The role of accessibility in basic transportation choice behavior

Accessibility measures reflect the level of service provided by transportation systems to various locations. Basic transportation choice behavior is defined to include those decisions of how many automobiles to own and how many trips to which destinations to make by automobile and by public transit. Here, these decisions are assumed to be made jointly by urban households and are conditional upon residential location decisions. It is the purpose of this paper to explore the role of accessibility as a causal factor in such basic transportation choice behavior.An economic utility theory model of choice behavior is postulated in which the benefits from making trips to specific destinations are reflected by measures of destination attraction. Through determination of utility-maximizing trip frequencies, indirect utility functions are developed which include accessibility concepts. Behavioral implications of these concepts are proposed and contrasts are drawn to accessibility measures used in conventional segregated models of trip distribution, modal choice, and automobile ownership.Sensitivity analyses of alternative empirical definitions of accessibility in the choice model are conducted using data from the Detroit Regional Transportation and Land Use Study — covering counties in southeastern Michigan. These analyses employ a multinomial logit estimation technique and focus on definitions of trip attraction. Results of these analyses indicate that more complicated attraction measures can be replaced by measures involving the proportion of either urban area population or urban area employment within a traffic analysis zone. Also, evidence is found that decision-makers in the case study area consider trips of up to 60 or even 90 minutes duration when evaluating accessibilities offered by alternative public and private transportation systems.     

Container ship turnaround times at UK ports

This paper looks at the relationships between ship size, handling rate and ship berth time for five major ports in the United Kingdom. The results show that there is no simple linear relationship between these variables. The causes and implications of this are discussed.     

Optimal Performance of Variable Component Suspensions

Most vehicle suspension systems use fixed passive components that offer a compromise in performance between sprung mass isolation, suspension travel, and tireroad contact force. Recently, systems with discretely adjustable dampers and air springs been added to production vehicles. Active and semi-active damping concepts for vehicle suspensions have also been studied theoretically and with physical prototypes. This paper examines the optimal performance comparisons of variable component suspensions, including active damping and full-state feedback, for “quartercar” heave models. Two and three dimensional optimizations are computed using performance indicators to find the component parameters (control gains) that provide “optimal” performance for statistically described roadway inputs. The effects of performance weighting and feedback configuration are examined. Active damping is shown to be mainly important for vehicle isolation. A passive vehicle suspension can control suspension travel and tire contact force nearly as well as a full state feedback control strategy.     

「台湾桃园国际机场联外捷运系统建设计划」地下工程的设计与施工

介绍「台湾桃园国际机场联外捷运系统建设计划」中机场区段地下工程的设计成果,并探讨施工时将面临的主要工程问题如,潜盾隧道穿越营运中的机场滑行道下方需考虑对其进行保护、隧道遭遇既有地锚的处理方式,及明挖覆盖隧道或车站于卵砾石层进行开挖,临时挡土措施及潜盾隧道的掘进作业,需考虑卵砾石大粒径与高硬度的特性等等设计考虑.现有数据显示,透过适当的机具改良、辅助工法的应用及良好的施工管理,即使是在高地下水压的卵砾石层,施作地下连续壁及以潜盾机施作隧道并无太大困难,且施工引致的地表沉陷及施工精度亦可获得良好的控制.     

Evaluation of emergency braking deceleration for accident reconstruction

Tire-road coefficient of friction is often used to estimate stopping distances and other aspects of accident reconstruction. The actual value that must be used in the calculations is often obtained from published data and sometimes measured on-site. While it depends mainly on tires, road surface, ambient conditions and speed, the effective stopping capability of a vehicle is influenced also by other parameters (car, driver, ABS, etc.). This paper presents a methodology that, exploiting data obtained with on-site measurements and/or published by technical press, allows the evaluation of the coefficient of friction and the stopping capability of a car. This is done by means of a computer program, based on a fuzzy logic approach.     

Analysis of characteristics of foreign unmanned surface vehicle swarm combat application and proposed countermeasures北大核心CSCD

无人船(USV)集群作为未来海上军事运用的重要组成力量,是各国海上无人装备的重要发展方向。首先,通过梳理总结当前国外无人船集群发展战略规划与运用现状,对无人船集群作战关键技术进行归纳分析,从集群自组网通信、战场态势感知、集群协同任务分配等3个方面剖析无人船集群相关技术的研究进展;然后,对无人船集群在军事上运用的典型样式和主要效益进行分析及研判;最后,总结分析当前应对无人船集群的难点,并对无人船集群应对的技术发展予以展望。     

Bridging the gap between evacuations and the sharing economy

Transportation - This paper examines the opportunities for addressing evacuations by leveraging the sharing economy. To support this research, we use a mixed-method approach employing archival...     

Analyzing voter support for California’s local option sales taxes for transportation

Local and regional governments in the U.S. rely increasingly on voter-approved local option sales taxes (LOSTs) to fund transportation capital investments, maintenance, and operations. LOSTs typically present voters with lists of local transportation projects and programs to be funded by a ¼ to 1 percent sales tax increase. Most research on LOSTs are case studies, which make generalizations about LOSTs difficult. We conducted a comprehensive, multi-jurisdictional analysis of LOST measures in California, the U.S. state with the greatest number of LOST measures. We examined 76 LOST measures put to voters between 1976 and 2016 to assess factors associated with voter support. LOSTs in California are enacted by counties, which we examined in addition to smaller intra-county geographies using both regression models and case studies. We tested several explanatory variables for association with voter support including macroeconomic and political context, planned measure expenditures, voter characteristics, and spatial distribution of proposed projects. We found that funding dedicated to public transit and returned to local jurisdictions predicts support at the county level, and that LOSTs that create new taxes—as opposed to extending or renewing existing taxes—are less popular with voters, all else equal. Our analyses of sub-county geographies revealed that political party affiliation is the strongest predictor of local voter support for LOSTs and that voters living adjacent to funded projects tended to be more supportive of LOSTs.

     

雾环境下高速公路驾驶人跟驰行为研究

雾环境下驾驶人行车与正常天气相比,在低能见度下视觉参照物较少,驾驶人更倾向于跟驰行驶。为研究雾环境下高速公路驾驶人跟驰行为,以真实雾环境下实车试验方式,选择多条高速公路作为试验路段,以Smart Eye眼动仪获取车辆在雾环境下高速公路驾驶人视觉参数,包含驾驶人注视区域、注视角度、注视持续时间、瞳孔直径、扫视速度以及扫视幅度等,以归一化方法对驾驶人注视重心进行分析,研究不同能见度下驾驶人的跟驰需求,并通过对雾环境下上述视觉参数进行规律总结。对雾环境下驾驶人跟驰特性进行统计及分类,将跟驰行为划分为主动、半主动、半被动以及全被动跟驰;通过分析雾区低能见度下驾驶人跟驰行驶条件,引入多维偏好理论及后悔理论,进行驾驶人跟驰决策模型构建,并基于差分法对模型进行参数标定及验证。研究结果表明：驾驶人在1次跟驰动态过程中,正常车道保持时驾驶人扫视速度较低,而当处于车道调整时,驾驶人扫视速度存在较大波动,且平均扫视速度较高,低能见度下驾驶人注视点转移速度27.0 （°）·s^-1明显低于晴好天气的52.0 （°）·s^-1;驾驶人在跟驰过程中,能见度对驾驶人跟驰时的视觉特征有显著影响,通过跟驰模型构建可为后续雾环境下车辆跟驰前后车距及车速预测提供理论支撑。