Port performance in Asia: Does production efficiency imply environmental efficiency?

Atmospheric and water pollution are two main sources of negative environmental externalities generated by shipping. This study recognizes the negative externalities in the production of port services in East Asia by explicitly incorporating environmental impacts of shipping. Programming techniques are used to analyze 156 Origin–Destination pairs between 13 major East Asian ports, to derive the externality-augmented measures of port productivity and efficiency at the waterside. The results suggest that the inclusion of externality mitigation strategies can exert a considerable influence on efficiency performance.     

Identification and quantification of link vulnerability in multi-level public transport networks: a passenger perspective

Robust public transport networks are important, since disruptions decrease the public transport accessibility of areas. Despite this importance, the full passenger impacts of public transport network vulnerability have not yet been considered in science and practice. We have developed a methodology to identify the most vulnerable links in the total, multi-level public transport network and to quantify the societal costs of link vulnerability for these identified links. Contrary to traditional single-level network approaches, we consider the integrated, total multi-level PT network in the identification and quantification of link vulnerability, including PT services on other network levels which remain available once a disturbance occurs. We also incorporate both exposure to large, non-recurrent disturbances and the impacts of these disturbances explicitly when identifying and quantifying link vulnerability. This results in complete and realistic insights into the negative accessibility impacts of disturbances. Our methodology is applied to a case study in the Netherlands, using a dataset containing 2.5 years of disturbance information. Our results show that especially crowded links of the light rail/metro network are vulnerable, due to the combination of relatively high disruption exposure and relatively high passenger flows. The proposed methodology allows quantification of robustness benefits of measures, in addition to the costs of these measures. Showing the value of robustness, our work can support and rationalize the decision-making process of public transport operators and authorities regarding the implementation of robustness measures.     

Modeling the bilateral micro‐searching behavior for urban taxi services using the absorbing markov chain approach

This paper develops a mathematical model that is based on the absorbing Markov chain approach to describe taxi movements, taking into account the stochastic searching processes of taxis in a network. The local searching behavior of taxis is specified by a logit form, and the O‐D demand of passengers is estimated as a logit model with a choice of taxi meeting point. The relationship between customer and taxi waiting times is modeled by a double‐ended queuing system. The problem is solved with a set of non‐linear equations, and some interesting results are presented. The research provides a novel and potentially useful formulation for describing the urban taxi services in a network.     

Construction Techniques for the Small-radius Curved Shield Tunnels in Water-rich Fractured Stratum with High Pressure北大核心CSCD

A variety of construction problems, such as bad cutting effects of cutters, unreasonable boring parame- ters and blowout, are often encountered during shield tunnelling under unfavorable geological conditions. Aimed at these construction difficulties of high pressure, abundant underground water, fractured rock stratum, long distance and small-radius curves of Fuzhou metro, the mechanical behaviors of cutting tools were analyzed through theoreti- cal calculations of cutter cutting force, then the reasonable cutter configuration, tunneling parameters and the proper time for cutter replacement were presented. Some measures, such as screw conveyor renovation, mucking control and lowering of groundwater, were adopted for controlling blowout based on practice. The stability of excavation face was analyzed by numerical simulation, and the measures for shield boring and posture control in the long distance and small radius curved tunnels were summarized. The conclusions are as follows: 1) when shield machine is driven in fractured stratum, the effect of lateral impact force produced by spalling rock on cutter will be very large and rein- forcement is needed for cutter; 2) cutter replacement should be taken at proper time based on muck samples in con- ditions of increasing of total shield thrust by 4 000-7 000 kN, cutter torque by 1 000-1 500 kN•m and driving speed smaller than 10 mm/min; 3) adopting screw conveyor device with innovative anti-blowout devices and control measures for ground precipitation and mucking, it controls blowout effectively; 4) the maximum axis offset and the height offset of segment meet the requirements of shield construction specifications during shield construction of long distance small-radius curved tunnel. © 2018, Editorial Office of "Modern Tunnelling Technology". All right reserved.     

Influence of Light Distribution and Installation Style of Luminaires on Power Consumption and Lighting Effect of Tunnel Lighting北大核心CSCD

Light distribution (LD) and installation style of luminaires affect the utilization factor (UF) of luminaires, and the UF affects the luminaire power and road pavement illuminance and further the power consumption of illu- minating system and the luminous effect of road pavement. An UF model of tunnel lighting was established based on the luminaire LD data and installation parameters, in which four LD styles were adopted. For each LD the parame- ters optimization and simulation were conducted regarding four installation styles, e.g. central style, offset-of-vault style, symmetric style and staggered style. The energy-saving and the lighting effects of each LD and luminaire in- stallation style at the tunnel middle zone were studied. The results show that symmetric luminaire installation is the most energy-saving style and has the best lighting effect than the other three luminaire installation styles; the lighting effect of central luminaire installation is the second best; staggered luminaire installation is the most energy-intensive style and has the worst lighting effect except for some special-shaped LD; waterdrop-shaped LD is the most suitable one along transverse direction of tunnel and applicable to the central, offset-of-vault and symmetric luminaire instal- lation styles; symmetric butterfly-shaped LD is the most suitable one along longitudinal direction of tunnel and appli- cable to the central, offset-of-vault, staggered and symmetric luminaire installation styles; with waterdrop-shaped LD along transverse direction and symmetric butterfly-shaped LD along longitudinal direction, they are suitable for the above four luminaire installation styles, and have better energy-saving and lighting effect; as for the LD with symmetric and oblique curve, it’s better for the profile of oblique luminaire distribution to be comply with that along tunnel transverse direction, and it is suitable for the symmetric and offset-of-vault luminaire installation styles. © 2018, Editorial Office of "Modern Tunnelling Technology". All right reserved.     

Temperature Measurements and Tail Brush Replacement using Frozen Liquid Nitrogen for the Nanjing Weisanlu Tunnel北大核心CSCD

A scheme for stopping water by freezing liquid nitrogen and replacing the tail brush is presented in light of the situation encountered at the Nanjing Weisanlu river-crossing tunnel, a long-distance shield driving tunnel characterized by serious water leakage, sand gushing and water inflow at the shield tail brush. The law of the tempera-ture change of the master outlet circuits and each branch circuit when using liquid nitrogen freezing to stop water un-der high water pressures and the temperature change law for the soil body at different depths are analyzed. The re-sults show that: the temperature difference of the liquid nitrogen is large at the inlet and outlet of the freezing pipe,and it reaches around 35℃ after 6 days; the temperature drops fastest in the pebble layer, and the second fastest in the gravel sand layer, with the temperature cooling slowest in the silty fine sand layer; the average velocities at the frontal surface of the frozen soil in the pebble layer, gravel sand layer and silty fine sand layer are 15.5 cm/d, 12.5 cm/d and 8.3 cm/d, respectively, within the range 600 mm away from the frozen pipe; and affected by heat and air convection in the tunnel, the temperature at the junction of the segment and soil is higher than that in the soil layer.A complete frozen wall takes shape after 13 days of liquid nitrogen freezing, and tail brush replacement takes 22 days from freezing. © 2018, Editorial Office of "Modern Tunnelling Technology". All right reserved.     

A copula-based joint multinomial discrete–continuous model of vehicle type choice and miles of travel

In this paper, a joint model of vehicle type choice and utilization is formulated and estimated on a data set of vehicles drawn from the 2000 San Francisco Bay Area Travel Survey. The joint discrete–continuous model system formulated in this study explicitly accounts for common unobserved factors that may affect the choice and utilization of a certain vehicle type (i.e., self-selection effects). A new copula-based methodology is adopted to facilitate model estimation without imposing restrictive distribution assumptions on the dependency structures between the errors in the discrete and continuous choice components. The copula-based methodology is found to provide statistically superior goodness-of-fit when compared with previous estimation approaches for joint discrete–continuous model systems. The model system, when applied to simulate the impacts of a doubling in fuel price, shows that individuals are more likely to shift vehicle type choices than vehicle usage patterns.

A traffic analysis zone definition: a new methodology and algorithm

This paper develops a comprehensive approach to the definition of transportation analysis zones (TAZ), and therein, presents a new methodology and algorithm for the definition of TAZ embedded in geographic information systems software, improves the base algorithm with several local algorithms, and comprehensively analyses the obtained results. The results obtained are then compared to these presently used in the transportation analysis process of the Lisbon Metropolitan Area. The proposed algorithm presents a new methodology for TAZ design based on a smoothed density surface of geocoded travel demand data. The algorithm aims to minimise the loss of information when moving from a continuous representation of the origin and destination of each trip to their discrete representations through zones, and focuses on the trade-off between the statistical precision, geographical error, and the percentage of intra-zonal trips of the resulting OD matrix. The results for the Lisbon Metropolitan Area case study suggest a significant improvement in OD matrix estimates compared to current transportation analysis practises based on administrative units.

My way or the highway? Framing transportation planners’ attitudes in negotiating professional expertise and public insight

Transportation planning continues to expand beyond traditional engineering and economic performance measures toward a broader scope of impacts across space and society. However, the attitudes of transportation planners as they balance their expert knowledge against public insights are not well-understood. We test a two-dimensional attitudinal framework using survey data from 311 U.S. and Canadian transportation planners. We reveal four attitudinal categories using principal component analysis, and hypothesis testing shows significant differences in personal and institutional attributes across these categories. We discuss what our results mean for training and regulatory measures striving to influence planner attitudes before proposing future directions for research.