Modeling the spatial and temporal dimensions of recreational activity participation with a focus on physical activities

This study presents a unified framework to understand the weekday recreational activity participation time-use of adults, with an emphasis on the time expended in physically active recreation pursuits by location and by time-of-day. Such an analysis is important for a better understanding of how individuals incorporate physical activity into their daily activities on a typical weekday, and can inform the development of effective policy interventions to facilitate physical activity. Furthermore, such a study of participation and time use in recreational activity episodes contributes to activity-based travel demand modeling, since recreational activity participation comprises a substantial share of individuals’ total non-work activity participation. The methodology employed here is the multiple discrete continuous extreme value (MDCEV) model, which provides a unified framework to explicitly and endogenously examine time use by type, location, and timing. The data for the empirical analysis is drawn from the 2000 Bay Area Travel Survey (BATS), supplemented with other secondary sources that provide information on physical environment variables. To our knowledge, this is the first study to jointly address the issues of ‘where’, ‘when’ and ‘how much’ individuals choose to participate in ‘what type of (recreational) activity’.     

Advances in population synthesis: fitting many attributes per agent and fitting to household and person margins simultaneously

Agent-based microsimulation models of transportation, land use or other socioeconomic processes require an initial synthetic population derived from census data, conventionally created using the iterative proportional fitting (IPF) procedure. This paper introduces a novel computational method that allows the synthesis of many more attributes and finer attribute categories than previous approaches, both of which are long-standing limitations discussed in the literature. Additionally, a new approach is used to fit household and person zonal attribute distributions simultaneously. This technique was first adopted to address limitations specific to Canadian census data, but could also be useful in U.S. and other applications. The results of each new method are evaluated empirically in terms of goodness-of-fit.     

基于GIS和BIM的航电枢纽施工动态可视化信息管理

针对在航电枢纽工程施工管理中场景可视化模拟的不足,提出航电枢纽工程信息化模型概念,并基于GIS、3 ds Max和数据库技术,建立航电枢纽工程信息化模型构建方法,实现航电枢纽全要素在全生命周期的动态可视化模拟;基于BIM 4D工程动态管理思想,提出航电枢纽施工动态可视化信息管理方法。基于依兰航电枢纽工程资料,利用GIS组件式二次开发,研发依兰航电枢纽施工动态可视化信息管理系统,验证了本文提出的施工动态可视化信息管理方法的可行性,推动水利行业现代化、信息化和规范化的进程。     

Projecting travelers into a world of self-driving vehicles: estimating travel behavior implications via a naturalistic experiment

Automated driving technologies are currently penetrating the market, and the coming fully autonomous cars will have far-reaching, yet largely unknown, implications. A critical unknown is the impact on traveler behavior, which in turn impacts sustainability, the economy, and wellbeing. Most behavioral studies, to date, either focus on safety and human factors (driving simulators; test beds), assume travel behavior implications (microsimulators; network analysis), or ask about hypothetical scenarios that are unfamiliar to the subjects (stated preference studies). Here we present a different approach, which is to use a naturalistic experiment to project people into a world of self-driving cars. We mimic potential life with a privately-owned self-driving vehicle by providing 60 h of free chauffeur service for each participating household for use within a 7-day period. We seek to understand the changes in travel behavior as the subjects adjust their travel and activities during the chauffeur week when, as in a self-driving vehicle, they are explicitly relieved of the driving task. In this first pilot application, our sample consisted of 13 subjects from the San Francisco Bay area, drawn from three cohorts: millennials, families, and retirees. We tracked each subject’s travel for 3 weeks (the chauffeur week, 1 week before and 1 week after) and conducted surveys and interviews. During the chauffeur week, we observed sizable increases in vehicle-miles traveled and number of trips, with a more pronounced increase in trips made in the evening and for longer distances and a substantial proportion of “zero-occupancy” vehicle-miles traveled.     

Galvanic interactions of HE15 /MDN138 & HE15 /MDN250 alloys in natural seawater

HE15 is a heat treatable high strength alloy with excellent machinability find wide applications in aerospace and defence industries. In view of their excellent mechanical properties, workability, machinability, heat treatment characteristics and good resistance to general and stress corrosion cracking, MDN138 & MDN250 have been widely used in petrochemical, nuclear and aerospace industries. The galvanic corrosion behaviour of the metal combinations HE15 /MDN138 and HE15 /MDN250, with 1:1 area ratio, has been studied in natural seawater using the open well facility of CECRI’s Offshore Platform at Tuticorin for a year. The open circuit potentials of MDN138, MDN250 and HE15 of the individual metal, the galvanic potential and galvanic current of the couples HE15 /MDN138 and HE15 /MDN250 were periodically monitored throughout the study period. The calcareous deposits on MDN138 and MDN250 in galvanic contact with HE15 were analyzed using XRD. The electrochemical behaviors of MDN138, MDN250 and HE15 in seawater have been studied using an electrochemical work station. The surface characteristics of MDN138 and MDN250 in galvanic contact with HE15 have been examined with scanning electron microscope. The results of the study reveal that HE15 offered required amount of protection to MDN138 & MDN250.     

Interference resistance of pentamaran ship model with asymmetric outrigger configurations

An experimental investigation is performed to assess the relation of interference performance on the total resistance of a pentamaran model advancing in calm water. For this motivation, the total drag of the ship is performed for several values of asymmetric outrigger configuration and hull separation, altering the Froude number in the range 0.3–0.9. Our results indicate that remarkable changes in resistance require notable changes in transverse distance values (hull separation) when wave interference may occur. In addition, there is no single configuration that consistently outperforms the other configurations across the entire speed range and the optimum interference factor ?0.2 appears at a Froude number of 0.45 in S/L=0.33 with the outrigger outer position: asymmetric outboard for A3 configuration.     

Resistance analysis of a semi-SWATH design concept in shallow water

Resistance analysis is an important analytical method used to evaluate the hydrodynamic performance of High Speed Craft (HSC). Analysis of multihull resistance in shallow water is essential to the performance evaluation of any type of HSC. Ships operating in shallow water experience increases in resistance because of changes in pressure distribution and wave pattern. In this paper, the shallow water performance of an HSC design concept, the semi-Small Waterplane Area Twin Hull (semi-SWATH) form, is studied. The hull is installed with fin stabilizers to reduce dynamic motion effects, and the resistance components of the hull, hull trim condition, and maximum wave amplitude around the hull are determined via calm water resistance tests in shallow water. These criteria are important in analyzing semi-SWATH resistance in shallow water and its relation to flow around hull. The fore fin angle is fixed to zero degrees, while the aft fin angle is varied to 0°, 5°, 10°, and 15°. For each configuration, investigations are conducted with depth Froude numbers (Fr _H ) ranging from 0.65 to 1.2, and the resistance tests are performed in shallow water at the towing tank of UTM. Analysis results indicate that the resistance, wave pattern, and trim of the semi-SWATH hull form are affected by the fin angle. The resistance is amplified whereas the trim and sinkage are reduced as the fin angle increases. Increases in fin angle contribute to seakeeping and stability but affect the hull resistance of HSCs.     

Trend analysis of activity generation attributes over time

Activity generation models are relatively poorly developed in activity-based travel demand modelling frameworks. This research investigates whether observed distributions of activity attributes (activity frequency, start time and duration) used as inputs in the activity generation component of an activity-based travel demand model have changed over time. This research empirically examines changes in the distributions of activity generation attributes over time in the Greater Montreal area (GMA), Quebec, Canada. It also focuses on how these attributes vary with peoples’ socio-demographic characteristics. This research relies on the 1998, 2003 and 2008 origin–destination (O–D) household travel surveys of the GMA. The comparative analysis at three time points in a 10-year period clearly reveals that distributions of activity attributes are significantly changing over time. Work and school activities show similar trends; frequency “1” has increased and frequency “2+” has decreased over time. The occurrence of shopping activity on weekdays is decreasing over time. Start time and duration distributions for each activity have also changed significantly over time. The research allows preparing activity attributes for the application of an activity-based model, TASHA, such that they reflect temporal changes in travel behaviour of the GMA.     

Estimating the trip generation impacts of autonomous vehicles on car travel in Victoria,Australia

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) potentially increase vehicle travel by reducing travel and parking costs and by providing improved mobility to those who are too young to drive or older people. The increase in vehicle travel could be generated by both trip diversion from other modes and entirely new trips. Existing studies however tend to overlook AVs’ impacts on entirely new trips. There is a need to develop a methodology for estimating possible impacts of AVs on entirely new trips across all age groups. This paper explores the impacts of AVs on car trips using a case study of Victoria, Australia. A new methodology for estimating entirely new trips associated with AVs is proposed by measuring gaps in travel need at different life stages. Results show that AVs would increase daily trips by 4.14% on average. The 76+ age group would have the largest increase of 18.5%, followed by the 18–24 age group and the 12–17 age group with 14.6 and 11.1% respectively. If car occupancy remains constant in AV scenarios, entirely new trips and trip diversions from public transport and active modes would lead to a 7.31% increase in car trips. However increases in car travel are substantially magnified by reduced car occupancy rates, a trend evidenced throughout the world. Car occupancy would need to increase by at least 5.3–7.3% to keep car trips unchanged in AV scenarios.     

About attitudes and perceptions: finding the proper way to consider latent variables in discrete choice models

We provide an in-depth theoretical discussion about the differences between individual-specific latent constructs (representing attitudes, for example, but also other characteristics such as values or personality traits) and alternative-specific latent constructs (that may represent perceptions) affecting the choice-making process of individuals; we also carry out an empirical exercise to analyze their effects. This discussion is of importance, as the majority of papers considering attitudinal latent variables just take these as attributes affecting directly the utility of a certain alternative, while systematic taste variations are rarely considered and perceptions are mostly ignored. The results of our case study show that perceptions may indeed affect the decision making process and that they are able to capture a significant part of the variability that is normally explained by alternative specific constants. Furthermore, our results indicate that attitudes may be a reason for systematic taste variations, and that a proper categorization of latent variables, in accordance with underlying theory, may outperform the customary assumption of linearity.