How household transportation expenditures have evolved in Canada: a long term perspective

In recent years, increasing recognition of the challenges associated with global climate change and inequity in developed countries have revived researcher’s interest towards analyzing transportation related expenditure of households. The current research contributes to travel behaviour literature by developing an econometric model of household budgetary allocations with a particular focus on transportation expenditure. Towards this end, we employ the public-use micro-data extracted from the Survey of Household Spending (SHS) for the years 1997–2009. The proposed econometric modeling approach is built on the multiple discrete continuous extreme value model (MDCEV) framework. Specifically, in our analysis, the scaled version of the MDCEV model outperformed its other counterparts. Broadly, the model results indicated that a host of household socio-economic and demographic attributes along with the residential location characteristics affect the apportioning of income to various expenditure categories and savings. We also observed a relatively stable transportation spending behaviour over time. Additionally, a policy analysis exercise is conducted where we observed that with increase in health expenses and reduction in savings results in adjustments in all expenditure categories.     

Robust network pricing and system optimization under combined long-term stochasticity and elasticity of travel demand

Network pricing serves as an instrument for congestion management, however, agencies and planners often encounter problems of estimating appropriate toll prices. Tolls are commonly estimated for a single-point deterministic travel demand, which may lead to imperfect policy decisions due to inherent uncertainties in future travel demand. Previous research has addressed the issue of demand uncertainty in the pricing context, but the elastic nature of demand along with its uncertainty has not been explicitly considered. Similarly, interactions between elasticity and uncertainty of demand have not been characterized. This study addresses these gaps and proposes a framework to estimate nearest optimal first-best tolls under long-term stochasticity in elastic demand. We show first that the optimal tolls under the deterministic-elastic and stochastic-elastic demand cases coincide when cost and demand functions are linear, and the set of equilibrium paths is constant. These assumptions are restrictive, so three larger networks are considered numerically, and the subsequent pricing decisions are assessed. The results of the numerical experiments suggest that in many cases, optimal pricing decisions under the combined stochastic-elastic demand scenario resemble those when demand is known exactly. The applications in this study thus suggest that inclusion of demand elasticity offsets the need of considering future demand uncertainties for first-best congestion pricing frameworks.     

Factors associated with home-based e-working and e-shopping in Nanjing,China

The widespread adoption of information and communication technology has facilitated frequent e-activities in people’s daily life. From the perspective of individual’s time use on e-working and e-shopping at home, this paper aims to enhance our understanding of the function of home beyond a living space for family life. Using a household survey of 608 full-time paid employees who conducted e-activities at home in Nanjing, China, we investigated the characteristics and patterns of home-based e-working and e-shopping. Only 7.9% of the respondents neither e-shopped nor e-worked at home. We find that the socio-demographic context, Internet use habits, attitudes towards e-working/e-shopping, and geographical accessibility have influenced the patterns of home-based e-working and e-shopping. The results indicate that the rich e-activities taking place at home have changed the time use at home and reinforced the function of home as a multifunctional hub.     

Relationship between well-being and daily time use of elderly: evidence from the disabilities and use of time survey

According to US Census Bureau, the number of individuals in the age group above 65 years is expected to increase by more than 100% from the year 2000 to 2030. It is anticipated that increasing elderly population will put unforeseen demands on the transportation infrastructure due to the atypical mobility and travel needs of the elderly. Consequently, transportation professionals have attempted to understand the travel behavior of the elderly including the trip frequency, trip distance and mode choice decisions. Majority of the research on elderly travel behavior have focused on the mobility outcomes with limited research into understanding the tradeoffs made by this population segment in terms of their in-home and out-of-home activity engagement choices. The goal of the current research is to contribute to this line of inquiry by simultaneously exploring the daily activity engagement choices of the elderly Americans including their in-home and out-of-home activity participation (what activities to pursue) and time alloocation (duration of each activity) decisions while accounting for the temporal constraints. Further, the study attempts to explore the relationship between physical and subjective well-being and daily activity engagement decisions of the elderly; where subjective well-being is derived from reported needs satisfaction with life and different domains of it. To this end, data from the Disabilities and Use of Time survey of Panel Study of Income Dynamics was used to estimate a panel version of MDCEV model. In addition to person- and household-level demographic variables, activity participation and time use choices of elderly were found to vary across different levels of reported physical and subjective well-being measures. The model estimation results were plausible and provide interesting insights into the activity engagement choices of the elderly with implications for transportation policy development. Among other socio-demographic variables, living arrangements (living with family versus in elderly homes) were found to have significant influence on how people participate into different in-home versus out-of-home activities. For example, elderly living in the elderly home were found to participate more into out-of-home activities compared to people living with families. Elderly with disabilities were found to compensate lower participation into out-of-home activities with more participation into in-home activities. Considerable heterogeneity was observed in time engagement behavior of the elderly across reported levels of satisfaction with finance, job and cognitive needs. For example, elderly expressing high satisfaction with job was found to spend less time in in-home social activities. Elderly reporting higher satisfaction with finance were found to spend more time into OH social and shopping activities.     

Soil Body Deformation Caused by Construction of a Double-Line Shield Tunnel with Multiple Factors北大核心CSCD

Considering the influence of many factors (soil loss, frontal additional thrust, the friction force of the shield shell and the additional grouting force), a method for improving the uniform soil body movement model is pro-posed, and a mechanical calculation model is established to study the calculation method for soil body deformation caused by double-line parallel shield driving. Based on the Mindlin solutions of elastic mechanics, the theoretical solutions for soil body deformations caused by the last three factors are calculated; considering the uniform soil body movement model, the theoretical solutions for soil body deformations caused by soil loss are calculated, then the to-tal theoretical solutions for soil body deformations under multiple factors are obtained by means of superposition. The vertical surface settlement, vertical horizontal displacement, and vertical displacements of the soil body at different depths of Hangzhou Metro Line 1 are calculated to analyze the variation laws. Meanwhile the influential factors for horizontal displacement variation are studied. The research shows that with a change of depth, the settlement of the soil body changes within the scope of 10 to 13 m in the horizontal direction near where the maximum settlement occurs;the direction of the horizontal displacement of the soil body changes with a change of the positional relationship be-tween the calculation points and the tunnel; and with an increase of interval J for the two tunnels, the horizontal dis-placement of the soil body of a deep double-line tunnel decreases while the displacement near the surface changes slightly. © 2018, Editorial Office of "Modern Tunnelling Technology". All right reserved.     

Effect of Seismic Parameters on the Safety Factor for an Underground Cavern北大核心CSCD

In order to quantitatively evaluate the safety of the surrounding rock of an underground cavern under seis-mic load, a comprehensive evaluation method for the stability of surrounding rock is proposed based on the general safety factor and point safety factor. A calculation method for the general safety factor of a cavern based on the prin-ciple of shear strength reduction of a rock mass is given, the run-through of the plastic zone between the main power-house and main transformer room is presented as a critical criterion for the overall instability of the cavern, and the general safety factor is obtained by searching for the reduction coefficient. A point safety factor calculation method based on the Mohr-Coulomb yield criterion is given. The influence of different seismic input parameters on the general safety factor of the cavern and the point safety factor of key positions are studied based on an underground power-house cavern of a hydropower station in Southwest China. The results show that the quantitative evaluation method for the stability of the surrounding rock based on the safety factor is feasible and can reflect the general safety de-gree and local safety degree of different positions of the cavern for different working conditions. It is found that the general safety factor of the cavern and the point safety factor of key positions decrease with an increase of the ampli-tude and duration of a seismic wave while they increase with an increase of the incident angle; additionally, the low frequency of a seismic wave has a great influence on the cavern while the high frequency has little effect. © 2018, Editorial Office of "Modern Tunnelling Technology". All right reserved.     

Adapting without Retreating: Responses to Shoreline Change on an Inlet-Associated Coastal Beach

Coastal barrier systems around the world are experiencing higher rates of flooding and shoreline erosion. Property owners on barriers have made significant financial investments in physical protections that shield their nearby properties from these hazards, constituting a type of adaptation to shoreline change. Factors that contribute to adaptation on Plum Island, a developed beach and dune system on the North Shore of Massachusetts, are investigated here. Plum Island experiences patterns of shoreline change that may be representative of many inlet-associated beaches, encompassing an equivocal and dynamically shifting mix of erosion and accretion. In the face of episodic floods and fleeting erosive events, and driven by a combination of strong northeast storms and cycles of erosion and accretion, the value of the average Plum Island residence increases by 34% for properties on the oceanfront where protection comprises a publicly constructed soft structure. Even in the face of state policies that ostensibly discourage physical protection as a means of adaptation, coastal communities face significant political and financial pressures to maintain existing protective structures or to allow contiguous groups of property owners to build new ones through collective action. These factors mitigate against adapting to shoreline change by retreating from the coast, thereby potentially increasing the adverse effects of coastal hazards.     

Genetics of traffic assignment models for strategic transport planning

This paper presents a review and classification of traffic assignment models for strategic transport planning purposes by using concepts analogous to genetics in biology. Traffic assignment models share the same theoretical framework (DNA), but differ in capability (genes). We argue that all traffic assignment models can be described by three genes. The first gene determines the spatial capability (unrestricted, capacity restrained, capacity constrained, and capacity and storage constrained) described by four spatial assumptions (shape of the fundamental diagram, capacity constraints, storage constraints, and turn flow restrictions). The second gene determines the temporal capability (static, semi-dynamic, and dynamic) described by three temporal assumptions (wave speeds, vehicle propagation speeds, and residual traffic transfer). The third gene determines the behavioural capability (all-or-nothing, one shot, and equilibrium) described by two behavioural assumptions (decision-making and travel time consideration). This classification provides a deeper understanding of the often implicit assumptions made in traffic assignment models described in the literature. It further allows for comparing different models in terms of functionality, and paves the way for developing novel traffic assignment models.     

An activity-based approach of investigating travel behaviour of older people

The paper presents the results of an investigation on daily activity-travel scheduling behaviour of older people by using an advanced econometric model and a household travel survey, collected in the National Capital Region (NCR) of Canada in 2011. The activity-travel scheduling model considers a dynamic time–space constrained scheduling process. The key contribution of the paper is to reveal daily activity-travel scheduling behaviour through a comprehensive econometric framework. The resulting empirical model reveals many behavioural details. These include the role that income plays in moderating out-of-home time expenditure choices of older people. Older people in the highest and lowest income categories tend to have lower variations in time expenditure choices than those in middle-income categories. Overall, the time expenditure choices become more stable with increasing age, indicating that longer activity durations and lower activity frequency become more prevalent with increasing age. Daily activity type and location choices reveal a clear random utility-maximizing rational behaviour of older people. It is clear that increasing spatial accessibility to various activity locations is a crucial factor in defining daily out-of-home activity participation of older people. It is also clear that the diversity of out-of-home activity type choices reduces with increasing age and older people are more sensitive to auto travel time than to transit or non-motorized travel time.     

Isolating high-priority metro and feeder bus transfers using smart card data

Fixed-rail metro (or ‘subway’) infrastructure is generally unable to provide access to all parts of the city grid. Consequently, feeder bus lines are an integral component of urban mass transit systems. While passengers prefer a seamless transfer between these two distinct transportation services, each service’s operations are subject to a different set of factors that contribute to metro-bus transfer delay. Previous attempts to understand transfer delay were limited by the availability of tools to measure the time and cost associated with passengers’ transfer experience. This paper uses data from smart card systems, an emerging technology that automatically collects passenger trip data, to understand transfer delay. The primary objective of this study is to use smart card data to derive a reproducible methodology that isolates high priority transfer points between the metro system and its feeder-bus systems. The paper outlines a methodology to identify transfer transactions in the smart card dataset, estimate bus headways without the aid of geographic location information, estimate three components of the total transfer time (walking time, waiting time, and delay time), and isolate high-priority transfer pairs. The paper uses smart card data from Nanjing, China as a case study. The results isolate eight high priority metro-bus transfer pairs in the Nanjing metro system and finally, offers several targeted measures to improve transfer efficiency.