode by many of the transit users.     

Regulatory reform and freight mode choice

Reform of trucking Vehicle Weights and Dimensions (VWD) regulations in Canada is now underway. The effect these reforms will have on the freight transportation industry are only recently the subject of research. This paper is part of this new research effort, aimed at understanding how regulatory reform in the trucking sector will affect the existing competitive relationship between trucks and the railways. The paper presents the results of study and research into modelling the relationship between mode choice and the service characteristics that are affected by VWD reform.Using several periods of data, a series of econometric models are developed which help to elucidate the relative relationships between the mode service characteristics for both of the principal interprovincial freight modes. A technique is developed and presented to model railway user costs in order to overcome the complex and often unrepresentable pricing activities of Canadian railways.The strength of the developed econometric models is presented, including their significance and statistical reliability. This is further reinforced by the similarities exhibited by all the models in the series. The selected model is applied to predict market service responses required of the railway industry in order to compete with the trucking sector now adapting to the new regulations.The impact of the newly implemented vehicle weight and dimension reform on the rail transportation industry is analyzed and railway industry improvements aimed at maintaining its market share are presented. The results predicted by the model show that railway user cost reductions should be moderate, and likely less than the level of inflation over the period of time when trucking converts its fleet to take advantage of the new regulations.Abbreviations AASHTO American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials - CCMTA Canadian Conference of Motor Transport Administrators - EPI End products, inedible commodity classification - GVW Gross Vehicle Weight - NA 1988 VWD National Agreement - RTAC Roads and Transportation Association of Canada - VWD Vehicle Weight(s) and Dimension(s) - WA 1988 VWD Western Agreement     

Modeling intrametropolitan industrial location realistically

This paper compares intrametropolitan industrial location models to the process of intrametropolitan industrial location as described in the real estate and urban economic literature. It identifies seven areas where industrial location models are at odds with reality, and suggests ways to make them realistic. Specifically, it makes a case for microanalytic/stochastic/recursive/dynamic/economic industrial location models. It goes on to describe an operational model that is realistic in most respects.     

一种最佳的汽车混合动力总成

介绍了对混合动力总成进行优化的建模及仿真工具《汽车快速性能优化及报告工具包—汽车系统模块(RAPTOR^TM—VSM)软件包》，指出了优化混合动力总成需在混合动力发动机、电动机、电池、超级电容器、动力总成配置和自动／手动变速器(AMT)控制器等方面做的工作。     

压实质量的动态控制

探讨了压路机在压实施工中，压实质量的动态控制问题。结合课题实践，构思出了压实质量动态适时控制系统的工作框图。     

汽车车身复杂钣金件的拓扑优化设计

利用有限元方法，结合零件的造型、约束、受力和模态等特点，对汽车车身复杂钣金件进行了拓扑分析和设计。利用激光模态分析仪对实物进行了模态测量，分析结果和测量结果基本一致。从而验证了拓扑优化方法可以用于复杂钣金件的设计，并可以获得最佳的结构和力学特性。     

柴油-酒精混合燃料发动机的性能研究

在分析柴油—酒精混合燃料物理化学特性的基础上，研究了不同混合比例的柴油—酒精混合燃料发动机的性能。研究表明：柴油醇燃料发动机的有效燃油消耗率较柴油机的升高，而有效能耗率有一定程度的降低；发动机的碳烟排放明显降低，在保持同样排温的前提下，其功率有一定程度的升高，尾气排放明显降低；柴油机使用混合燃料后，滞燃期延长，燃烧持续期缩短。在采用推迟供油的条件下，柴油—酒精混合燃料发动机的尾气排放性能可以得到较大幅度的提高。     

微型电动轿车车身骨架结构分析

利用ANSYS软件对某进口微型电动轿车车身骨架进行了强度、刚度和模态计算：分析了电动轿车车身骨架的结构特点和电瓶盒等钣金件的影响，提出了独立悬架边界条件的模拟方法。