Analyse de la prise en compte de la sécurité routière dans les plans de déplacements urbains

At the time when Urban Travel Plans (utps) are being introduced it is important to see how they take safety into account, certu's analysis of a dozen recent docuements shows the position occupied by road safety in utps, reveals the stated aims of the utps, identifies local actions aimed at improving road safety and highlights current or foresedable problems in the implementation of utps. The analysis shows that the way safety is taken into account varies considerably from one city to another. The desire to introduce measures to improve safety is usually present, but there is uncertainty as to how to tackle the issue. The examples of methods and actions that are given in this paper may provide some ideas which merit further examination for utps in the future. It is already obvious that utps will be responsible for profound changes in urban travel and its safety, and the results obtained over the next five years will doubtless have important consequences for the cities of tomorrow.     

La surestimation de la distance intervéhiculaire dans le brouillard

The difficulties of driving in fog are usually perceived in terms of lower sight distances and reduced ability to anticipate. However, the fall in the quality of visual information can also lead to errors in judgement by affecting the way drivers perceive their environment and their movement within it. We have conducted a series of experiments in a fog chamber and on a driving simulator, with the main aim of investigating the influence of fog on vehicle headway perception. Our results have revealed that distances are seriously overestimated in fog, and that this is likely to contribute to lower headways under such conditions, In fog an overestimation of headway between 20 and 55% was observed when vehicles were visible only as a result of their rear lights, which is the case in night-time or thick daytime fog. Under these conditions, the characteristics of vehicle lights become extremely important. Overestimation of distance becomes greater when vehicles have only one rear light instead of two, and when their two reac lights are close together. Perception of vehicle distance is therefore improved by two rear lights, placed as far apart as possible to indicate the dimensions of the vehicle. No significant overestimation of headways was found during thin or moderate daytime fog, when the vehicle outline remained visible. The results have shown the importance of the familiar size of vehicles as an indicator of distance in the situations we have investigated. They confirm the hypothesis that basic mechanisms of space perception are modified in fog.     

Utilisation de l'intelligence artificielle distribuée pour la simulation microscopique d'un carrefour

This paper describes an original reasoning mechanism based on the principles of Distributed Artificial Intelligence (PAI). The purpose of this research was to construct a microscopic simulator of the road traffic near an intersection. In this model vehicles are considered as agents whose knowledge base is constructed dynamically before each decision is taken. Knowledge is represented using the production rules formalism. Each element in the environment has conduct rules which are transmitted to all the vehicles which enter its sphere of action. The knowledge base of a vehicle is therefore the result of a concatenation and hierarchization of conduct rules for solely those elements which can influence its bejaviour. A masking procedure is used to implement the priorities which are defined by the scheduling of knowledge and allow the vehicle to have reflex responses. Although we have used just a few easily implemented conduct rules the first results from the simulator have achieved a good standard of realism. This research programme has created an interface which can be used to implement rules and configure and control the simulator.     

Évaluation des logiciels critiques: application à la méthode B

From the point of view of safety the bottleneck in the operation of computerized systems currently appears to be the software. In order to improve the safety of software an independent assessment of its quality has been advocated for several years. The assessment of safety critical software consists of a technical examination on the basis of a set of criteria by a body which is independent from the designer. These assessment criteria are derived from the standards which are in force, the state of the art and experience. The objective of an assessments to verify that the product meets the specified safety and functionality requirements. In this paper the authors describe a combined approach to the assessment of safety critical software. On the one hand, the process used in order to develop the software is examined, and on the other the quality of the end product (software) is checked. The first part of the paper will present the position of safety critical software in the context of railway standardization as well as the main assessment techniques with particular reference to that used at Inrets. The second part of the paper will deal with the contribution of formal methods such as the B method to the development of safety critical software. The software assessment aspect will pay particular attention to assessment of the product — analysis of the traceability of requirements, integration and validation of safety properties. The paper ends with a brief account of the extraction and interpretation of metrics for a formal development. Finally the criteria used to assess the process are rapidly described. This approach has been used in the framework of an Esprit project known as Cascade (Certification and Assessment of Safety Critical Application Development).     

Les logiciels d'enquête transport comme instruments incontournables de la planification analytique

This paper describes various transportation survey software programs that have been developed to assist travel data collection in the Greater Montreal Area. The functions of the software and the assistance provided to analytical planning and the technical community are first addressed. A brief chronological account of transportation surveys held in the Montreal region is then presented. Changes in the planning framework are then examined by considering the software tools it uses. Finally, the generic and specific functionalities of the transportation survey software (intelligent questioner for telephone interviewing interactive graphic tool for data capture and validation, structured display tools for data quality control) are illustrated with reference to surveys conducted by major transport players in the Greater Montreal Area.     

L'influence de la biactivité sur les stratégies spatiales des ménages

A survey conducted among staff at the University of Paris xii Val-de-Marne has shown that there are considerable differences in residential location and commuting strategies between those in one income households and those in two income households. This difference varies depending on social group. In the case of higher social groups, being in a two income household as opposed to a one income household increases the range of residential possibilities rather than the household's income per consumer unit, and in particular allows them to live nearer their work. In contrast, for low income groups, working couples commute considerably greater distances than persons in one income households. Thus, for lower income groups, belonging to a working couple mainly provides greater opportunities for home ownership, as an increase in distances to work does not affect journey times.     

Mesure automatique de variables de trafic par traitement d'images application à la régulation en milieu urbain

Inductive loops are widely used for urban traffic control purposes. However, the data they provide cover too small an area to provide an accurate picture of traffic conditions at an intersection. As a result there is increasing interest in image processing techniques as these can provide more varied and more accurate data about the scene whatever the prevalling traffic, environmental and lighting conditions. This paper describes the queue length and occupancy measurement system which we have developed. We begin by outlining the constraints which are imposed by the market and the system's environment. The architecture of the system and the algorithm it uses has been specified with reference to these constraints. An account is then give of the experiments we have conducted in order to evaluate the performance of the system and an analysis of the results is presented.     

Âge des conducteurs de voiture et accidents de la route: Quel risque pour les seniors ?

Increasing life expectancy and the fact that the baby boomer generation is reaching retirement age are increasing the size of the elderly population. As road users, seniors have quite specific travel behaviours, and this has an impact on accidents. This paper adopts a quantitative approach with a view to showing the specific characteristics of elderly drivers as regards travel, accidents and road risk. Towards this end it surveys a number of previous studies and takes advantage of recent data to update some of the findings of these contain. Some road risk indicators are described, and attention is paid to the methodological bias inherent in the methods employed. Our analysis shows that the presence of seniors on the roads is growing as the proportion, particularly of the women, in this group who are accustomed to driving increases. They nevertheless cover fewer kilometres than other drivers and develop compensatory strategies, for example not driving when conditions are difficult or driving more slowly than other drivers. When they have accidents they tend to be more severe because of their greater vulnerability. They have higher crash involvement at intersections as a result of detection and estimation difficulties in the driving task. The excess crash risk per kilometre driven for seniors that was observed a few years ago is tending to fall, or even disappear, if the low mileage bias is taken into account.     

Quelles interactions entre les marchés de la mobilité à courte et à longue distance ?

This paper proposes a comprehensive quantitative approach to travel analysis that considers personal travel practices with regard to three travel market segments: local weekday travel, local weekend travel and long-distance travel. The first section consists of an evaluation of the overall size of these segments and demonstrates the increasing importance of long-distance travel. Each market segment and then travel as a whole are then analyzed according to individuals’ position in the life cycle, residential location and income level. Last, the roles of location and income in the creation of travel demand in the different segments are then investigated for individuals in the middle part of the life cycle. In particular, it is demonstrated that weekend and weekday travel do not compensate for one another, but there are significant interactions between both local and long-distance travel, and, in particular, residential location.     

Évaluation des potentiels de réduction des trafics automobiles dans le cas de la zone dense francilienne

The Pari 21 research project does not attempt to justify a move towards a radically different system—practically everything there is to say about the benefits and disadvantages of cars in cities has already been said. Instead, the project will perform simulations and assess, from the point of view of individuals, the feasibility of a transport system that is based mainly On the use of modes Other than the private car in the densely populated zone Of the Greater Paris Area (Paris city plus the inner suburbs). By constructing and evaluating transport policy scenarios, this research also aims to measure the potential for reducing car use in highly urbanized zones, particularly that which results from the reduction in journey speeds which are a likely consequence of the policies in question The method is based on repeated iterations of a simulation model which combines the assignment of round trips to modes other than the automobile with reformulations of transport supply. Demand is channelled towards personal modes (walking, cycling), public transport and a combination of personal and public modes. These iterations are based on the 1991-1992 Paris Region comprehensive travel survey which recorded all the round trips by car made in a typical day by the individuals living in the zone (i.e. the sequence of all trips made between each time the individual leaves home and returns home).