Analysis of factors that may be essential in the decision to fly on fully autonomous passenger airliners

This research investigates factors that influence opinion in the decision to fly on fully autonomous passenger airliners primarily from the perspective of aviation and technology professionals. Bayesian statistical inference and a two‐level fractional factorial survey are used to sample passengers' views on fully autonomous airliners. Eight trust, safety, and cost factors are incorporated into a vignette set in the future. Factors include automation levels, safety records, liability guarantees, airline integrity, and service disruptions. Dependent variables exist in five post‐vignette questions and essentially ask “Would you” or “Would you not” be willing to fly on a fully autonomous airliner? Sixteen versions of the vignette, each with unique trust, safety, and cost levels, present varying (unknown) degrees of influence to the survey respondents. For every demographic, the research shows a 99% statistically significant difference between the “prior” and “posterior” sampled population proportions willing to fly. The most significant positive influence involves integrity characteristics of the airline, while the most negative influence relates to life insurance liability guarantees. Research from 2003 suggested that this mode of travel would be acceptable to only 10.5% of respondents. When the 2003 research is used as a Bayesian prior probability, the resulting posterior probability for the demographics sampled can be modeled as a beta distribution, indicating 95% probability that the sampled proportion of the population willing to fly is between 33.2% and 36.4%. After adjusting for age and profession demographics to match the US population, the 95% probability bounds on the proportion willing to fly are 31.35% and 34.15%. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Urban walkability considering pedestrians’ perceptions of the built environment: a 10-year review and a case study in a medium-sized city in Latin America

ABSTRACT

Numerous methodologies measuring walkability have been developed over the last years. This paper reviews the Walkability Index (WI) literature of the last decade (2009–2018) and highlights some limitations in the current approaches. Only a few studies have evaluated walkability in Latin America, mainly in big cities but not in medium and small-sized cities in the region, which present their own urbanisation dynamics, security issues, sidewalk invasion problems, and poor planning. Furthermore, most WIs in the literature use objective mesoscale variables to assess walkability in a given area. This paper contributes to filling these gaps by generating new evidence from a medium-sized city in Latin America to question if characteristics of the built environment encourage walking trips, as found in the literature, are transferable among regions. The study also proposes a novel index comprised of microscale and mesoscale built environment variables to assess walkability using virtual tools and considering users’ perceptions. The WI estimation relies on ranking probability models. The results of the case study suggest that subjective Security and Traffic Safety are the most crucial factors influencing walkability in these kind of cities, which is different from what is found in the literature from cities in developed countries where Sidewalk Condition and Attractiveness are the most important factors. Security appeared to be strongly associated with a subjective dimension, represented by the fear of crime or perceived risk for crime, instead of the actual occurrence of crimes. This result evidences the importance of the physical attributes of the real world and how they are captured, judged, and processed by pedestrians. Then, regional transferability of WIs needs to be done carefully. Finally, results in this paper highlight the importance of microscale built environment characteristics in the WI formulation in these cities. Results are in line with other research in some cities of the region, which found that microscale variables such as pavement quality and presence of obstacles on the sidewalks are relevant components to promote walkability.     

航母飞行作业空间安全布局研究

研究针对航空母舰飞行作业空间安全问题而开展。研究首先根据作业特点划分航母作业区域，针对飞行作业分析构成空间危害因素的来源，提出一套度量危险因素的空间关联安全水平指标，以便对危险因素的空间关系进行量化；然后在此基础上，对2套不同起飞作业布局进行安全评价；最后，并围绕航母飞行甲板作业空间安全的典型问题进行分析和讨论。     

长江航道大型整治工程施工安全控制关键技术

长江航道大型整治工程施工河段长、工程量大且工序多,施工水域船舶通航密度大、船舶种类多,施工安全生产控制与河段通航安全面临巨大挑战。依托长江干线下、中、上游典型大型航道整治工程,围绕工程施工全过程风险管控及安全保障技术,采用理论分析、仿真模拟、现场试验、系统研发相结合的方法,提出了长江航道大型整治工程风险识别与评估方法,构建了通航安全与施工生产安全风险预测模型,研究了长江航道大型整治工程全方位、全过程、全要素施工安全保障与控制技术,并基于AIS和云技术开发了长江航道整治工程施工区安全综合信息平台,为保障大型航道整治工程生产及通航安全提供了理论依据和技术手段。     

Theory of safety surrogates using vehicle trajectories in macroscopic and microscopic settings: Application to dynamic message signs controlled traffic at work zones

This paper presents a new mathematical framework for obtaining quantitative safety measure using macroscopic as well as microscopic traffic data. The safety surrogate obtained from the macroscopic data is in terms of analysis performed on vehicle trajectories obtained from the macroscopic data. This method of obtaining safety measure can be used for many different types of applications. The safety surrogate for the traffic dynamics are developed in terms of a new concept of Negative Speed Differentials (NSD) that involve a convolution of vehicle speed function obtained from vehicle trajectories and then performing the integration of the square of the output for its negative values. The framework is applicable to microscopic traffic dynamics as well where we can use car following models for microscopic dynamics or the LWR model for macroscopic dynamics. This paper then presents the use of this new safety surrogate on the development of a feedback control law for controlling traffic in work zones using Dynamic Message Signs. A hybrid dynamics model is used to represent the switching dynamics due to changing DMS messages. A feedback control design for choosing those messages is presented as well as a simple simulation example to show its application.     

Studies on emergency evacuation management for maritime transportation

Marine transportation is a vital component of the world’s economy and transportation network. The number of people using passenger ships around the globe is increasing worldwide. Similar to other transportation systems, passenger safety is critical in maritime shipment. As emergency evacuation processes for ships are highly different from and more complicated than those for buildings and other vehicles, many researchers have published a vast range of documents related to this peculiar research area. However, there is a tangible lack of sufficient literature review studies that investigate marine emergency evacuation (MEE). That being the case, the potential of marine transportation and the effect of emergency evacuation operation on life safety have inspired the proposal of this study. This paper offers a review of the available literature on MEE modelling, analysis and planning during the period from 1973 to 2017 using a systematic approach. After reviewing relevant academic journals, peer-reviewed conference papers, and technical reports of agencies, relevant literature is analysed. In addition, the literature review is extended by means of proposing a framework methodology which considers different possible conditions and situations during MEE. Finally, insights for ship managers and policymakers are discussed and potential future research directions are identified.     

Historic vehicles: an overview from a transport policy perspective

Historic vehicles (HVs) are the heritage of road transport that have surprisingly received little attention in the academic literature. This study presents an overview of the literature on HVs, focusing on the three topics that dominate the policy debate on transport: environmental, safety and congestion impacts. We observed that polluting emissions of HVs are per kilometre much higher (often a factor 5 or more) than those of moderns vehicles. The annual average mileage per vehicle per year of HVs is much lower than other vehicles. The lower active and passive safety levels of HVs are compensated by the way these vehicles are driven, resulting in the risk factors per kilometre being roughly equal or lower than other vehicles. The contribution of HVs to congestion is negligible. However, the transport policy discourse is divided on the topic of HVs. More comprehensive and effective laws and regulation are needed to protect this aspect of the heritage of road transport whilst concurrently avoiding or limiting the problems caused by them.     

高桩码头施工对内河航道通航安全的影响

针对高桩码头施工对内河航道通航安全的影响问题,以江苏响水高桩码头工程为依托,结合工程所在水域的通航情况,分析探讨高桩码头在挖泥、打桩、预制构件吊装施工期间相应施工船舶占用水域情况。根据内河航道的船舶流量分析,提出相应的航道通航安全保证措施,确保内河航道在高桩码头施工期间航道的通畅与通航安全。     

福州轨道交通建设安全管控平台的设计与应用

福州城市轨道交通建设规模不断增大，复杂的地质、环境条件以及众多工种施工的交叉作业和人员活动，给安全生产带来挑战。针对建设全过程安全管控的具体业务关系和需求分析，梳理和固化工作岗位、职责、流程、响应、整改等安全管理的事项和要求，强化对管控过程的追溯和考核管理。研究信息平台的业务需求、平台架构、网络拓扑、功能模块、数据库设计方法和实现思路，利用Ssm框架、Quartz框架、Encache技术以及SQLServer数据库技术，设计开发基于B/S模式的城市轨道交通安全管控信息系统，应用于在建的5条线路。信息平台的应用，可实现安全管理的标准化、科学化和精细化，极大地提高管理水平和工作效率。     

Delivering improved alerts,warnings, and control assistance using basic safety messages transmitted between connected vehicles

When vehicles share their status information with other vehicles or the infrastructure, driving actions can be planned better, hazards can be identified sooner, and safer responses to hazards are possible. The Safety Pilot Model Deployment (SPMD) is underway in Ann Arbor, Michigan; the purpose is to demonstrate connected technologies in a real-world environment. The core data transmitted through Vehicle-to-Vehicle and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (or V2V and V2I) applications are called Basic Safety Messages (BSMs), which are transmitted typically at a frequency of 10 Hz. BSMs describe a vehicle’s position (latitude, longitude, and elevation) and motion (heading, speed, and acceleration). This study proposes a data analytic methodology to extract critical information from raw BSM data available from SPMD. A total of 968,522 records of basic safety messages, gathered from 155 trips made by 49 vehicles, was analyzed. The information extracted from BSM data captured extreme driving events such as hard accelerations and braking. This information can be provided to drivers, giving them instantaneous feedback about dangers in surrounding roadway environments; it can also provide control assistance. While extracting critical information from BSMs, this study offers a fundamental understanding of instantaneous driving decisions. Longitudinal and lateral accelerations included in BSMs were specifically investigated. Varying distributions of instantaneous longitudinal and lateral accelerations are quantified. Based on the distributions, the study created a framework for generating alerts/warnings, and control assistance from extreme events, transmittable through V2V and V2I applications. Models were estimated to untangle the correlates of extreme events. The implications of the findings and applications to connected vehicles are discussed in this paper.