Habitual travel behaviour: Evidence from a six-week travel diary

This paper introduces different methods to measure similarity of travel behaviour addressing the question of how repetitious travel behaviour actually is. It compares empirical results of the different methods based on the data from a six-week travel diary. In general, the results show that the day-to-day behaviour is more variable if measured with trip-based methods instead of methods based on time budgets. Furthermore, it is confirmed that the similarity declines if the method captures more of the complexity of the travel pattern. It is also shown that travel behaviour is neither totally repetitious nor totally variable. Even for the whole observation period, it is demonstrated that two days always have some common elements. Additionally, it is found that the different methods yield the same pattern of variability for different types of day. Travel behaviour is clearly more stable on work days. Similar results for all methods are also obtained concerning the question of how long the minimum period of observation should be. All measures show that the period should not be less than two weeks if one aims at measuring variability.     

模糊逻辑推理在消除交通流诱导负效应中的应用

针对交通流诱导可能产生的负效应问题,提出了诱导负效应消除的原理和模糊逻辑推理方法。在原理设计中,考虑了出行者的出行行为对网络交通流分配的影响;在实现方法上,应用模糊推理技术对分流交通量进行了预测,并设计了路线交叉口信号灯配时方案调整的模糊控制算法,模拟结果验证了模糊逻辑推理技术的有效性。研究表明:交通流诱导负效应的产生主要是由于信息条件下的道路出行者路线选择行为的不确定性引起的,而且交通流诱导与控制同时进行是消除交通流诱导负效应产生的关键。     

Is the intention to use public transport for different travel purposes determined by different factors?

The objective of this study was to examine the psychological predictors of the intention to use public transport for three travel purposes: work or study, shopping, and leisure. An expanded version of the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) which contains overall image and past behaviour is used. Data were gathered through the survey of 392 residents living in the central parts of Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. These data were analysed using the partial least squares technique. The results indicate that attitude and perceived behavioural control are significant predictors of the intention to use public transportation for various purposes. Further, they explain between 34.6% and 49.8% of the intention variance. By adding the overall image and past behaviour to the original predictors in the TPB, the explained variance, with regard to work or study, shopping, and leisure purposes, increased by 5.6%, 5.1%, and 6.8%, respectively.     

An ontology-based framework to support performance monitoring in public transport systems

Managers of public transport systems have been facing for years the strategic challenge of maintaining high quality of transport services to improve the mobility of citizens, while reducing costs and ensuring safety and low environmental impact. A well-established way to evaluate the performance achieved by the system or by specific activities is to monitor Key Performance Indicators (KPI). However, existing management systems, which refer to flexible yet large and complex data models, provide a limited support to define and select relevant KPIs for the objectives at hand, and even the identification of whether and how the data model is capable to achieve a certain informative need is a critical and time-consuming task. This work is aimed to propose a framework to ease the development of a monitoring system in the public transport domain. The approach is based on the ontological representation of all the knowledge regarding indicators and their formulas, business objectives, dimension analysis and their relation with the Transmodel, the European reference data model for public transport information systems. On its top, a reasoning framework provides logic functionalities to interactively support designers in a set of common design tasks: the choice of the most suitable indicators for the performance monitoring needs at hand, the definition of new indicators and the identification of the minimal set of Transmodel modules needed to calculate them. A case study is included to discuss these applications, while an evaluation shows the feasibility of the approach.     

Insights into vehicle trajectories at the handling limits: analysing open data from race car drivers

Race car drivers can offer insights into vehicle control during extreme manoeuvres; however, little data from race teams is publicly available for analysis. The Revs Program at Stanford has built a collection of vehicle dynamics data acquired from vintage race cars during live racing events with the intent of making this database publicly available for future analysis. This paper discusses the data acquisition, post-processing, and storage methods used to generate the database. An analysis of available data quantifies the repeatability of professional race car driver performance by examining the statistical dispersion of their driven paths. Certain map features, such as sections with high path curvature, consistently corresponded to local minima in path dispersion, quantifying the qualitative concept that drivers anchor their racing lines at specific locations around the track. A case study explores how two professional drivers employ distinct driving styles to achieve similar lap times, supporting the idea that driving at the limits allows a family of solutions in terms of paths and speed that can be adapted based on specific spatial, temporal, or other constraints and objectives.     

User perspectives in public transport timetable optimisation

The present paper deals with timetable optimisation from the perspective of minimising the waiting time experienced by passengers when transferring either to or from a bus. Due to its inherent complexity, this bi-level minimisation problem is extremely difficult to solve mathematically, since timetable optimisation is a non-linear non-convex mixed integer problem, with passenger flows defined by the route choice model, whereas the route choice model is a non-linear non-continuous mapping of the timetable. Therefore, a heuristic solution approach is developed in this paper, based on the idea of varying and optimising the offset of the bus lines. Varying the offset for a bus line impacts the waiting time passengers experience at any transfer stop on the bus line.In the bi-level timetable optimisation problem, the lower level is a transit assignment calculation yielding passengers’ route choice. This is used as weight when minimising waiting time by applying a Tabu Search algorithm to adapt the offset values for bus lines. The updated timetable then serves as input in the following transit assignment calculation. The process continues until convergence.The heuristic solution approach was applied on the large-scale public transport network in Denmark. The timetable optimisation approach yielded a yearly reduction in weighted waiting time equivalent to approximately 45 million Danish kroner (9 million USD).     

Using SenseCam to pursue “ground truth” for global positioning system travel surveys

Global Positioning System (GPS) surveys have been conducted for the past decade. Although GPS records were initially regarded as providing “ground truth” of travel, it has been found subsequently that they have some errors. SenseCam, a small passive digital camera, provides a chance to pursue ground truth by capturing images every 20 s on average. This paper discusses how SenseCam could help GPS data collection and shows potential benefits for both SenseCam and GPS research. This paper also investigates the performance of GPS devices in detail in terms of recording data by comparisons between GPS results and SenseCam images. The specific issue of missing GPS data is discussed and examined in this paper.     

Should we abandon activity type analysis? Redefining activities by their salient attributes

This paper poses a challenge and begins a search. The challenge is to reconsider the usefulness of traditional activity types (“work”, “shopping”, etc.) in the understanding and modelling of travel behaviour. The search is for the more salient attributes of activities that may serve to better explain complex travel behaviours—such as activity scheduling and tour formation. In particular, this paper focuses on explicit measures of the spatial, temporal and interpersonal flexibility of activities, along with several traditional attributes (frequency, duration, involved persons, travel time, and location). Data from a recent in-depth week-long activity scheduling survey was used to define and compare these attributes. Results show that considerable variability in the attributes between and within traditional activity groups is evident. This casts considerable uncertainty on assumptions that statically assign levels of spatial, temporal, and interpersonal flexibility to any given activity type. A Principal Components Analysis further revealed eight new distinct clusters of activities that share like attributes. The relative role of each attribute in each component is examined, and subjective interpretations emerged (e.g., “Long and frequent”, “Space and time flexible” “Social networking”). The implications of these results for future model development and research are discussed. Future research should continue to expand the search for salient attributes and link them more directly to decision processes.     

湿式离合器出油口甩出油温度预测方法

为了实现对湿式离合器出油口甩出油温度传感器的冗余校验和自我诊断，提出了一种基于粒计算约简的离合器出油口甩出油温度的模糊预测方法。首先分析出油口甩出油温度的影响因素，将主要影响因素作为预测输入量，并采用模糊推理理论预测当前离合器出油口甩出油温度。在设计模糊预测方法的过程中，通过分析实车数据得到车辆行驶时离合器处于高滑摩功率过程和低滑摩功率过程的不同特性，分别确定相对应的隶属度函数和模糊预测规则，从而进一步提高出油口甩出油温的预测精度。为了提高模糊预测算法的实时性，基于模糊预测规则创建模糊决策表，模糊输入量和模糊输出量分别作为决策表的条件属性集与决策属性集。利用粒计算理论对模糊决策表的条件属性集进行属性约简，通过削减冗余信息有效降低模糊输入量和模糊预测规则的个数。最后利用实车采集的数据对比分析约简前后模糊预测算法的单步运行时间和预测误差等性能指标。试验结果表明：基于粒计算约简的模糊预测算法能够有效保障预测精度，同时拥有更少的模糊预测规则数和模糊输入量，有效解决了模糊预测算法占用资源较多以及实用性较差的问题。