The design of environmentally aware travel diaries

Any policy addressing the concerns and trends associated with the impact of travel on the environment should be based on a solid understanding of the activities giving rise to them. While the measurement of the total environment loads by air or noise measurement stations is essential, it needs to be matched by the observation of the human behaviours creating them. This is especially true in the transport sector, which has been rightly or wrongly identified as having the potential to make a substantial contribution to the reduction of air and noise pollution. While the contribution of freight transport is of growing concern and importance, this paper focuses on the measurement of passenger transport throughout.

In the past transport planners have largely relied on the travel diary as their prime instrument to measure traveller behaviour. The travel diary is a survey instrument designed to record all movements during the course of one or more days including their relevant details. It is complemented by spearate household and personal forms for recording general information. In the following paper the term travel diary implies all three elements (the diary, the person form and the household form).

The remainder of the paper discusses to what extent and how the travel diary can be used to capture data for the assessment of policies directed at reducing the impact of transport on the social and natural environment. The requirements of a travel diary and the potential uses of new technologies in realising such a travel diary are then presented. A brief outlook on the possibilities of reasling such a diary concludes the paper.     

The effects of regulatory reform on the US inter‐city bus industry

Transport regulation in the USA has undergone radical reforms over the past decade. This paper looks specifically at the comparatively neglected topic of the 1982 Bus Regulatory Reform Act which liberalized the regulations governing US inter‐city bus transport.

The Act represented a significant reform of the 1935 legislation which had formed the basis of regulation for nearly fifty years. It liberalized entry and fare controls and gave power to the Interstate Commerce Commission to override State decisions. The paper details the changes, examines their rationale and assesses the impact they have exerted on the US inter‐urban bus industry. The general conclusion is that overall the Act has been beneficial in improving the economic efficiency of carriers although some minor reservations must be retained regarding its adverse effects on smaller towns and rural areas.     

Lessons from bankruptcy of Hanjin Shipping Company in chartering

This paper aims to analyze the charter contract management of major container shipping companies in response to fluctuations in shipping market conditions in terms of contract duration using data of containerships between 2010 and 2016. Duration analysis was conducted to examine the relationship between charter duration and shipping market conditions. Moreover, this paper explores the causes of Hanjin Shipping Company’s bankruptcy, drawing managerial implications. Test results from Cox PH (Proportional Hazard) model show that most container shipping companies in Europe having net earnings purchased large vessels instead of chartering vessels, while some ocean carriers featuring poor financial performance, in particular the Hanjin Shipping Company, chartered bigger ships with higher charter rates and longer duration. Contract charter rates and duration of Hanjin Shipping Company featured greater risk compared to competitors.     

Haptic interface for intuitive teleoperation of wheeled and tracked vehicles

In this paper, a novel haptic interface is proposed for general teleoperation of wheeled and tracked vehicles. The new mechanism of the proposed haptic interface, shown in Figure 1, not only allows human operators to easily teleoperate various types of target vehicles, including car-like vehicles, mobile robots, and tracked vehicles, but also improves the operator??s perception of the target vehicle??s operating status and its environment by introducing a ??cornering feel?? to the field of vehicle teleoperation. In addition, the proposed interface enables human operators to give commands to (or drive) the target vehicle in a way that is traditionally carried out by direct control or driving. Experiments were completed to carefully evaluate and test the performance of the proposed interface. The results show that the developed haptic master device is sufficient and suitable for general wheeled and tracked-vehicle teleoperation.     

Drowsy behavior detection based on driving information

Drowsy behavior is more likely to occur in sleep-deprived drivers. Individuals’ drowsy behavior detection technology should be developed to prevent drowsiness related crashes. Driving information such as acceleration, steering angle and velocity, and physiological signals of drivers such as electroencephalogram (EEG), and eye tracking are adopted in present drowsy behavior detection technologies. However, it is difficult to measure physiological signal, and eye tracking requires complex experiment equipment. As a result, driving information is adopted for drowsy driving detection. In order to achieve this purpose, driving experiment is performed for obtaining driving information through driving simulator. Moreover, this paper investigates effects of using different input parameter combinations, which is consisted of lateral acceleration, longitudinal acceleration, and steering angles with different time window sizes (i.e. 4 s, 10 s, 20 s, 30 s, 60 s), on drowsy driving detection using random forest algorithm. 20 s-size datasets using parameter combination of accelerations in lateral and longitudinal directions, compared to the other combination cases of driving information such as steering angles combined with lateral and longitudinal acceleration, steering angles only, longitudinal acceleration only, and lateral acceleration only, is considered the most effective information for drivers’ drowsy behavior detection. Moreover, comparing to ANN algorithm, RF algorithm performs better on processing complex input data for drowsy behavior detection. The results, which reveal high accuracy 84.8 % on drowsy driving behavior detection, can be applied on condition of operating real vehicles.     

The international legal instruments in addressing piracy and maritime terrorism: A critical review

This paper critically reviews four international legal instruments in addressing piracy and maritime terrorism - UNCLOS, SUA, PSI and the ISPS Code. Piracy on high seas is currently becoming key tactics of terrorist groups - many of today's pirates are also terrorists with ideological bents and a broad political agenda. The intertwining of piracy and maritime terrorism poses substantial risks for global markets, understanding that much of the world's energy and cargoes being shipped through pirate-infested regions like Southeast Asia. Through investigating the contributions and limitations of the stated instruments, several constructive recommendations are offered to improve their effectiveness in controlling and deterring piracy and maritime terrorism from threatening the well-being of the maritime industries in the post-2008 world.     

Warning standards study of real-time monitoring for anti-collapse in large cross-sefction tunnel of soft and weak surrounding rockEI北大核心

Research purposes: The statistics for tunnel disasters showed that the quantities and casualties of tunnel collapse are much higher than other tunnel disasters. Achieved warning before collapse in tunnel construction, can greatly reduce the tunnel collapse hazards. The key to achieve anti-collapse warning in soft and weak surrounding rock tunnel is to obtain anti-collapse warning standards. Therefore, it is necessary to study tunnel anti-collapse warning standards to guide safe tunnel construction. Research conclusions: (1) Deformation of the tunnel is relevant to hydrogeological conditions, construction method, construction progress and other factors. Currently, the standard values in criterion were not suitable for tunnel collapse warning. (2) It is practicable to achieve anti-collapse monitoring by relative deformation, because anti-collapse real-time monitoring focused on dome relative deformation differently from routine monitoring in soft and weak surrounding rock tunnel. (3) The reference value of tunnel anti-collapse real-time monitoring is determined by displacement limit value in criterion, the maximum value of the measured displacement in similar project and the measured data in tunnel project. (4) The field experiment indicated that the reference value could meet tunnel anti-collapse warning. Therefore, the research results can be applied to large cross-section tunnel of soft and weak surrounding rock.     

Travellers’ perceptions of travel time reliability in the presence of rare events

Transportation - Travellers account for variability in transport system performance when they make choices about routes, modes and destinations. Modellers try to quantify travel time reliability...     

A methodological framework for a priori selection of travel demand management package using fuzzy MCDM methods

Transportation - A robust and scientific selection of appropriate Travel Demand Management (TDM) measures is likely to ensure that the purpose of their implementation is met. The existing methods...     

极端复杂地质条件下TBM隧道施工关键技术研究及应用北大核心CSCD

大瑞铁路高黎贡山隧道、引汉济渭秦岭隧洞、滇中引水香炉山隧洞等工程的相继开工建设,使富水破碎极软地层带来的TBM卡机、高地应力极硬岩地层带来的岩爆等TBM施工问题日益凸显。文章首先对比阐述了国内TBM隧道工程建设过程中常遇到的软弱破碎、极硬花岗岩等典型不良地质及其对TBM掘进所带来的影响,在总结分析辽西北供水、引松供水、引洮供水等工程建设过程中出现的隧道局部塌方、TBM卡机等案例及其影响因素的基础上,以极端复杂地质条件TBM掘进关键技术为对象进行了系统研究论述,结果表明:(1)超前地质预报技术是TBM施工应对极端复杂地质的重要手段,但目前尚无法对前方中远距离地质状况进行准确量化预测;基于微震监测分析结果,根据可能发生的轻微、中等、强烈等不同等级的岩爆,制定对应处置措施;节理发育、炭质板岩、断层破碎带等不同软弱破碎地层,应采取针对性的防卡机措施,同时可根据不良地质段的长度来选择合适的脱困方案;(2)TBM推力、推进速度、刀盘转速及扭矩等掘进参数的异常波动,是表征掌子面前方地质条件状态的重要指标,TBM掘进前,根据前期预判的全断面硬岩、软弱破碎等围岩条件,分别选择合适的掘进参数;TBM掘进过程中,应基于掘进参数异常变化,纠正地质条件预判并采取对应的调控措施,进而确保TBM处于最佳掘进状态;(3)针对既有TBM难以适应现有地质条件的情况,以引洮供水隧洞、引红济石隧洞、引汉济渭隧洞等工程为例,对TBM改造技术进行了分析论述。最后,针对极端复杂地质条件下的TBM隧道工程建设新问题及其应对措施进行了展望与探讨。