The Polish maritime sector under transition

This paper provides an analysis of the changes that have taken place in the Polish maritime sector between the demise of the Socialist state in 1989 and the current situation when the transformation process has had 10 years to develop. Examples are taken from the ports and shipping sectors and the conclusions provide an assessment of the structural implications of the transformation period for the overall maritime industry.     

Noise,vibration, harshness model of a rotating tyre

ABSTRACT

The tyre plays a fundamental role in the generation of acoustically perceptible driving noise and vibrations inside the vehicle. An essential part of these vibrations is induced by the road excitation and transferred via the tyre into the vehicle. There are two basic ways to study noise, vibration, harshness (NVH) behaviour: Simulations in time and frequency domains. Modelling the tyre transfer behaviour in frequency domain requires special attention to the rotation of the tyre. This paper shows the approach taken by the authors to include the transfer behaviour in the frequency range up to 250?Hz from geometric road excitations to resulting spindle forces in frequency domain. This paper validates the derived NVH tyre model by comparison with appropriate transient simulations of the base transient model.     

Efficiency of routing and scheduling system for small and medium size enterprises utilizing vehicle location data

The routing and scheduling for trucks and vans in an urban road network depends critically on the state of the road network. Trucks and vans impose significant costs on other road users and the environment, so improved routing and scheduling benefits more than just the logistics industry. However, small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) in the logistics business cannot justify investment in planning systems. In this paper, an autonomous routing and scheduling system which is available to SMEs is proposed and the efficiency of the system is investigated. The proposed system accumulates vehicle location data in a central server and uses it to generate traffic information. Test simulations using a grid network demonstrate the effects of utilizing and sharing vehicle location data on delivery efficiency. The simulation results show that the improvement of delivery efficiency is mainly due to the reduction of penalty cost for early and late arrival at the customer location. It is also shown that the system leads to the buffer effect from variations in traffic conditions on delivery cost and this effect is enhanced by taking travel time uncertainty into consideration. It is further shown that the presence of measurement periods with insufficient data results in unreliable routing and scheduling. For a reliable system, data collection over a wider area is required rather than dense data in a subset of links.     

提高文化用纸中填料含量的新技术

一种新技术，该技术依靠一种独特的方法实现填料预絮凝，可使造纸厂在不影响质量的前提下提高填料含量     

Getting by with a little help from my friends…and family: immigrants and carpooling

While much of the scholarly literature on immigrants’ travel focuses on transit use, the newest arrivals to the United States make over twelve times as many trips by carpool as by transit. Using the 2001 National Household Travel Survey and multinomial logit mode choice models, we examine the determinants of carpooling. In particular, we focus on the likelihood of carpooling among immigrants—carpooling both within and across households. After controlling for relevant determinants of carpooling, we find that immigrants are far more likely to form household carpools than native-born adults and also are more likely than the native-born to form external carpools (outside the household). Moreover, when faced with the options of carpooling and public transit, immigrants—even recent arrivals—appear to prefer carpools over transit more strongly than the native born.     

Designing a route planner to facilitate and promote cycling in Metro Vancouver,Canada

With increasing fuel costs, greater awareness of greenhouse gas emissions and increasing obesity levels, cycling is promoted as a health promoting and sustainable transport mode. We developed a cycling route planner (http://cyclevancouver.ubc.ca) for Metro Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, to facilitate cycling amongst the general public and to facilitate new route location by transportation planners. The geographical information system-based planner incorporates variables that influence choices to travel by bicycle (e.g., distance, elevation gain, safety, route features, air pollution and links to transit) in selecting the preferred routing. Using a familiar and user-friendly Google Maps interface, the planner allows individuals to seek optimized cycling routes throughout the region based on their own preferences. In addition to the incorporation of multiple user preferences in route selection, the planner is unique amongst cycling route planners in its use of topology to minimize data storage redundancy, its reliance on node/vertex index tables to increase efficiency of the route selection process, and the use of web services and asynchronous technologies for quick data delivery. Use of this tool can help promote bicycle travel as a form of active transportation and help lower greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO₂) and air pollutant emissions by reducing car trips.     

Decision support for simulating the car park activity in an urban area

Complexity of car park activity is reproduced from a concurrent execution of behaviour of various drivers. This paper presents a step in the development of a multimodal traffic simulator based on multi‐agent paradigm and designed as a decision aid tool as well as a video game. The user‐player has the opportunity to test different scenarios. We propose an approach for designing the decision‐making rules and the learning mechanism for a car driver agent. For that, a panel of methods such as stated preference modelling, Design Of Experiments and data fusion is used. Initial behavioural models, based on similar preferences, are developed for specified categories. Each agent will adapt its behaviour after executing its learning process. Our approach can be used in order to optimize needs of road network users and those of people in charge of traffic regulation. A demonstrator has been developed to test parking policies in an urban area as well as changes of car park characteristics.     

A review of Australian traffic system design models

The demands for traffic infrastructure are increasing. Yet over the last decade investment in new infrastructure has decreased at all levels. Traffic systems designers are, therefore, being asked to be more accurate in their prediction of the impacts of changes, to analyse ever more complex situations and to extract more from the existing traffic system. This paper reviews developments in techniques for analysing the impacts of changes in the traffic system. It looks at intersection, route, network, parking lot and public transport design models that have been developed in Australia. Particular emphasis is given to the considerable developments in microcomputers and graphics and the impact these are having on the models. Future developments are also discussed.     

The unmet travel needs of the older population: a review of the literature

Unmet travel needs can be defined as trips and activities that people need or would like to do more, but for a variety of reasons they are prevented from doing so. This paper provides a critical evaluation of the literature focused on unmet travel needs, with the aim of assessing the scope of existing studies on this topic and better understanding the full context of older people’s mobility. This narrative review identifies how travel needs in later life have been assessed, and the barriers that affect the ability of older people to fulfil these needs. Due to the heterogeneity of older people and differences in research approaches, the analysis of the literature is not conclusive in terms of identifying the real impact of the analysed variables and measures on unrealised mobility. Nevertheless, of the studies analysed, on average at least one-third of older people report unmet travel needs. This situation was found to worsen with age, and women were reported to be more affected than men. The pursuit of leisure, and in particular visiting friends and family, was found to be the activity most associated with unmet travel needs.