Prediction of travel time variability for cost-benefit analysis

Unreliable travel times cause substantial costs to travelers. Nevertheless, they are often not taken into account in cost-benefit analyses (CBA), or only in very rough ways. This paper aims at providing simple rules to predict variability, based on travel time data from Dutch highways. Two different concepts of travel time variability are used, which differ in their assumptions on information availability to drivers. The first measure is based on the assumption that, for a given road link and given time of day, the expected travel time is constant across all working days (rough information: RI). In the second case, expected travel times are assumed to reflect day-specific factors such as weather conditions or weekdays (fine information: FI). For both definitions of variability, we find that the mean travel time is a good predictor. On average, longer delays are associated with higher variability. However, the derivative of variability with respect to delays is decreasing in delays. It can be shown that this result relates to differences in the relative shares of observed traffic ‘regimes’ (free-flow, congested, hyper-congested) in the mean delay. For most CBAs, no information on the relative shares of the traffic regimes is available. A non-linear model based on mean travel times can then be used as an approximation.     

Dynamic demand estimation and prediction for traffic urban networks adopting new data sources

Nowadays, new mobility information can be derived from advanced traffic surveillance systems that collect updated traffic measurements, both in fixed locations and over specific corridors or paths. Such recent technological developments point to challenging and promising opportunities that academics and practitioners have only partially explored so far.The paper looks at some of these opportunities within the Dynamic Demand Estimation problem (DDEP). At first, data heterogeneity, accounting for different sets of data providing a wide spatial coverage, has been investigated for the benefit of off-line demand estimation. In an attempt to mimic the current urban networks monitoring, examples of complex real case applications are being reported where route travel times and route choice probabilities from probe vehicles are exploited together with common link traffic measurements.Subsequently, on-line detection of non-recurrent conditions is being recorded, adopting a sequential approach based on an extension of the Kalman Filter theory called Local Ensemble Transformed Kalman Filter (LETKF).Both the off-line and the on-line investigations adopt a simulation approach capable of capturing the highly nonlinear dependence between the travel demand and the traffic measurements through the use of dynamic traffic assignment models. Consequently, the possibility of using collected traffic information is enhanced, thus overcoming most of the limitations of current DDEP approaches found in the literature.     

深海海山周围航船噪声建模与特性研究

本文以抛物方程模型为基础,结合声场的互易性,提出一种深海低频航船噪声建模方法,该方法将声源与接收点位置互换,大大降低了声场计算的运行次数和运行时间,基于该方法对深海海山周围的航船噪声进行计算和分析.研究结果表明:海山对声传播损失的影响取决于接收阵元与海山的位置关系以及海山的几何参数.由于海山的遮挡作用,海山附近航船噪声的水平指向性具有不均匀性,在有海山遮挡的方向噪声级明显低于无海山遮挡的方向,海山附近航船噪声的垂直指向性会出现多个峰值.此外,单个尖峰海山的遮挡对接收阵元处的航船噪声总级影响较小.     

Interactive travel choices and traffic forecast in a doubly dynamical system with user inertia and information provision

This study models the joint evolution (over calendar time) of travelers’ departure time and mode choices, and the resulting traffic dynamics in a bi-modal transportation system. Specifically, we consider that, when adjusting their departure time and mode choices, travelers can learn from their past travel experiences as well as the traffic forecasts offered by the smart transport information provider/agency. At the same time, the transport agency can learn from historical data in updating traffic forecast from day to day. In other words, this study explicitly models and analyzes the dynamic interactions between transport users and traffic information provider. Besides, the impact of user inertia is taken into account in modeling the traffic dynamics. When exploring the convergence of the proposed model to the dynamic bi-modal commuting equilibrium, we find that appropriate traffic forecast can help the system converge to the user equilibrium. It is also found that user inertia might slow down the convergence speed of the day-to-day evolution model. Extensive sensitivity analysis is conducted to account for the impacts of inaccurate parameters adopted by the transport agency.     

基于最优回归理论的舰船辐射噪声指向性统计模型及分析方法研究

文章在已有单航次的舰船噪声空间特性建模分析方法等研究成果的基础上,进一步研究了若干航次条件下的统计建模及分析方法。该研究主要以单一部位垂向剖面的噪声指向性为例,建立了基于最优回归理论的舰船目标辐射噪声特性的统计模型及分析方法,并开展了海上实测研究,验证了该模型及分析方法的正确性和可行性。该项成果为深入分析不同航行工况下各类舰船目标的噪声空间特性及其统计规律等创造了条件。     

Traffic noise abatement: How different pavements, vehicle speeds and traffic densities affect annoyance levels

In this paper, annoyance ratings from traffic noise recorded on cobblestones, dense asphalt, and open asphalt rubber pavements are assessed with regard to car speeds and traffic densities. It was found that cobblestones pavements are the most annoying; also while open asphalt rubber pavement imposes less annoyance than dense asphalt it is not significantly different. Higher car speeds always lead to greater annoyance, as does higher traffic densities. LAeq and LAmax correlate well with annoyance, but loudness is the best predictor. Roughness and sharpness exhibit inconsistent interactions.     

A traffic-condition-based route guidance strategy for a single destination road network

Most of existing route guidance strategies achieves user optimal equilibrium by comparing travel time. Measuring travel time, however, might be uneasy on an urban road network. To contend with the issue, the paper mainly considers easily obtained inflow and outflow of a link and road capacity as input, and proposes a route guidance strategy for a single destination road network based on the determination of free-flow or congested conditions on alternative routes. An extended strategy for a complex network and a feedback approximation for avoiding forecast are further explored. Weaknesses of the strategy are also explicitly analyzed. To test the strategy, simulation investigations are conducted on two networks with multiple parallel routes. The results indicate that the strategy is able to provide stable splitting rates and to approximate user optimal equilibrium in different conditions, in particular when traffic demand is high. This strategy has potential to be applied in an urban road network due to its simplicity and easily obtained input data. The strategy is also applicable for single destination if some alternatives and similar routes are available.     

Cost scaling based successive approximation algorithm for the traffic assignment problem

This paper presents a cost scaling based successive approximation algorithm, called ε-BA (ε-optimal bush algorithm), to solve the user equilibrium traffic assignment problem by successively refining ε-optimal flows. As ε reduces to zero, the user equilibrium solution is reached. The proposed method is a variant of bush-based algorithms, and also a variant of the min-mean cycle algorithm to solve the min-cost flow by successive approximation. In ε-BA, the restricted master problem, implying traffic equilibration restricted on a bush, is solved to ε-optimality by cost scaling before bush reconstruction. We show that ε-BA can reduce the number of flow operations substantially in contrast to Dial’s Algorithm B, as the former operates flows on a set of deliberately selected cycles whose mean values are sufficiently small. Further, the bushes can be constructed effectively even if the restricted master problem is not solved to a high level of convergence, by leveraging the ε-optimality condition. As a result, the algorithm can solve a highly precise solution with faster convergence on large-scale networks compared to our implementation of Dial’s Algorithm B.     

基于灰色残差GM（1，1）模型的道路交通量预测的研究

道路交通体系是一个多因素、多层次、多目标的复杂系统。其中交通量信息系统具有明显的层次复杂性,结构关系的模糊性,动态变化的随机性,指标数据的不完全和不确定性。由于技术方法、人为因素、自然环境变化的影响,造成各种数据误差、短缺甚至虚假现象,系统的作用机制不明确,系统的状态、结构、边界关系难以精确描述,属于典型的灰色系统。在作量化、模型化、实体化研究时,能作为反映系统主要动态特征的数据是很少的。由于环境对系统的干扰,系统信息中原始数据序列往往呈现离乱情况,离乱数列即为灰色数列或称灰色过程,灰色理论利用那些较少的或不确切的表示系统行为特征的原始数据序列作生成变换后建立微分方程,对灰色过程建立的模型称为灰色模型（Greymodel）,简称GM模型。本文从理论上介绍了GM（1,1）模型和灰色残差GM（1,1）模型建立的一般过程,然后将其应用于交通量预测的实际例子中。预测结果表明,该方法是可行的。     

关于高速公路交通安全设施的设置

交通安全设施对减轻事故的严重度,排除各种纵、横向干扰,提高道路服务水平,提供视线诱导,增强道路景观等起着重要的作用,属于道路的基础设施.