Joint development at transit stations in the United States

Joint development, as the term is generally used in connection with transit systems in the United States, is real estate development that is closely linked to public transportation services and station facilities, and takes advantage of the market and locational advantages provided by them. Research conducted by LEK Associates for the Urban Mass Transportation Administration (UMTA) suggests that, in addition to helping shape urban growth and land development, joint development is also a surprisingly effective means of increasing transit system ridership and farebox revenues, as well as a source of increasingly significant revenues from the sale or lease of air rights.The completion of nine joint development projects in as many different cities, started under the former Urban Initiatives Program, for example, net additional annual ridership might reach 12000000 one-way trips. Net additional annual farebox revenues might reach over $9000000. This added revenue would be sufficient to repay the $62 million combined UMTA/transit operator investment in the nine projects, exclusive of the costs of the basic transit system improvements around which the projects are planned, in less than six years.Among transit authority-administered joint development programs examined in a separate study, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) has had the most success in generating significant value capture income. For example, the cumulative revenue realized by WMATA from just six joint development projects in the Washington, DC region, through September 1983 exceeded $ 6.9 million. Projections through fiscal year 1986 indicate cumulative revenues approximating $ 28 million will be received from developer leases.     

The design of bus route systems — An interactive location-allocation approach

An interactive modelling approach is developed to solve the practical problem of bus route network design. Possible bus routes are identified with facilities which can be located. Zones or pairs of zones in the urban area are identified with customers who will be allocated to the established facilities. It is shown that the classical Set Covering Problem is useful under the assumption of fixed demand; the Simple Plant Location Problem is effective under the assumption of demand which is sensitive to the level of bus service provided.     

Use and perceptions of a real time passenger information system

The use of high-technology systems in the transport sector has increased steadily over recent years. This paper outlines the development of vehicle monitoring and control systems and their use in the public transport arena. The paper shows how one such system, that operated by Datatrak Ltd., has been adapted to provide a real time passenger information system for the RiverBus Partnership in London.

1 The RiverBus service described in this article ceased operation in August 1993. The collapse of the RiverBus Partnership followed the financial difficulties surrounding Olympia and York, developers of Canary Wharf in London Docklands.

Passenger use and perception of the system is evaluated, based on surveys of RiverBus users. This provides an evaluation of the system, and highlights the importance of introducing such systems based on user information needs and as part of the total marketing package.     

A simple formulation for predicting the ultimate strength of ships

The aim of this study is to derive a simple analytical formula for predicting the ultimate collapse strength of a single- and double-hull ship under a vertical bending moment, and also to characterize the accuracy and applicability for earlier approximate formulations. It is known that a ship hull will reach the overall collapse state if both collapse of the compression flange and yielding of the tension flange occur. Side shells in the vicinity of the compression and the tension flanges will often fail also, but the material around the final neutral axis will remain in the elastic state. Based on this observation, a credible distribution of longitudinal stresses around the hull section at the overall collapse state is assumed, and an explicit analytical equation for calculating the hull ultimate strength is obtained. A comparison between the derived formula and existing expressions is made for largescale box girder models, a one-third-scale frigate hull model, and full-scale ship hulls.List of symbols A _B total sectional area of outer bottom - A _B total sectional area of inner bottom - A _D total sectional area of deck - A _S half-sectional area of all sides (including longitudinal bulkheads and inner sides) - a _s sectional area of a longitudinal stiffener with effective plating - b breadth of plate between longitudinal stiffeners - D hull depth - D _B height of double bottom - E Young's modulus - g neutral axis position above the base line in the sagging condition or below the deck in the hogging condition - H depth of hull section in linear elastic state - I _s moment of inertia of a longitudinal stiffener with effective plating - l length of a longitudinal stiffener between transverse beams - M _E elastic bending moment - M _p fully plastic bending moment of hull section - M _u ultimate bending moment capacity of hull section - M _uh ,M _us ultimate bending moment in hogging or sagging conditions - r radius of gyration of a longitudinal stiffener with effective plating [=(I _s /a _s )^1/2] - t plate thickness - Z elastic section modulus at the compression flange - Z _B ,Z _D elastic section modulus at bottom or deck - slenderness ratio of plate between stiffeners [= (b/t)(_y/E)^1/2] - slenderness ratio of a longitudinal stiffener with effective plating [=(l/r)(_y/E)^1/2] - _y yield strength of the material - _yB , _yB , _yD yield strength of outer bottom, inner bottom - _yS deck, or side - _u ultimate buckling strength of the compression flange - _uB , _uB , _uD ultimate buckling strength of outer bottom - _uS inner bottom, deck, or side     

Performance indicators for transit management

Transit performance can be evaluated through quantitative indicators. As the provision of efficient and effective transit service are appropriate goals to be encouraged by federal and state governments, these goals are used to develop performance indicators.Three efficiency and four effectiveness indicators are described, together with two overall indicators. These nine indicators are analyzed for comparability utilizing operating and financial data collected from public transit agencies in California.Performance indicators selected for this study should not be viewed as final. Twenty-one performance indicators proposed by previous studies were reviewed. Theoretical considerations and unavailability or unreliability of data caused omission of several useful measures like passenger-miles. Circumstances such as improved data, emphasis upon goals other than efficiency and effectiveness, and local conditions might warrant the inclusion of indicators deleted from this research.This paper is based on work conducted for the Urban Mass Transportation Administration under University Research and Training Grant CA-11-0014, Development of Performance Indicators for Transit. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the University of California or the United States Government. We are indebted to John Feren for assistance with the statistical processing and data gathering.     

Regulatory reform and freight mode choice

Reform of trucking Vehicle Weights and Dimensions (VWD) regulations in Canada is now underway. The effect these reforms will have on the freight transportation industry are only recently the subject of research. This paper is part of this new research effort, aimed at understanding how regulatory reform in the trucking sector will affect the existing competitive relationship between trucks and the railways. The paper presents the results of study and research into modelling the relationship between mode choice and the service characteristics that are affected by VWD reform.Using several periods of data, a series of econometric models are developed which help to elucidate the relative relationships between the mode service characteristics for both of the principal interprovincial freight modes. A technique is developed and presented to model railway user costs in order to overcome the complex and often unrepresentable pricing activities of Canadian railways.The strength of the developed econometric models is presented, including their significance and statistical reliability. This is further reinforced by the similarities exhibited by all the models in the series. The selected model is applied to predict market service responses required of the railway industry in order to compete with the trucking sector now adapting to the new regulations.The impact of the newly implemented vehicle weight and dimension reform on the rail transportation industry is analyzed and railway industry improvements aimed at maintaining its market share are presented. The results predicted by the model show that railway user cost reductions should be moderate, and likely less than the level of inflation over the period of time when trucking converts its fleet to take advantage of the new regulations.Abbreviations AASHTO American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials - CCMTA Canadian Conference of Motor Transport Administrators - EPI End products, inedible commodity classification - GVW Gross Vehicle Weight - NA 1988 VWD National Agreement - RTAC Roads and Transportation Association of Canada - VWD Vehicle Weight(s) and Dimension(s) - WA 1988 VWD Western Agreement     

Train scheduling simulation that minimises operational conflicts due to service constraints

This paper presents an attempt made to facilitate re‐scheduling of trains to minimize operational delays and accommodate uniform headways for off peak sub urban services subject to resource constraints such as locomotive availability, poor track conditions and stations without siding facilities. The paper describes the computer simulation model designed to optimize train schedules on single‐track rail lines. Using this simulation program it is possible to plan and optimize timetables for railway networks with train runs within short time periods for both single track and double track conditions. The paper describes the capabilities of presenting the results of the simulation runs. These include the time‐distance graph, the network with train movements, dialog boxes with information about selected trains. The programme is capable of changing the starting point, departure time, train destinations and adding or deleting a stop etc. from the user interface. Four objects of array variables are used in the simulation process to keep train and station data. Two object arrays are used for the train movements in up and down directions. The stations' data are stored in the other two object arrays. One of these arrays of stations contains all the stations of the line while the other one contains only the stations with siding facilities. A case study that covers a 61 km long single‐track line with 14 stations is presented to highlight the model capabilities.     

Correlation between automotive CO, HC, NO, and PM emission factors from on-road remote sensing: implications for inspection and maintenance programs

Carbon monoxide (CO), hydrocarbon (HC), and nitrogen oxide (NO) emission factors (EFs) are measured with a commercial vehicle emissions remote sensing system (VERSS) during a large-scale vehicle exhaust emissions study in Las Vegas. Particulate matter (PM) EFs are simultaneously measured for individual vehicles with a newly developed PM-VERSS based on ultraviolet backscatter light detection and ranging (Lidar). The effectiveness of CO and HC EFs as proxy for NO and PM EFs for spark-ignition vehicles is evaluated. Poor correlations were found between EFs for pollutants on an individual vehicle basis indicating that high EFs for one or more pollutants cannot be used as a predictor of high EFs for other pollutants. Stronger functional relationships became evident after averaging the EF data in bins based on rank-order of a single pollutant EF. Low overlap between the highest 10% emitters for CO, HC, NO, and PM was found. These results imply that for an effective reduction of the four pollutants, inspection and maintenance (I/M) programs, including clean screening, should measure all four pollutants individually. Fleet average CO and HC concentrations determined by gaseous VERSS were compared with fleet average CO and HC concentrations measured at low-idle and at high-idle during local I/M tests for spark-ignition vehicles. The fleet average CO concentrations measured by I/M tests at either idle were about half of those measured by remote sensing. The fleet average high-idle HC concentration measured by I/M tests was about half of that measured by VERSS while low-idle I/M and VERSS HC average concentrations were in better agreement. For a typical vehicle trip, most of the fuel is burned during non-idle conditions. I/M measurements collected during idling conditions may not be a good indicator of a vehicle’s potential to be a high emitter. VERSS measurements, when the vehicle is under a load, should more effectively identify high emitting vehicles that have a large contribution to the mobile emissions inventory.     

Hub location with flow economies of scale

A characteristic feature of hub and spoke networks is the bundling of flows on the interhub links. This agglomeration of flows leads to reduced travel costs across the interhub links. Current models of hub location do not adequately model the scale economies of flow that accrue due to the agglomeration of flows. This paper shows that current hub location models, by assuming flow-independent costs, not only miscalculate total network cost, but may also erroneously select optimal hub locations and allocations. The model presented in this paper more explicitly models the scale economies that are generated on the interhub links and in doing so provides a more reliable model representation of the reality of hub and spoke networks.