Attribute‐based perceptual mapping using discriminant analysis in a public sector passenger bus transport company: A case study

This study aims at evaluating the customer expectations in a public sector passenger transport company, a crucial sector in developing countries like India. A questionnaire containing 18 quality characteristics was administered to various customers of three bus depots of one division of a state road transport undertaking in South India. Attribute‐based perceptual mapping using discriminant analysis was done to position the three depots and to identify their strengths and weaknesses. The findings would help prioritize different parameters and also provide guidelines for managers to focus on and to improve. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Social Acceptability of Aquaculture Development in Coastal Areas: The Case of Two Greek Islands

This article examines the acceptance of aquaculture development by residents and visitors of two islands, Cephallonia and Ithaki, in the Ionian Sea, in western Greece. Aquaculture farms have been established recently in both islands, and processing and packaging units in Cephallonia, generating jobs for the local communities and land rents for the villages in the coastal areas near the fish cages. However, the farms and processing and packaging units entail certain negative impacts on the environment. This study reveals that aquaculture farms have found better acceptance in Ithaki, where aqua culture is a form of development suited to this remote, small, predominantly rural island. The degree of acceptability is higher for locals than for tourists, but also for islanders who do not live in the areas where the processing units are situated. Respondents who consider the pollution of the marine environment by the farms to be high, mostly locals and residents of the villages in the vicinity of the aquaculture infrastructure or the main cities in the islands, are more likely to express a negative attitude toward aquaculture and its further development.     

Analysis of thirty years evolution of urban growth,transport demand and supply,energy consumption,greenhouse and pollutants emissions in Greater Cairo

The objective of the paper is to analyze evolution of urbanization, transport demand and supply in Greater Cairo (GC) over the last three decades of the 20th century. This is in addition to investigating the impact of city growth on energy consumption and emissions from transport. It utilizes results of 1971, 1978, 1987, 1998 and 2001 travel demand surveys, undertaken during the corresponding GC transport studies; each was published a year or two later. No further transport studies have been carried out in GC over the past decade and in view of the current political situation, it is not envisaged that similar studies will be undertaken in the near future. The analysis includes the evolution of daily trips, trip purpose share, modal share and number of cars. More recent trends for 2006/2007 vehicle registration by type and size are given. The evolution of transport supply covers projects until early 2012. In parallel estimates of the evolution of energy consumption and cost, emissions of greenhouse gases (CO₂) and pollutants (CO, HC and NO_x) are given for 1971/2001. The adopted estimation methodology is summarized. Comparative analysis of relevant evolution indexes and trends of growth between 1971 and 2001, taking the former as base year, is given. Land use and transport policies and projects that in some cases helped, directly or indirectly, to reduce traffic congestion, or at least prevented an increase, are addressed, commenting on their outcomes. Thus, transferable experience are useful to sister cities benefiting from successes and avoiding drawbacks. The evolution of the impact of GC metro on energy consumption and cost, and GHG emissions is given for 1987/2001, assuming the scenario “metro did not exist”. More recent impact analysis is given for 2007/2008, as the data allowed estimating traffic volumes that would have been added to the congested metro corridors under the above scenario; and the related fuel consumption and cost and GHGs. The paper ends with conclusions on GC evolution, learned lessons and suggests repeating similar work in other mega cities of the developing countries. Further research is emphasized, e.g., modeling the relationship between land use, transport, energy and emissions; modeling emission factors by vehicle type; and studying fuel-subsidy-reduction scenarios and their socio-economic effects.     

Characteristics of household activity and travel patterns in the Mumbai metropolitan region

Activity-based modelling approaches require a typical survey instrument which can collect the finer details of activities of each individual over both time and space. This paper focuses on the design of a new survey instrument called an activity-travel diary; examines its method of administration; and analyses activity-travel behaviour in the context of developing countries. The Mumbai Metropolitan Region in India is selected as the study area. With the aim of understanding the activities of each individual over a period of time, a pilot survey was conducted in a continuous time frame for a period of 15 days, followed by a main survey. The analysis of data collected by the instrument reveals some interesting facts regarding the relationships between socioeconomic attributes, activities and trip making behaviour. Identification of interactions among households and other members were also facilitated by the newly designed diary, which is not a well-versed topic for research in the context of a developing economy like Mumbai's.     

Transportation of dangerous goods by road: the Brazilian case for selection of carriers based on a risk management methodology

Abstract

This article applies a methodology for selecting carriers for the transportation of dangerous goods by road, with a special focus on risk management aspects. The methodology makes use of Stated Preference techniques and verifies the most critical risk-related variables influencing decision-making from the shippers' point of view. It embraces the planning and execution stages, an evaluation of the contracted company and a feedback process. The methodology was effectively applied to the case of liquid fuel shippers in the Brazilian middle-west region where it proved possible to identify which dangerous goods road transport company to contract in accordance with the risk management factors selected by the decision makers.     

Techniques for the inference of mileage rates from MOT data

Abstract

Mathematical and computational techniques are developed for the processing and analysis of annual Ministry of Transport roadworthiness (MOT) test data that the UK Department for Transport has placed in the public domain. First, techniques are given that clean erroneous records and a linking procedure is provided that permits the inference of an individual vehicle's mileage between consecutive tests. Methods are then developed that analyse aggregate mileage totals, as a function of vehicle age, class and geography. The inference of aggregate mileage rates as a function of time is then considered.     

Effect of number of wheels on high speed UGV traversability: Online terrain assessment approach

This paper addresses the problem of determining the maximum allowable speed (V _max ) of Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) traversing off-road heterogeneous rough/complex terrain. The maximum speed is calculated based on online terrain assessment and the vehicle’s characteristics; this speed achieves the high speed navigation without exceeding a predefined allowable range of transmitted force and moments (i.e., moments in the roll and pitch directions) to the vehicle’s frame. The proposed system enables UGV’s to change their speed autonomously and transit between terrains with different characteristics (e.g., pavement, rocky) safely. This paper proposes a computationally inexpensive approach to process acquired data and assess the terrain roughness. The proposed Roughness Index (RI) is used to represent the terrain roughness on a scale from 0.0 (highly rough to be traversed by a particular vehicle) to 1.0 (perfectly flat/smooth surface). A general vehicle model (workable for any vehicle size and wheel configuration) is presented in this paper. A closed form expression of the maximum allowable vehicle speed is developed. Simulation results obtained on real vehicles (e.g., military tank LEOPARD I) show the effect of increasing the number of wheels to improve the capability of a ground vehicle to traverse rough terrains at high speeds. In addition, the proposed terrain assessment system is a key module in UGVs navigation systems enabling them to be truly autonomous by providing the navigation system with the necessary information for path and speed planning.     

Development of a biology inspired manufacturing system for machining transmission cases

Disruptions in automated manufacturing systems for machining automotive parts caused by system changes and disturbances reduce the productivity, and increase the downtime as well as the cost of products. To cope with these challenges, the paper presents a biology inspired manufacturing system (Bio-MS). The model of Bio-MS is inherited from the organization of the living systems in biology and nature such as ant colony, school of fish, bee’s foraging behaviors, and so on. In which, the resources of the manufacturing system are considered as biological organisms, which are autonomous entities so that the manufacturing system has the advanced characteristics inspired from biology such as self-adaptation, self-diagnosis, and self-healing. To realize the Bio-MS, the cognitive agent and swarm intelligence were proposed. The disturbances happening when machining the transmission cases at an automotive company in Korea were analyzed to classify them and to find out the corresponding management methods. Currently, the system utilization was too low due to the manual recovery, only 70–76 percent of total production time is used for manufacturing and the rest of the time is wasted in different disturbances. The Bio-MS with autonomous behaviors adapts efficiently to the changes of the manufacturing environment. It enables to increase the system utilization more than 80 percent.     

Dynamic sensor zeroing algorithm of 6D IMU mounted on ground vehicles

The main focus of this paper is to compensate the steady state offset error of the 6D IMU which provides the measurements that include the vehicle linear accelerations and angular rates of all three axes. Additionally, the sensor compensation algorithm exploits the wheel speed data and the steering angle information, since they are already available in most of the modern mass production vehicles. These inputs are combined with the inverse vehicle kinematics to estimate the steady state offset error of each sensor inputs as it is done in a disturbance observer, and the raw sensor measurements are compensated by the estimated offset errors. The stability of the error dynamics regarding the integrated signal processing system is verified, and finally, the performance of the system is tested via experiments based on a real production SUV.     

Robust design optimization of suspension system considering steering pull reduction

This paper presents robust design optimization method to reduce steering pull phenomenon. One of the biggest causes of steering pull phenomenon is tolerance of suspension system such as hard point, spring, damper and bush. Therefore, the relationship between suspension systems and steering pull phenomenon has as nonlinear characteristics. But, it can be very difficult to evaluate the analytical design sensitivity. Thus, it is impossible to directly apply a well-developed optimization algorithm based on gradient information. To avoid these difficulty, this study uses sequential approximation optimization process based on a meta-model. The robust design process has 28 random design variables with tolerance. For efficient design process, the sample variances for the design goals are approximated from meta-models. The proposed approach required only 62 evaluations until it converged. Optimal design reduced the drift by 80% and its deviation by 38.7%, respectively. This result proves that the suggested design method of suspension system is effective and useful.