Social inclusivity through public transportation: a strategic approach to improve quality of life in developing countries

Welfare services such as healthcare and education are commonly recognised as determinants of physical quality of life indices during the early phases of development in the third world. In order to benefit from these services, it is important that the general public have the mobility means to access welfare provision centres. However, very low vehicle ownership under the conditions of low per‐capita incomes and large shares of population living in deep rural areas prevent the masses from accessing such services, thereby retarding the process of social development, which is reflected in the very poor physical quality of life indices in low‐income countries. Public transportation could offer a viable and affordable solution to this apparent ambivalence. It could permit mobility for poor masses in spite of low per‐capita vehicle ownership enabled by the national income levels. The present research demonstrates this strategic niche through an econometric examination of the evolution of the physical quality of life indices such as maternal mortality, infant mortality and literacy as against the healthcare, education and affordable mobility proxies in post‐independent Sri Lanka. The country, which was then referred to as Ceylon, is often cited as a rare example of achieving social inclusion and reduced marginalisation and thereby a high social welfare standing, in spite of relatively poor per‐capita income levels. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Co-operation and competition in international container transport: strategies for ports

This paper focuses on the response of port authorities to the changing market environment in which they operate. It documents the changes taking place in the relationships between port authorities and terminal management companies and considers the strategic issues faced by these groups and other port interests. In particular, it investigates the potential conflicts of interest for a port authority in matters related to the level of competition amongst terminals within a port and the amount of competition amongst ports.     

Low temperature premixed combustion within a small bore high speed direct injection (HSDI) optically accessible diesel engine using a retarded single injection

An optically accessible single-cylinder high speed direct-injection (HSDI) Diesel engine equipped with a Bosch common rail injection system was used to study low temperature Modulated Kinetics (MK) combustion with a retarded single main injection. High-speed liquid fuel Mie-scattering was employed to investigate the liquid distribution and evolution. By carefully setting up the optics, three-dimensional images of fuel spray were obtained from both the bottom of the piston and the side window. The NOx emissions were measured in the exhaust pipe. The influence of injection pressure and injection timing on liquid fuel evolution and combustion characteristics was studied under similar fuel quantities. Interesting spray development was seen from the side window images. Liquid impingement was found for all of the cases due to the small diameter of the piston bowl. The liquid fuel tip hits the bowl wall obliquely and spreads as a wall jet in the radial direction of the spray. Due to the bowl geometry, the fuel film moves back into the central part of the bowl, which enhances the air-fuel mixing process and prepares a more homogeneous air-fuel mixture. Stronger impingement was seen for high injection pressures. Injection timing had little effect on fuel impingement. No liquid fuel was seen before ignition, indicating premixed combustion for all the cases. High-speed combustion video was taken using the same frame rate. Ignition was seen to occur on or near the bowl wall in the vicinity of the spray tip, with the ignition delay being noticeably longer for lower injection pressure and later injection timing. The majority of the flame was confined to the bowl region throughout the combustion event. A more homogeneous and weaker flame was observed for higher injection pressures and later injection timing. The combustion structure also proves the mixing enhancement effect of the liquid fuel impingement. The results show that ultra-low sooting combustion is feasible in an HSDI diesel engine with a higher injection pressure, a higher EGR rate, or later injection timing, with little penalty on power output. It was also found that injection timing has more influence on HCCI-like combustion using a single main injection than the other two factors studied. Compared with the base cases, simultaneous reductions of soot and NOx were obtained by increasing EGR rate and retarding injection timing. By increasing injection pressure, NOx emissions were increased due to leaner and faster combustion with better air-fuel mixing. However, smoke emissions were significantly reduced with increased injection pressure.     

潮湿路面滑水现象及抗滑力模型

滑水及抗滑力的衰减是潮湿条件下影响道路及机场跑道交通安全的两个重要因素。模拟潮湿路面抗滑力是一个相对复杂的问题。笔者采用理论研究方法,提出了一个分析计算模型,用来模拟车轮滑移速度增加时,潮湿路面的滑水现象及抗滑力的衰减情况。该理论公式及三维有限元模型的理论基础是固体力学及流体动力学。通过NASA滑水速度方程,对模型计算的滑水速度进行分析验证。     

Forecasting bus ridership using a “Blended Approach”

Transportation - As sources of “Big Data” continue to grow, transportation planners and researchers seek to utilize these new resources. Given the current dependency on traditional...     

Happy today,satisfied tomorrow: emotion—satisfaction dynamics in a multi-week transit user smartphone survey

Transportation - Travel well-being encompasses three dimensions: cognitive satisfaction judgments, positive emotions, and negative emotions. Most previous literature on transit users focused either...     

顶湖—仙渡345 kV地下输电线路工程设计与施工

因都会区用电量增加,且为减低输电线路对市区景观及环境冲击,台电公司于台北市北投区大度路旁兴建地下电缆洞道,由顶湖超高压变电所引入345 kV二回线至仙渡超高压变电所。采用潜盾工法以降低交通及环境冲击的问题,因施工遭遇软硬不同土层及高水压影响,且穿越捷运淡水线关渡隧道下方,紧邻大度陆桥,因此在设计上采用大洞道方案、2道止水条、发进井调整位置及角度等方案,以降低施工对于附近结构物之冲击。     

橡胶沥青的输送和计量

橡胶沥青作为道路工程中的高温、高粘度介质,想要成功地将其泵送可能并不容易,而进行橡胶沥青的计量则更具挑战性。由于胶粉的磨蚀性,使用机械式的齿轮流量计已被证明是不可靠的。因为随着时间的推移,胶粉对齿轮的磨损会造成啮合齿轮打滑,由此造成的测量误差会超过精度许可范围。     

Dynamic user equilibrium with side constraints for a traffic network: Theoretical development and numerical solution algorithm

This paper investigates a traffic volume control scheme for a dynamic traffic network model which aims to ensure that traffic volumes on specified links do not exceed preferred levels. The problem is formulated as a dynamic user equilibrium problem with side constraints (DUE-SC) in which the side constraints represent the restrictions on the traffic volumes. Travelers choose their departure times and routes to minimize their generalized travel costs, which include early/late arrival penalties. An infinite-dimensional variational inequality (VI) is formulated to model the DUE-SC. Based on this VI formulation, we establish an existence result for the DUE-SC by showing that the VI admits at least one solution. To analyze the necessary condition for the DUE-SC, we restate the VI as an equivalent optimal control problem. The Lagrange multipliers associated with the side constraints as derived from the optimality condition of the DUE-SC provide the traffic volume control scheme. The control scheme can be interpreted as additional travel delays (either tolls or access delays) imposed upon drivers for using the controlled links. This additional delay term derived from the Lagrange multiplier is compared with its counterpart in a static user equilibrium assignment model. If the side constraint is chosen as the storage capacity of a link, the additional delay can be viewed as the effort needed to prevent the link from spillback. Under this circumstance, it is found that the flow is incompressible when the link traffic volume is equal to its storage capacity. An algorithm based on Euler’s discretization scheme and nonlinear programming is proposed to solve the DUE-SC. Numerical examples are presented to illustrate the mechanism of the proposed traffic volume control scheme.