Lagrangian flow in the California Undercurrent, an observation and model comparison

During the period 1992–1998, 38 isobaric RAFOS floats were deployed to sample the subsurface flow of the California Undercurrent. The deployments, released over the California continental slope west of San Francisco, have sampled robust year-round poleward subsurface flow associated with the Undercurrent most seasons and the combined inshore current and Undercurrent in winter. Two other types of flow have been seen: a region of weak flow with little net displacement just west of the California Undercurrent, and an active westward propagating eddy field. This eddy field appears to be the primary mechanism for moving floats from the Undercurrent into the ocean interior. The observations and statistics from the RAFOS floats are compared with Lagrangian estimates of particles tracked in a global high resolution ocean simulation in order to evaluate the fidelity of the model along an eastern boundary. The results show that the model reproduces the general character of the flow reasonably well, but underestimates both the mean and eddy energies by a substantial amount.     

Assessment of factors associated with travel time reliability and prediction: an empirical analysis using probabilistic reasoning approach

Significant efforts have been made in modeling a travel time distribution and establishing measures of travel time reliability (TTR). However, the literature on evaluating the factors affecting TTR is not well established. Accordingly, this paper presents an empirical analysis to determine potential factors that are associated with TTR. This study mainly applies the Bayesian Networks model to assess the probabilistic association between road geometry, traffic data, and TTR. The results from this model reveal that land use characteristics, intersection factors, and posted speed limits are directly associated with TTR. Evaluating the strength of the association between TTR and the directly related variables, the log odds ratio analysis indicates that the land use factor has the highest impact (0.83) followed by the intersection factor (0.57). The findings from this study can provide valuable resources to planners and traffic operators in their decision-making to improve TTR with quantitative evidence.     

The Alternative Motor Fuels Act, alternative-fuel vehicles, and greenhouse gas emissions

The corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standard is the major policy tool to improve the fleet average miles per gallon of automobile manufacturers in the US. The Alternative Motor Fuels Act (AMFA) provides special treatment in calculating the fuel economy of alternative-fuel vehicles to give manufacturers CAFE incentives to produce more alternative-fuel vehicles. AMFA has as its goals an increase in the production of alternative-fuel vehicles and a decrease in gasoline consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. This paper examines theoretically the effects of the program set up under AMFA. It finds that, under some conditions, this program may actually increase the production of fuel-inefficient gasoline vehicles, gasoline consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.     

Surface street traffic volume and single-family house price

This study investigates the relationship between surface street traffic volume and single-family house prices in a relatively small city in the US. Hedonic price models are estimated using data from 9670 transactions that occurred between January 1998 and March 2011. It is discovered that parcels fronting or adjacent to a high-traffic street sell, on average, at an 8.1% discount compared to similar parcels that are not so situated. Restricting the analysis to parcels on or adjacent to a high-traffic street, house price and traffic volume are found to be negatively related; a doubling of volume from any particular traffic count, ceteris paribus, reduces selling price by an average of 2.1%.     

Traffic noise abatement: How different pavements, vehicle speeds and traffic densities affect annoyance levels

In this paper, annoyance ratings from traffic noise recorded on cobblestones, dense asphalt, and open asphalt rubber pavements are assessed with regard to car speeds and traffic densities. It was found that cobblestones pavements are the most annoying; also while open asphalt rubber pavement imposes less annoyance than dense asphalt it is not significantly different. Higher car speeds always lead to greater annoyance, as does higher traffic densities. LAeq and LAmax correlate well with annoyance, but loudness is the best predictor. Roughness and sharpness exhibit inconsistent interactions.     

On the numerical accuracy of the prediction of resistance coefficients in ship stern flow calculations

This article presents a study on the accuracy of the numerical determination of the friction and pressure resistance coefficients of ship hulls. The investigation was carried out for the KVLCC2 tanker at model- and full-scale Reynolds numbers. Gravity waves were neglected, i.e., we adopted the so-called double-model flow. Single-block grids with H–O topology were adopted for all the calculations. Three eddy viscosity models were employed: the one-equation eddy viscosity and the two-equation models proposed by Menter and the TNT version of the two-equation k-ω model. Verification exercises were performed in sets of nearly geometrically similar grids with different densities in the streamwise, normal, and girthwise directions. The friction and pressure resistance coefficients were calculated for different levels of the iterative error and for computational domains of different size. The results show that on the level of grid refinement used, it is possible to calculate the viscous resistance coefficients in H–O grids that do not match the ship contour with a numerical uncertainty of less than 1%. The differences between the predictions of different turbulence models were larger than the numerical uncertainty; however, these differences tended to decrease with increases in the Reynolds number. The pressure resistance was remarkably sensitive to domain size and far-field boundary conditions. Either a large domain or the application of a viscous–inviscid interaction procedure is needed for reliable results. This work was presented in part at the International Conference on Computational Methods in Marine Engineering—MARINE 2007, Barcelona, June 3–4, 2007.     

Non-local simulation of the stable boundary layer with a third order moments closure model

A new higher order closure model for the stable boundary layer is presented and compared with Large Eddy Simulation data. The model includes numerical solutions for the mean values, second and third order moments equations. A satisfactory agreement is found between the calculated vertical profiles of the turbulent quantities with those provided by the LES. Furthermore the new model results are compared with profiles obtained with a lower order closure model in order to verify the effective importance of including third order dynamical equations in the model.     

An algorithm for oceanic front detection in chlorophyll and SST satellite imagery

An algorithm is described for oceanic front detection in chlorophyll (Chl) and sea surface temperature (SST) satellite imagery. The algorithm is based on a gradient approach: the main novelty is a shape-preserving, scale-sensitive, contextual median filter applied selectively and iteratively until convergence. This filter has been developed specifically for Chl since these fields have spatial patterns such as chlorophyll enhancement at thermohaline fronts and small- and meso-scale chlorophyll blooms that are not present in SST fields. Linear Chl enhancements and localized (point-wise) blooms are modeled as ridges and peaks respectively, whereas conventional fronts in Chl and SST fields are modeled as steps or ramps. Examples are presented of the algorithm performance using modeled (synthetic) images as well as synoptic Chl and SST imagery. After testing, the algorithm was used on > 6000 synoptic images, 1999–2007, to produce climatologies of Chl and SST fronts off the U.S. Northeast.     

沥青混合料抗车辙性能的分形描述方法

为了准确模拟沥青混合料抗车辙性能,采用分形理论分析了沥青混合料微观结构,研究了粗细集料不同级配分形维数对沥青混合料抗车辙性能的影响,并根据级配分形维数公式计算了沥青混合料的分形值,进行了沥青混合料车辙试验和微观结构的电子扫描。分析结果表明:4.75 mm通过率是集料尺度的分界点,集料分形维数与抗车辙性能有一致相关性,分形值越大,抗车辙能力越高;根据路用性能设计集料级配可以定量地分析沥青混合料的级配差异和路面性能,及路面微观结构与宏观路用性能的关系。     

Sub‐optimal decision‐making and the transportation problem

A modification to the transportation problem is outlined that aims to improve the quality of predictions of trip matrices, and at the same time, allow some behavioural and economic insights. A framework is suggested within which this modification may be made and a suitable statistic and iterative process are described. A simple example demonstrates the validity of the modification and suggests some areas of difficulty with the approach.