(Unintended) Transport impacts of an energy-environment policy: The case of CNG conversion of vehicles in Dhaka

Motor vehicles are one of the major sources of air pollution in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. The government took various policies to convert the petroleum vehicles on road to run on compressed natural gas (CNG), which allows both air quality improvements and energy security benefits. One of the market friendly policies to encourage the fuel switch was to increase the price differential between CNG and petrol and diesel. This has allowed a wide-scale adoption of CNG as the fuel of choice. However, several years into the policy, there is now a widespread belief among the policymakers that the CNG conversion may have increased car ownership and car travel due to their lower running costs, resulting in more congestion and a reversal of the strategy is on the cards. It is therefore important to test the hypothesis whether CNG conversion had genuinely increased car ownership and car travel in Dhaka city. This paper presents the results of a questionnaire survey and an econometric intervention analysis to understand the impact of CNG conversion on car ownership and car travel in Dhaka. Attention is also given to disentangle the self-selection and price-induced travel effects of CNG conversion. Results show that ownership did not increase, but travel of on-road vehicles increased due to the CNG policy. However, additional congestion costs are still around one half of the health benefits brought about by the policy.     

An analysis of trends in passenger and freight transport energy consumption in India

This primary objective of this paper is to examine the causes for the change in energy consumption in the transport sector in India. The pattern of energy consumption and their causes for change are benchmarked against select countries. A mathematical model that decomposes changes in energy consumption to various factors has been used. The changes in the energy consumption are attributed to growth in transport volume, structural change or modal shift, and energy intensity. The analysis is conducted for passenger and freight transport separately. Results indicate that the growth in transport volume has been the main cause for increase in energy consumption for both passenger and freight transport in India despite the decline in energy intensity of various transport modes. Though not surprising for a growing economy like India, this poses a challenge for the future. Currently, India is a low carbon economy.     

The Bid-rent Land Use Model of the simple,efficient, elegant,and effective model of land use and transportation

Integrated land use/transportation forecasting models add significant policy and infrastructure alternatives analysis capabilities to the urban planning process. The financial, time, and staff requirements to develop these models has put them beyond the reach of most small to medium sized urban areas. This paper presents the land use allocation submodel of the Simple, Efficient, Elegant, and Effective model of land use and transportation (SE³M), an integrated land use and transportation forecasting model founded upon Economic Base Theory and Bid-rent Theory. The Bid-rent Land Use Model (BLUM) is an agent based, spatial competition model utilizing unique utility curves for willingness to pay and incomes for budget constrained abilities to pay for each agent. The model structure, estimation, calibration, implementation, and validation are presented. With a single year of land use data available, the validation approach used the Kappa Index of Agreement to spatially check model outputs against base year control data while controlling for agreement by chance. The U.S. territory of Guam is used as the case study/proof of concept implementation for this model framework. Once calibrated, BLUM could solve the spatial competition problem on Guam in less than two minutes of processing time with over 90% accuracy.     

Privacy protection method for fine-grained urban traffic modeling using mobile sensors

With the ubiquitous nature of mobile sensing technologies, privacy issues are becoming increasingly important, and need to be carefully addressed. Data needs for transportation modeling and privacy protection should be deliberately balanced for different applications. This paper focuses on developing privacy mechanisms that would simultaneously satisfy privacy protection and data needs for fine-grained urban traffic modeling applications using mobile sensors. To accomplish this, a virtual trip lines (VTLs) zone-based system and related filtering approaches are developed. Traffic-knowledge-based adversary models are proposed and tested to evaluate the effectiveness of such a privacy protection system by making privacy attacks. The results show that in addition to ensuring an acceptable level of privacy, the released datasets from the privacy-enhancing system can also be applied to urban traffic modeling with satisfactory results. Albeit application-specific, such a “Privacy-by-Design” approach would hopefully shed some light on other transportation applications using mobile sensors.     

Asymmetric response model for evaluating airline service quality: An empirical study in cross-strait direct flights

In this paper we propose a framework to investigate service quality asymmetrically. An asymmetric response model within structural equation framework is developed to study the relationship between service quality and the passenger’s behavioral intention in the cross-strait direct flight (Taiwan–Shanghai). The results reveal that service quality in the loss region has more impact on behavioral intention than service quality in the gain region. Hence, attention should be paid to the service quality of important attributes in the loss region and strategies should ensure service quality of those important attributes that meet passenger’s expectations.     

装载机连杆机构优化设计

结合传统设计方法和现代优化方法有效地解决了原设计中装载机不能满足平移性和自动放平性的问题;在用作图法确定铰接点大致位置的基础上,建立了连杆机构参数化模型,并对模型进行了优化研究。结果表明:新机构能满足平移性和自动放平性要求。该方法对类似的机构优化问题有一定的参考价值。     

单桩荷载传递法修正计算分析

基于层状地基采用双曲线模型为荷载传递函数,提出了用Mindlin解和桩土共同作用的联合方法对荷载传递法的进行修正,并计算分析了单桩承载特性。将Lee的方法与双曲线荷载传递函数相结合使得Lee方法中考虑土体横向连续性的优点得以发挥。将横向连续性与竖向连续性修正相结合得到修正荷载传递法,用编制的计算机程序进行了工程实例的计算,结果表明,计算结果与实测值较为接近,其土层的平均SPT值较小,土体较容易产生变形,当试验荷载较高时,可能造成桩周土与桩身之间的滑移。修正荷载传递法与未修正和仅进行竖向修正的荷载传递法相比具有一定的精确性,能更好地反映单桩承载特性,且适用于群桩的分析计算。     

基于浑沌神经网络的动态交通量预测方法研究

介绍了目前国内外道路交通量预测的方法、特点及实际的预测效果.由于城市道路交通的复杂性,使得一些现有交通量预测方法的预测精度不高.针对这些问题,应用混沌神经网络,建立了城市道路交叉口出口交通量的浑沌神经网络预测模型,并与传统的BP神经网络预测结果对比,表明此模型具有较好的预测效果.     

基于ADVISOR的电动汽车动力性能仿真分析

在某微型燃油汽车底盘基础上,设计以铅酸蓄电池组和无刷直流电动机驱动的电动汽车动力系统。利用ADVISOR仿真软件,建立蓄电池、电动机及驱动系统和整车仿真模型。经过对该车整车动力性能仿真分析,表明该车动力系统设计方案是实用、可行的。     

污水管网系统节点流量模拟计算

污水管网系统节点流量模拟计算是城市污水管网系统规划设计和运行管理的基础性工作。该文从污水管网系统规划设计和运行管理两个方面阐述了污水管网系统节点流量模拟计算的内涵,并对该领域的未来发展作了展望。