Singapore: The Development of a World Class Transport System

Singapore's Land Transport Authority, formed in 1995, set itself a mission of producing a world class transport system. This paper assesses the extent to which this goal is being achieved. It outlines the structure within which transport decisions are taken and indicates the freedom this gives to develop integrated transport and land‐use strategies. It demonstrates the long‐term stability in transport strategy from 1972 onwards, and the key contributions to that strategy of land‐use controls and travel‐demand management measures. The individual elements of the strategy are then reviewed and innovations identified in demand management, public transport service provision and information technology. Finally, the key attributes that have led to the success of the strategy are identified, and it is suggested that many of these are transferable to other cities of the developed world.     

Performance ranking methodology for roading operations management

Management of enterprises in the public domain are being asked to look beyond financial measures of performance towards a system of performance indicators which will reflect achievement in quantitative but not necessarily monetary terms. The essential element of this approach is the role that management must play in the selection of indicators which reflect key dimensions of performance and objectives of the organization. This paper identifies comparison and presentation methods which are likely to be of practical help to managers facing the tasks of control and communication in the wider accountability process.

The issues raised are illustrated in a case study derived from an analysis of road maintenance management data from New Zealand territorial local authorities 1982–87.     

A NEW URBAN FORM AND ITS INNOVATIVE TRANSPORTATION STRATEGY TO ACCOMMODATE URBAN GROWTH

If we are to accommodate the rate of urban growth which North America will face in the first half of the twenty-first century, it is the contention of this paper that we must build new cities, not new towns, beyond commuting distance of existing cities. These can be located in open countryside on virgin land, or they can grow around existing small towns, all in conjunction with the construction of an innovative personal transportation system. In this paper a hexagonal modular structure, in which self-contained urban units can be combined and added to over time, is proposed as a new urban form and AVCS maglev — which will serve the new cities efficiently — is proposed as a key transportation strategy.     

Valuation of users’ benefits in transport systems

Transport projects involve costs and benefits. Benefits to users appear in the form of more and/or better trips. Once the neoclassical idea of demand is accepted, the variation of utility levels underlie the measurement of benefits. In the evaluation process, benefits have to be compared with costs, and this can be done converting utility into monetary units. This paper deals with the treatment of this problem, starting with the general relation among utility, demand and the various forms of consumers’ surplus, to move further into the particular forms that these relations take in the transport field. The rule‐of‐a‐half is followed from the intuitive initial justification to a strict (and general) analytical derivation. More rigorous forms of users’ surplus variation are then presented for fairly general cases, including both aggregate and disaggregate transport demand models, emphasizing the manner in which welfare measures are derived in each case. Discussion is centred around the comparative advantages and limitations of available approaches, searching for improvements in demand formulation and benefits measurement.     

Identifying critical road segments and measuring system-wide robustness in transportation networks with isolating links: A link-based capacity-reduction approach

A wide range of relatively short-term disruptive events such as partial flooding, visibility reductions, traction hazards due to weather, and pavement deterioration occur on transportation networks on a daily basis. Despite being relatively minor when compared to catastrophes, these events still have profound impacts on traffic flow. To date there has been very little distinction drawn between different types of network-disruption studies and how the methodological approaches used in those studies differ depending on the specific research objectives and on the disruption scenarios being modeled.In this paper, we advance a methodological approach that employs different link-based capacity-disruption values for identifying and ranking the most critical links and quantifying network robustness in a transportation network. We demonstrate how an ideal capacity-disruption range can be objectively determined for a particular network and introduce a scalable system-wide performance measure, called the Network Trip Robustness (NTR) that can be used to directly compare networks of different sizes, topologies, and connectivity levels.Our approach yields results that are independent of the degree of connectivity and can be used to evaluate robustness on networks with isolating links. We show that system-wide travel-times and the rank-ordering of the most critical links in a network can vary dramatically based on both the capacity-disruption level and on the overall connectivity of the network. We further show that the relationships between network robustness, the capacity-disruption level used for modeling, and network connectivity are non-linear and not necessarily intuitive. We discuss our findings with respect to Braess’ Paradox.     

Managing community acceptance of major industrial projects

Abstract

In some cases, the major risk encountered by an industry seeking to site a facility is that of community acceptance. Without community acceptance of a proposed project, construction can be delayed, taxes can be prohibitive, and operations can be prevented through the opposition and influence of local groups. This paper describes the community acceptance risk, the traditional industrial approach to countering local opposition, and a positive approach to achieving community acceptance. This positive approach entails careful site selection; affirmative management of the community acceptance problem, including explicit planning of the community acceptance effort, assignment of staff with specific responsibilities to implement plans, and a budget for mitigating the impacts of the project on the community; acquisition of sufficient land to buffer unavoidable impacts of the project; a carefully formed corporate policy on the public release of information concerning the project; and constructive participation in state and local government policy development.     

The modelling of dry bulk and tanker markets: a survey

This paper provides an overview of the development of the quantitative modelling techniques that have been applied to the analysis of dry bulk shipping markets. Of necessity it will be dated by the time it is published. The principal points that emerge from the survey are fourfold: first:-reduced form rather than structural modelling, has become the standard approach in the past 15 years. Second, there is a greater focus on modelling rate variability rather than rate levels, using models that estimate the behaviour of both the conditional mean freight rate and its conditional variance. Third, the introduction of models of financial derivatives and their application to shipping markets has been very marked, as finance models of risk management have been adapted to shipping markets. Fourth, the use of segmented models of different ship types, and higher frequency data is now standard. It is argued that the relative neglect of structural models means that estimating fully specified structural econometric models may be a fruitful research agenda for the future.     

Achieving an ASEAN single shipping market: shipping and logistics firms’ perspective

ABSTRACT

To establish an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Single Shipping Market (ASSM) is an important part of ASEAN governments’ overall plan to achieve an ASEAN Economic Community by 2015. It is expected that a single shipping market will improve the region’s logistics performance and international competitiveness. To achieve this vision, however, the ASEAN countries need to remove any remaining barriers to logistics performance. In this light, the objective of this paper is to identify these barriers and assess their effects on the logistics performance of shipping and logistics firms based in ASEAN countries. Using a questionnaire-based survey, the study revealed several barriers affecting their logistics performance with varying significance among these countries. Unless these barriers from the perspective of the industry are removed, the ability of the shipping and logistics industry to benefit from a liberalized market would be limited. These perceived barriers are examined in detail and strategies to address them are proposed. The ASEAN experience is applicable to similar countries in the process of integrating their international shipping sector as well as contributes to the understanding of the different barriers and how these barriers can affect the logistics performance of shipping and logistics companies.     

Properties of roadway particles from interaction between the tire and road pavement

A large fraction of urban PM₁₀ concentrations is due to non-exhaust traffic emissions, including road dust, particles from tire/road interface, and brake lining particles. Although potential health and environmental impacts associated with tire wear debris have increased, few environmentally and biologically relevant studies of actual tire wear debris have been conducted. Tire wear particles (TWP) are released from the tire tread as a result of the interaction between the tire and the pavement. Roadway particles (RP), meanwhile, are particles on roads composed of a mixture of elements from tires, pavement, fuels, brakes, environmental dust, and the atmosphere. The main objective of the present study is to identify the contribution of tires to the generation of RP and to assess the potential environmental and health impacts of this contribution. First, a mobile measurement system was constructed and used to measure the RP on asphalt roads according to vehicle speed. The equipment of the mobile system provides PM₁₀ concentration by DustTrak DRX, and mass and number size distribution of fine and ultrafine particles by a fast mobility particle sizer (FMPS) and an aerosol particle sizer (APS). The dependence of RP mass and particle number concentration on vehicle speed was observed. It was also found that many particles were generated by rapid deceleration of the vehicle.     

Comparison of driving characteristics between drivers in Korea and in the united states of America based on driver-vehicle interaction field database

Research and development involving intelligent vehicles of today is geared to safe, driver-friendly and sensitive vehicles that provide a driver with a pleasant and convenient driving environment while preventing him or her from possible risks of accident. In developing convenient and safe vehicles, research on drivers’ driving patterns, reactions and state characteristics depending on road conditions in actual field is essential in order to devise more driver-friendly intelligent vehicles. This paper describes how a driver-vehicle interaction (DVI) field database is built in order to obtain a driver’s input in normal road driving condition on highways, country roads, and city roads, and his or her state information, as well as data on the vehicle and traffic conditions. And the newly built database is compared with the RDCW FOT database established by UMTRI of the US for analysis to suggest that the driving tendencies of drivers in Korea and the road driving conditions are not the same as those in the US, reconfirming the need to establish a DVI field database, which will be used for the development of intelligent vehicles suitable for the Korean environment. The DVI data collected from actual driving in field are anticipated to be widely utilized as basic data for research on various intelligent driving safety systems, advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and human-vehicle interface (HVI) that are suitable for the driving environment in Korea.