Young drivers and graduated licensing: The Ontario case

Despite improvements in road safety over the past several decades, accident rates remain high for young drivers. One accident countermeasure that is expected to improve the safety record of this group is graduated licensing. The philosophy behind this licensing system is that novice drivers, of whom the majority are young, should be restricted to relatively safe driving environments during the initial learning period. Graduated licensing was implemented in the Province of Ontario, Canada in 1994. The objective of this study is to estimate the potential benefits and costs for young drivers associated with two components of the Ontario graduated licensing package: the late-night driving curfew and the high-speed roadway restrictions. Based on accident and travel data for the year 1988, accident-involvement rates per kilometre driven were calculated for different driver groups for various combinations of time of day and roadway speed limit. These rates were then applied to the expected mobility profiles of young drivers affected by graduated licensing. The results of the study support the late-night curfew and suggest that this component of the licensing package should reduce total accident involvements for the affected group by up to 10 percent and fatal accident involvements by up to 24 percent, while reducing their total driving by only four percent. By contrast, the empirical evidence suggest that the high-speed roadway restrictions are likely to increase accident involvements, and thus it is strongly recommended that this component of Ontario's graduated licensing package be changed.     

Economic Outcomes for Harvesters under the West Coast Groundfish Trawl Catch Share Program: Have Goals and Objectives Been Met?

Abstract

The West Coast Groundfish Trawl Catch Share Program was designed to achieve multiple economic goals and objectives, including increasing net benefits, profitability, flexibility, and utilization of harvest allocations. In this article, we leverage seven years of comprehensive cost and earnings data to evaluate progress towards these goals with a focus on harvesters. Our assessment shows that five years post-implementation, net benefits to the nation have doubled, and indicators of productivity and profitability have increased. The fleet that targets Pacific whiting has seen the largest gains, due in part to increases in total allowable catch and the elimination of the race-to-fish. However, increased revenues have not been realized to the degree that was expected for harvesters targeting non-whiting groundfish, partly due to lower than predicted consolidation and relatively low quota utilization. Economic outcomes indicate that tradeoffs exist between certain objectives of the program, specifically between achieving full utilization and flexibility for harvesters. Results are discussed in the context of the design and evaluation of catch share programs for diverse, multispecies fisheries.     

Effectiveness of travel time reliability indicators in the light of the assessment of dynamic managed lane strategy

ABSTRACT

The aim of traffic management is to ensure a high quality of service for a maximum number of users by decreasing congestion and increasing safety. Uncertainty of travel times decreases the quality of service and leads end users to modify their plans regardless of the average travel time. Indicators describing travel time reliability are being developed and should be used in the future both for the optimization and for the assessment of active traffic management operations. This article discusses the efficiency of certain reliability indicators in an ex-post assessment of a traffic management strategy. Ex-post assessment is based on an observational before–after study. As some factors other than the studied management strategy may intervene between the two periods, and as most reliability indicators require knowledge of the full travel time distribution and not only its average, a methodology is developed for the identification of the impact of these exogenous factors on the whole distribution. Many reliability indicators are split into different parts allowing the identification of the part due to the management strategy impact. The methodology is tested numerically on a managed lane operation consisting of Hard Shoulder Running (HSR) at rush hour on a section of a French motorway. The variation of some reliability indicators appears misleading, whereas the splitting of the indicators increases our understanding of the strategy and highlights its impact. The paper gives the reliability assessment of the HSR field test and discusses different reliability indicators to identify their potential performances and shortcomings.     

On the use of mathematical programming in the evaluation of transport policies

This paper focuses on the evaluation processes by which decisions regarding transportation alternatives can be assisted. A multidimensional approach usually called multiple criteria decision making is required to represent the complexity of transportation policy and systems.

The multiple criteria decision making techniques can be divided into two groups. The first is based on a ranking scheme approach and the second on a mathematical programming approach.

A multiple objective mathematical programming procedure known as Goal Programming is presented. The authors examined the use of that procedure in real transportation problems.

The results suggest that multiple objective mathematical programming techniques in general do not appear to be appropriate in transportation policy analysis involving mutually exclusive alternatives. Their use can be limited to special cases in the private sector.     

A time‐staged multi‐objective network‐design model

A multi‐objective, time‐staged network‐design problem is formulated. Through transformation, the problem is decomposed into a set of single‐period, single‐objective problems. Lexicographic ordering is instrumental in effecting this transformation; it also allows a backward‐recursion algorithm to be applied using strong pruning criteria. Furthermore, monotonicity properties enable us to solve the problem using the familiar tree‐search algorithms. The solution method has several desirable properties — as shown by an example and a case study of Tripoli Province, Libya. First, the algorithm ensures continuity of project implementation over the multi time‐periods and provides optimality in later computational stages irrespective of the decision at an interim stage. Second, the algorithm tends to provide accessibility to unconnected regions in the study area at low user‐cost without employing weights to the two objective functions of accessibility and user‐cost efficiency. Such a property is deemed advantageous for suggesting transportation investments based purely on purchasing the greatest benefit for each dollar, with political neutrality strictly maintained.     

An algorithm for finding reasonable paths in transit networks

In this paper, reasonable paths in transit networks are defined as possible paths that satisfy the acceptable time criterion and transfer‐walk criterion. A recursive algorithm for finding all of the reasonable paths in a transit network that does not involve a rapid increase in program run‐time with network size is presented. Realistic transit networks in Hong Kong and Guangzhou were selected as case studies of the different phases of the development of a trip planning system. Transport planning practitioners and potential users were invited to test the system to evaluate its performance. The results of the prototype evaluation were satisfactory, and the viability of the system as a useful tool for supporting decision‐making has been confirmed by the positive feedback that was obtained from survey questionnaires.     

Tractor-semitrailer model for vehicles carrying liquids

This article presents a model for solving solid-fluid interactions in vehicles carrying liquids. A tractor-semitrailer model is developed by incorporating suspension systems and tire dynamics. Owing to the solid-fluid interaction, equations of motion for the vehicle system are coupled. To simplify the complicated solution procedure, the coupled equations are solved separately using two different codes. Each code is analyzed separately; but as the parameters of the two codes depend on each other, the codes must be connected at the end of each time step. To determine the dynamic behavior of the system, different braking moments are applied. As the braking moments increase, braking time decreases. However, it turns out that increasing the braking moment to more than a certain level produces no significant results. It is also shown that vehicles carrying fluids need a greater amount of braking moments in comparison to vehicles carrying solids during braking. In addition, as the level of the fluid inside the tanker increases, from one-third to two-third of the tanker's volume, the sloshing forces applied to the tanker's walls increase. It was also concluded that the strategy used in this article to solve for the solid-fluid interaction by incorporating vehicle dynamic effects represents an effective method for determining the dynamic behavior of vehicles carrying fluids in other critical maneuvers.     

Value of travel time: An activity‐based analysis with combined RP and SP data

Under certain assumptions, values of travel time (VOT) can be divided into two parts: one associated with travel (i.e., the value of reducing travel time disutility) and the other associated with activities (the shadow price of time). The empirical results of combining RP and SP data showed that the VOT of travel was greater than that of activity. The results also showed that SP experiments that did not take or only took part of activities into consideration would underestimate VOT.     

Automation of paratransit reservation,routing, and scheduling

Santa Clara County, California experienced a sharp growth in demand‐responsive paratransit ridership for individuals with disabilities, as a result of the passage of the 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA). This paper describes an automated paratransit system for the ADA‐type paratransit operation implemented in Santa Clara County. It automated paratransit reservation, scheduling, and routing functions. The key components of this system were a digital geographic database (DGD) and an automated trip scheduling system (ATSS). Empirical evidence after one year of operation indicates numerous benefits of this automation. There were significant reductions in the paratransit operating costs and an increase in the percent shared rides. The savings in operating costs far exceeded the annualized capital cost of automation. A user survey indicates that these improvements were achieved without degradation to service quality such as vehicle on‐time performance, invehicle travel times, vehicle response to open return, and ride comfort.     

The planning of aircraft routes and flight frequencies in an airline network operations

This research is aimed at developing a model that maximizes system profit when determining the aircraft routes and flight frequencies in a network. The model employs network flow techniques to effectively collect or deliver passenger flows from all origins to all destinations using non‐stop and multi‐stop flights in multi‐fleet operations. The model was formulated as a multi‐commodity network flow problem. A Lagrangian‐based algorithm was developed to solve the problem. To test the model in practice, a case study is presented.