Time Gap Modeling under Mixed Traffic Condition: A Statistical Analysis

This paper attempts to model vehicular time gap, which is defined as the time interval between any two successive arrivals of vehicles at a reference point of measurement on a road segment. Such an approach is justified under the non-lane-based heterogeneous traffic conditions prevailing in developing countries such as India, characterized by many “zero” time gaps due to simultaneous arrivals within a given road width. In addition, time gap data are characterized by a significant amount of data in the tail region due to long headways. Nevertheless, many researchers of time gap modeling have used light-tailed distributions that modeled time gaps satisfactorily due to two reasons: (a) The tail data was merged into a single bin; and (b) goodness-of-fit tests such as the Chi-square test, which has many limitations, were used. Further, some researchers have suggested different distributions for the same range of traffic flows, leading to ambiguity in distribution selection. In addition, bin size, which dictates the degree of fit of any distribution, has been ascribed very less importance in time gap modeling. Hence, this paper tries to consolidate and standardize the existing research in time gap modeling research by addressing all these issues. Two new distributions, namely Generalized Pareto (GP) and Generalized Extreme Value (GEV) with better tail modeling properties, have been proposed along with other conventional distribution to model vehicular time gaps over a wide range of flow from 550 vph to 4,100 vph. Two types of goodness-of-fit tests, namely Area-based and Distance-based tests, have been used. It has been found from the study that GP distribution fits the time gap data well (overall and tails) up to a flow range of 1,500 vph based on both kinds of tests, and GEV fits the data well for the flow levels above 1,500 vph based on the area test only.     

The merits of accelerated depreciation for promoting investment in clean transport technologies: A simulation study in the Australian rail freight industry

This article ascertains the viability of promoting accelerated depreciation for newly acquired locomotives and other rolling stock as a means of encouraging technological investment in more efficient and environmentally friendly assets. The study uses a tax-adjusted asset replacement model to evaluate the merits of accelerated depreciation, and then compares the outcomes with alternative incentive schemes. It also examines what would occur if various schemes were used simultaneously.     

Redefining activity types: Who participates in which leisure activity?

This paper analyzes the activity choices of individuals and the links between socio-demographics, daily schedules and activity attributes using a new activity choice framework. Activities are first clustered into groups based on their salient attributes, such as duration, frequency, flexibility, planning times, and number of involved persons, rather than their functional types (work, leisure and household obligations), using a K-means cluster technique. This led to the creation of several new activity groups such as “long, temporally fixed, personally flexible activities”, “short and flexible activities”. These activity groups form the choice set for the mixed logit activity choice modeling structure developed for the leisure activities in the second part of the paper. The model results reveal the significant relationships between socio-demographics, temporal characteristics, and characteristics of the schedules on leisure activity choice. The results demonstrate how changing demographics and other activities in individuals’ schedules may affect the nature of the leisure activities and present the substitution and complimentary effects that these new activity groups have on one another.     

Analysis of the effectiveness of control measures to mitigate road dust emissions in a regional network

The effectiveness of control measures to reduce road dust emissions is analyzed using a year’s data of road dust emissions collected with a mobile sampling platform and a survey of road maintenance practices in the Lake Tahoe Basin of Nevada and California US. Attributes such as sweeping practices, anti-icing, shoulder improvement, pavement condition, trackout, and abrasive material from road segments were analyzed with a feature subset selection algorithm. Street sweeping was found to be an effective means of controlling dust emissions from roads. Road dust from dirty tertiary roads served as a continuous source of suspendable material for adjacent high-speed roads in the winter time. To be most effective, emission control strategies require that not only primary roads, but all roads be swept after snow storms to recover applied abrasive material.     

Delivering mobility as a service (MaaS) through a broker/aggregator business model

Transportation - Mobility as a service (MaaS) promises a bold new future where bundled public transport and shared mobility options (carsharing, ridesharing, bikesharing and microtransit) will...     

可持续交通——各方观点和长期挑战

从交通研究者和实践者的角度出发,以可持续交通这一概念为中心展开讨论。可持续交通宽泛地反映了可持续发展在交通领域的原则。随着可持续性这一概念的外延逐渐扩大,在它的定义、应用和价值取向上出现了不同观点。着重讨论可持续交通,以及如何理解和运用可持续交通,包括:1)将可持续性或者可持续发展作为一个整体的概念,包括关于可持续性的不同方法和定义之间的冲突;2)对可持续交通以及交通领域对其理解的探索;3)使用指标来实现可持续性的应用。然后识别了通往可持续交通之路的若干挑战,包括缺乏清晰定义、可持续性的固有冲突、可持续发展的跨领域本质、各种工作框架和指标体系、可持续发展的政治因素和交通领域实践中的不同观点。基于在该课题上的研究积累,总结解决这些问题的工作框架,提出因地制宜、注重结果、整体的方法来解决可持续交通中的挑战。     

基于计算机自动控制技术的多探头测深系统研制与改造

通过加装控制盒的方式,实现单探头测深仪与自动控制探头之间的流畅切换,将传统单探头测深仪改造成具有多探头功能的高效水下测量仪器系统,主要用于航道和码头基床等的水下扫测。利用该系统进行的码头基床扫测已经取得成功,可为同类测量设备的改造提供全新的思路。     

Influence of vehicle driving parameters on the noise caused by passenger cars in urban traffic

In this work, a sample of vehicles has been instrumented to measure of variables that influence vehicle noise emissions in Madrid. A circuit reproducing a normal travel pattern in large city is traveled by a fleet of vehicle models representing the fleets of cars in a European city. A sample of drivers covers the test track under different traffic conditions. Driving parameters and noise emitted have been recorded in each test and average values have been extracted. These data have been analyzed to define the noise emissions produced by a vehicle in real driving conditions and to identify the noisiest driving behaviors.     

Do parking requirements significantly increase the area dedicated to parking? A test of the effect of parking requirements values in Los Angeles County

Minimum parking requirements (MPRs) are the norm for urban and suburban development in the United States (Davidson et al., 2002). The justification for MPRs is that overflow parking will occupy nearby street or off-street parking. Shoup (1999a) and Willson (1995) provide cases where there is reason to believe that parking space requirements have forced parcel developers to place more parking than they would in the absence of parking requirements. However, to our knowledge the existing literature does not test the effect of parking minimums on the amount of lot space devoted to parking beyond a few case studies. This paper tests the hypothesis that MPRs bind for most land uses using data on suburban office, commercial, industrial and retail property sales from Los Angeles County using both direct and indirect approaches. Our indirect test of the effects of parking requirements is similar to the one used by Glaeser and Gyourko (2003). A simple theoretical model shows that the marginal value of additional parking to the sale price of a building should be equal to the cost of land plus the cost of parking construction. We estimate the marginal values of parking and lot area with spatial methods using a large data set from the Los Angeles area non-residential property sales and find that for most of the property types the marginal value of parking is significantly below that of the parcel area. In addition, we directly examine required and supplied parking and find that on average parking supplied is quite close to the required amount.     

Full Duplex Communications for Next Generation Cellular Networks: The Capacity Gain

Full duplex communication highly improves spectrum efficiency of a wireless communication link. However, when it is applied to a cellular network, the capacity gain from this technology remains unknown. The reason is that full duplex communication changes the aggregate interference experienced by each communication link in cellular networks. In this paper, the capacity gain from full duplex communication is studied for cellular networks of 4G and beyond, where the same frequency channel is adopted in each cell. A two-layer Poisson point process (PPP) is adopted to model the network topology, and stochastic geometry is employed to derive the coverage probability and the average capacity of typical link in a cellular network. On the basis of these derived parameters, the capacity gain from full duplex communication is determined. Numerical results reveal that without mutual interference cancellation (MIC), the capacity gain is small under various power levels; with perfect MIC at base stations, the capacity gain can exceed 60%; with imperfect MIC at base stations, the capacity gain decreases quickly even with a slight drop of MIC performance.