Chemical characteristics of the surface soil,herbaceous cover and organic layer of a compacted skid road in a fir (Abies bornmulleriana Mattf.) forest

This study looks at the impacts of timber skidding in a pure fir plantation forest. It compares properties of herbaceous cover, organic layer and surface soil on the skid road and on adjacent undisturbed area. N, P, K, Ca, Mg, Na, Fe, Zn, Mn and Cu are quantified and the mass of herbaceous cover and organic layer, and sand, silt, clay rates, bulk density, compaction and pH of soils were assessed. Both the herbaceous cover and organic layer mass on the skid road were significantly lower than the undisturbed area. The soil of the skid road also had higher bulk density and compaction, and lower organic carbon rates producing much denser and compacted soils. Only P concentration in herbaceous cover samples from skid road was significantly higher, while Ca and Mg contents were considerably lower than undisturbed area. There were no significantly differences in N, K, Na, Fe, Zn, Cu and Mn concentrations of herbaceous cover. Compared to the undisturbed area, the organic layer of the skid road had particularly low K, Na, Fe, Zn, Cu and Mn contents. At 0–5 cm soil depth, P and Fe contents were significantly lower than for undisturbed area but there were no major differences at depth of 5–10 cm.     

“以树养路”举措在百色农村公路的实践

经费短缺一直是农村公路养护中的“瓶颈”难题,文章介绍百色农村公路通过建立以树养路的管养模式,利用公路边坡有效的坡面面积,种植速生桉等经济林木,破解农村公路养护经费短缺的难题,实现了“有路必养”的目标。     

A line-based skid mark segmentation system using image-processing methods

We developed a line-based skid mark segmentation and measurement system to solve issues related to randomness from pavement texture and measurement subjectivity at car accident scenes. The system was designed to operate along the longer straight lines that exist in boundaries between skid marks and pavement at the scene of an accident. The operational system consists of two processes: preprocessing and feature extraction. Preprocessing steps include skid mark positioning, slope angle detection, and segmentation, whereas feature extraction involves detecting light striations, striation segmentation, and calculating the widths of striations from images. Experimental validation and objective measurements illustrate that this system saves operation time and cost while performing with accuracy similar to that of manual methods.     

沥青路面抗滑性能影响因素识别研究进展

沥青路面作为公路建设的重要内容,其抗滑性能是道路安全问题的核心,探究其影响因素可以为提高路面抗滑性能提供依据。国内外学者对此做了大量研究,也取得了相应的进展。本文对国内外的研究成果进行了系统的归纳总结,将公路沥青路面抗滑性能影响因素分为了沥青混合料的材料特性、环境因素、车辆特性3个主要方面,其中在沥青混合料的材料特性方面,研究认为集料的结构特性与混合料配合比对抗滑性的影响较大;环境因素方面,研究认为温度对于抗滑性的影响较大;车辆特性对抗滑性的影响方面,研究认为主要体现在轮胎特性与荷载方面。此外随着行车速度的增加,路面的抗滑性能呈现降低趋势。     

Wooded area,forest road-killed animals: Intensity and seasonal differences of road mortality on a small,newly upgraded road in western Romania

The roads are one of the most obvious expressions of modern society, being considered vital for economical growth. Nevertheless, roads have a very strong negative impact upon environment, manifested, among others, by road mortality. In Romania numerous minor roads are currently upgraded and asphalted. In the year 2016, on a road of this kind, in a wooded mountain area, we recorded 1628 road killed animals belonging to 48 taxons. The majority were forest and wet areas animals (earthworms, snails, amphibians, etc), characteristic for the road’s vicinity. Flying or dry areas animals were fewer. The road crosses the forest and the wet areas animals’ habitats. Now, they are certain victims on the road, because its recent upgrade had increased the cars’ speed. Road mortality differed between periods and according to the road surroundings aspect. The highest road mortality intensity was registered at the end of the spring. It has dropped in the summer and then rose again in the autumn, but just moderately. The animals were affected according to their life cycle and ecological demands. On this minor road surrounded by relatively uniform wooded habitats, the road mortality differences were determined in the first place by the demandings and life cycle of the victims, which were affected by meteorological conditions. This studied road is a proof of how forest native animals are exposed once their habitat is crossed by a road.     

沥青混凝土路面防水剂路用性能试验研究

目前,沥青混凝土路面在我国高速公路建设中得到了广泛的推广和应用,而水损害是沥青混凝土路面早期破坏的主要原因之一。文章通过对沥青混凝土路面防水剂防水性能进行对比试验,表明沥青混凝土防水剂可以有效的封堵沥青混凝土内部孔隙,防止水分进入混凝土内部,可以起到防水路面水损害的作用,同时指出沥青混凝土防水剂对路面抗滑性能存在负面影响等应注意的问题。     

提高靖安高速公路绿化树木成活率的对策

在寒冷、干旱、少雨的陕北榆林黄土丘陵沟壑及粱塬、沙漠地区,如何确保公路绿化树木成活率,成为公路绿化工程中的一项重大课题。文章以靖安高速公路榆林绿化树木为依托,通过对绿化树木成活率的调查,分析影响成活率的原因,对提高绿化树木成活率实施提供了相关对策。     

Commercializing management and financing of roads in developing and transition countries

The road sector reforms undertaken by a growing number of developing and transition countries during the past 10-20 years are described. The problems these countries share with industrialized countries and the additional factors that also affect them--large backlogs of deferred maintenance, an acute shortage of funds and dysfunctional road agencies--are also described. The paper then describes how these countries have restructured road management by separating planning and management of roads from implementation of works, provided road agencies with more autonomy, created more effective oversight, introduced annual performance agreements and turned the road agency into a more commercial organization paying market-based wages. In relation to road financing, road tolls and toll roads are touched on briefly before the new style road funds that have recently been set up in these countries are detailed. The paper then describes how they were established and their basic operating modalities--revenues only from charges related to road use (with one notable exception), no abstraction of revenues from other sectors, proactive management and oversight provided by a board of directors that includes members nominated by road users and the business community.     

Analysis of Metropolitan Highway Capacity and the growth in vehicle miles of travel

A number of recent studies have examined the hypothesis of induced travel in an attempt to quantify the phenomenon (Hansen & Huang 1997; Noland, forthcoming). No study has yet attempted to adjust for potential simultaneity bias in the results. This study addresses this issue by the use of an instrumental variable (two stage least squares) approach. Metropolitan level data compiled by the Texas Transportation Institute for their annual congestion report is used in the analysis and urbanized land area is used as an instrument for lane miles of capacity. While this is not an ideal instrument, results still suggest a strong causal relationship but probably that most previous work has had an upward bias in the coefficient estimates. The effect of lane mile additions on VMT growth is forecast and found to account for about 15% of annual VMT growth with substantial variation between metropolitan areas. This effect appears to be closely correlated with percent growth in lane miles, suggesting that rapidly growing areas can attribute a greater share of their VMT growth to growth in lane miles.     

Preventing death and injury on the world's roads

The problem of deaths and injury as a result of road crashes is now acknowledged to be a global phenomenon with authorities in virtually all countries concerned about the growth in the number of people killed and seriously injured on their roads. The World Health Organization has declared that its annual World Health Day in 2004 will have the theme 'Safe Roads', and several organizations, including the World Bank and the Global Road Safety Partnership, are supporting this initiative to raise the profile of road safety in the public and political minds.     

Edge effect of busy high traffic roads on the nest site selection of birds inside the city area: Guild response

The rapid development of road infrastructure is inevitable with increasing world human population and rise in the number of vehicles on the roads is going to be an increasing threat to native habitat of many wildlife populations around the world. The present work examines the edge effect of high traffic roads on nest site selection of birds in Udaipur city, Rajasthan (India). A total of 112 nesting site of 14 bird species (among six guilds), was recorded during the study. All six guilds (i.e., carnivore, omnivore, granivore, nectivore, frugivore and insectivore) were sharing similar kind of habitat with fine scale differences (P < 0.0001). The PCA revealed that trees with suitable GBH, canopy and height were supporting birds’ nesting diversity, but the buildings were supporting the highest number of nesting. Different guilds showed different preference to different variables. Spatial heterogeneity, less predation, optimal feeding ground and higher number of advertising and display boards of shops at roadside buildings might be crucial factors for birds’ nesting in this highly disturbed area.     

Avoidance distance from Qinghai–Tibet Highway in sympatric Tibetan antelope and gazelle

We compare the avoidance distances from Qinghai–Tibet Highway between two sympatric ungulate species, Tibetan antelope and Tibetan gazelle, in June and August of 2010 and July and August of 2011. The results show that Tibetan antelope avoid the road significantly more than Tibetan gazelle. At the times of day when traffic volume is high the avoidance distance in both species unexpectedly decreases. This suggests they are relatively undisturbed by the traffic but that they have a diurnal rhythm that involves resting far from the road in night.     

Impacts,management and functional planning criterion of forest road network system in Turkey

In this study are proposed impacts, management and functional planning criterion of forest road network system in rural and urban landscapes of Turkey. Road spacing and road density have been inspected concerning forest roads in production, reforestation, national parks and protection forests of rural and urban landscapes of Turkey. The forest road network was the most expensive human activity in the forests both in terms of economics and environmental effects. Public opinion about the environment has increased in recent years. Sustainable land use planning creates a great challenge for rural and urban road network planning. Further improvements of the network are necessary, to provide for people’s needs in the near future. Harmful effects of road network conflict with the principles of sustainability. When making use of the forest ecosystem for various purposes, care must be taken not to spoil the forest structure. To achieve this, forests must be used according to forestry techniques. So, there is a need for a new planning approach, serving the interests of both accessibility and sustainable environment. In rural landscapes, forest road planning standards (slope, width, pavement, drainage etc.) are different in production, forestation, national parks and protection forests. The need for total forest roads in Turkey was 201,810 km, and that 133,693 km portion of which, corresponding to 66.25%, was constructed by the end of 2005. With a view to be capable of conducting modern forestry activities, our country’s forests should be provided with a systematic road network by completing as soon as possible the construction of the remaining portion of such roads.     

Behavioural responses to vehicle emissions charging

Road pricing as an economic construct is not a new phenomenon in transportation research. Whilst fuel taxation and tolling of roads are common ways of raising revenue in many countries, these initiatives are primarily aimed at road infrastructure financing. Worldwide there has been growing interest in pricing structures designed to also manage the growing levels of traffic congestion and, in recent times, an increasing focus on generating reductions in carbon emissions from vehicle ownership and use. This paper presents a stated choice experiment undertaken in response to the increasing interest in the environmental externalities of travel behaviour. The aim of this choice experiment is to identify the potential to switch to more fuel efficient cars that emit lower emissions, under differing pricing and technology scenarios. Results indicate that annual and variable emissions surcharges targeted very specifically to vehicle emission rates have a noticeable role in modifying vehicle purchasing decisions.     

Effects of alternative road pricing systems on network performance

Four road pricing systems, with charges based on cordons crossed, distance travelled, time spent travelling and time spent in congestion, have been tested using the congested assignment network model SATURN and its elastic assignment demand response routine, SATEASY. All tests have been based on a SATURN application of the city of Cambridge, with charges imposed inside an appropriate ring of bypasses. While initial results showed that congestion pricing achieved the greatest increase in average speed in the charged area, later analysis cast doubt on its superiority. Congestion pricing is able to distinguish more effectively the extent to which different types of journey contribute to congestion and achieves given reductions in travel at lower levels of charge. However, it is much less effective in reducing distance travelled and, by encouraging use of minor roads, may achieve far smaller environmental benefits. Time-based pricing performs better than the other systems on most indicators. Generally, the results suggest that when rerouting effects are included in the predictive modelling process the benefits of road pricing may be significantly smaller than previously expected.     

National policy towards cars: Singapore

Singapore has experienced rapid growth in car ownership, and private transport accounts for just under half of motorized trips in Singapore. Yet only since 1970 have determined efforts been made to curtail this increase. Simultaneously with this growth, Singapore's land‐use planners had called for the diversion of population growth into outlying residential estates while maintaining the central area's importance as an employment centre. The resulting anticipated concentration of commuter movement suggested a need for controls to restrain car ownership, reduce central‐area congestion and divert road users on to public transport. The policies followed are described. Those against ownership have included heavy road taxes and registration fees, with a system of discounts on the latter to discourage new purchasers except when replacing scrapped cars. Policies against car use include fuel taxes and the Area Licensing Scheme in the city centre, while parking space is also closely regulated. The measures adopted imply a goal of efficiency in promoting Singapore's planning objectives rather than environmental, safety or equity considerations, although the first two of these have lately received much more attention than formerly. The policies’ effect has been a temporary reversal in the growth of car ownership, but this growth has since resumed and recent further fee increases suggest a panic reaction rather than a coordinated strategy. Such coordination appears at present to be hampered by the fragmented administration of matters relating to transport. Other measures relating to car ownership and use in Singapore are also described.     

Traffic assignment in a two-dimensional continuous representation of a traffic network with flow-dependent speeds

The work deals with the assignment of traffic to a two-dimensional continuous representation of a traffic network. An important aspect of the treatment is that the reciprocal of the speed on each road in the network is at all times a linear function of the flow on that road. This speed-flow relationship is generalized to two-dimensional space using travel intensities and taking account of road densities, so that there is direct dependence of speeds upon flows at all points regardless of their location. There is also dependence of flows upon speeds at all points because Wardrop's first assignment principle is adopted. That is, for a given O-D pair, journey times on all routes actually used are identical, and less than journey times on all other possible routes. This results in the identification for each O-D pair of an “assignment zone”, an area within which all trips between that O-D pair are made, and beyond which no such trips are made. For a single O-D pair the assignment zone is identified by ?_m, the maximum angular divergence of a path from the straight line between O and D. Paths are then assumed to be bilinear so that for a single O-D pair the assignment zone is a parallelogram. Journey times, speeds, lateral displacement and other related quantities are obtained as functions of the flow Q between O and D. The work is extended to three O-D pairs located at the extremities of an equilateral triangle and four O-D pairs located at the corners of a square. At low flows these two configurations are trivial extensions of the single O-D pair problem because assignment zones do not overlap. At higher flows account is taken of this tendency to overlapping, so that although they do not overlap they do touch, becoming kite-shaped. Origins and destinations are assumed to be at the periphery of small circles of arbitrary radius. The work is inelegant to the extent that it involves a numerical integration but it is possible that this might eventually be circumvented.     

Biofuel futures in road transport – A modeling analysis for Sweden

First and second generation biofuels are among few low-carbon alternatives for road transport that currently are commercially available or in an early commercialization phase. They are thus potential options for meeting climate targets in the medium term. For the case of Sweden, we investigate cost-efficient use of biofuels in road transport under system-wide CO₂ reduction targets to 2050, and the effects of implementation of targets for an almost fossil-free road transport sector to 2030. We apply the bottom-up, optimization MARKAL_Sweden model, which covers the entire Swedish energy system including the transport sector. For CO₂ reductions of 80% to 2050 in the Swedish energy system as a whole, the results of the main scenario show an annual growth rate for road transport biofuels of about 6% from 2010 to 2050, with biofuels accounting for 78% of road transport final energy use in 2050. The preferred biofuel choices are methanol and biomethane. When introducing additional fossil fuel phase-out policies in road transport (−80% to 2030), a doubling of the growth rate to 2030 is required and system CO₂ abatement costs increases by 6% for the main scenario. Results imply that second generation biofuels, along with energy-efficient vehicle technologies such as plug-in hybrids, can be an important part of optimized system solutions meeting stringent medium-term climate targets.     

Spatial and temporal distribution of expressway and its relationships to land cover and population: A case study of Beijing,China

The interaction between urban transport, land cover change and the distribution of population is a typical manifestation of the urbanization process. As high-grade road, expressway plays a significant role in promoting resource circulation and economic development. Based on the road distribution, land cover and population census data, this study specifically probed the relationship between the expressways and the land cover and population of Beijing. The results show that: (1) as the distance from an expressway increases, the amount of built-up land gradually decreased, and the transfer of land cover near the expressway was more intensive and frequent when compared with that of the whole city; (2) In 2010, a district that was less than 3 km from both sides of the expressway and which occupies one-quarter of the entire city had concentrations of 42% industrial land, 58% of settlement land, and 76% transportation land of the entire city; (3) As for Beijing, the population density was positively correlated to road density, and population density declined with a corresponding increase in buffer distance; (4) The ring area between the Fifth and the Sixth Ring Road featured the greatest density of expressways and the most dramatic changes in both land cover and population. According to our study, there’s a positive interactive feedback relationship between the expressways, land cover and population of Beijing. Also, due to the concentration of population, industry and transport system around the expressways, special attention should be paid to environmental pollution and the inhabitants’ health in this area.     

The optimal location of a single ring road

Consider a radial road network such that a single ring road is the only connection between the radials. This paper shows that there is, for any fixed origin-destination distribution, a location of the ring road which minimises the impact of radial traffic flow, for almost any criterion used to assess that impact. An optimal ring road has as many relevant trip-ends inside as outside.