Safety culture on board six Swedish passenger ships

This paper presents the results of a Swedish study on maritime safety culture. The study aims to increase knowledge about the characteristics of safety culture in the maritime setting and about the relationship between safety culture and organizational climate. Such knowledge can be vital in the process of developing and improving safety culture. The paper reports the results of safety culture assessments on board six Swedish passenger ships in international traffic, using observations, questionnaires, and interviews focussing on 508 employees who completed the questionnaires. The results of the assessments revealed a generally good existing safety culture. Differences in individuals' safety culture perceptions were found between ships, vessel type (high-speed craft versus Ropax), and hierarchical working position. Important relationships between organizational climate and safety culture were also found. A comparison with other transport sectors where the same safety culture assessment had been applied yielded that passenger shipping has an average safety culture score level that falls between air traffic control and airport ground handling. The method of assessment, which can be used by shipping companies and vessel crews, identified specific areas of concern in the safety culture that could support continuous improvements of safety and safety culture.     

Critical success conditions of collaborative methods: a comparative evaluation of transport planning projects

This paper explores critical success conditions of collaborative planning projects in the area of urban transport, evaluating the impact of new collaborative methods, instruments and processes on project performance. Hypothesis building is based on a comparative, empirical research design, rather than on deductive theory construction. Potential critical success conditions are derived from literature. Based on five urban transport planning projects in Gothenburg (Sweden), London (United Kingdom), Milwaukee (United States), Tokyo (Japan) and Mexico City (Mexico), a rough set analysis of the five cases reveals validated success conditions, which can be used for formulating hypotheses for further research or for policy and process improvement. The results suggest that a dedicated management of the multi-actor network, a high diversity of actors, as well as an extensive use of knowledge integration methods in combination with a high network density are critical success conditions of these planning processes. Surprisingly, the extensive use of unilateral methods also showed to be an important success condition. The traditional role of the planner will have to be complemented with the expertise of network and methodology management. The authors conclude that rough set analysis can be a valuable addition to narrative, single-case analysis of collaborative urban transport planning processes.     

The bicycle-train travellers in the Netherlands: personal profiles and travel choices

Transportation - The Netherlands seems to exhibit the unique conditions that allow cycling on the country level instead of only the city level. Moreover, the national transit system seemingly...     

Safety culture on board six Swedish passenger ships

This paper presents the results of a Swedish study on maritime safety culture. The study aims to increase knowledge about the characteristics of safety culture in the maritime setting and about the relationship between safety culture and organizational climate. Such knowledge can be vital in the process of developing and improving safety culture. The paper reports the results of safety culture assessments on board six Swedish passenger ships in international traffic, using observations, questionnaires, and interviews focussing on 508 employees who completed the questionnaires. The results of the assessments revealed a generally good existing safety culture. Differences in individuals' safety culture perceptions were found between ships, vessel type (high-speed craft versus Ropax), and hierarchical working position. Important relationships between organizational climate and safety culture were also found. A comparison with other transport sectors where the same safety culture assessment had been applied yielded that passenger shipping has an average safety culture score level that falls between air traffic control and airport ground handling. The method of assessment, which can be used by shipping companies and vessel crews, identified specific areas of concern in the safety culture that could support continuous improvements of safety and safety culture.     

Analytical dynamic tire model

Modeling of tire friction is one of the central problems for vehicle control systems design. LuGre-type dynamic tire model has been proposed and well discussed in previous studies, because it offers a compact form of dynamic model that is convenient in advanced control studies. It has been successfully used in tire slip control design and vehicle state estimation problems. In this article, a concept of time-constrained Stribeck effect is introduced to interpret the mechanism of the LuGre friction model in predicting tire friction characteristics. A modified two-dimensional (2D) dynamic LuGre friction model is introduced to make it compatible with the governing theorem in the steady state. An analytical 2D modified LuGre-type dynamic tire model is developed, in which some fundamental limitations of classical LuGre models are eliminated. The main modifications involve a change in the structure of the 2D LuGre friction model, introduction of load-dependent parameters in 1D and 2D tire models, and a changed structure in the distributed parameter model. The proposed model is compared, in the steady state, to both the Magic Formula and the classical LuGre model. It improves model accuracy in the steady state and gives a physically reasonable distribution of the bristle deflection. A first-order lumped parameter (LP) nonlinear model, which has simpler structure than the distributed parameter model and the classical LP LuGre model, is then derived. Numerical simulations show that the proposed LP model has a good estimation for tire transient dynamics. Thus, the proposed model retains the merits of LuGre-type models and improves the agreement with observation and experimental data on friction force distribution along the patch and on the steady-state friction prediction.