Financing public transport systems in Kuala Lumpur,Malaysia: challenges and prospects

Most major cities across the world today are facing an intractable challenge of financing public transport. In Kuala Lumpur for example, public transport services are somewhat poor in part because of the failure of major operators to secure ample funding. Previous funding programs implemented in the city have failed to produce a replicable model for financing public transport. Due to numerous financial problems and the dismal performance of privately owned transport firms, the State has in the recent past emerged as a key source of funding for the public transport sector in Kuala Lumpur. This article argues that, despite the insuperable challenges, prospects for the future funding of public transport in Kuala Lumpur appears to be good. The article also draws lessons from both Tokyo and Hong Kong. In order to address the funding deficit facing the public transport industry in the city it is crucial that more viable strategies and policies such as value capture and public–private sector partnerships are adopted by the urban authorities.

The effect of financial constraints on the optimal design of public transport services

Recent experience with the design of bus services in Santiago, Chile, seems to confirm Jansson's (1980) assertion regarding observed planned bus frequency and size being too low and too large, respectively. We offer an explanation based upon the relation between cost coverage, pricing and optimal design variables. We recall that average social cost decreases with patronage, which generates an optimal monetary fare below the average operators' cost, inducing an optimal subsidy. Then we compare optimal frequency and bus size—those that minimize total social costs—with those that minimize operators' costs only. We show that an active constraint on operators' expenses is equivalent to diminish the value of users' time in the optimal design problem. Inserting this property back in the optimal pricing scheme, we conclude that a self-financial constraint, if active, always provokes an inferior solution, a smaller frequency and, under some circumstances, larger than optimal buses.

Flexible spatial dependence structures for unordered multinomial choice models: formulation and application to teenagers’ activity participation

The current article proposes an approach to accommodate flexible spatial dependency structures in discrete choice models in general, and in unordered multinomial choice models in particular. The approach is applied to examine teenagers’ participation in social and recreational activity episodes, a subject of considerable interest in the transportation, sociology, psychology, and adolescence development fields. The sample for the analysis is drawn from the 2000 San Francisco Bay Area Travel Survey (BATS) as well as other supplementary data sources. The analysis considers the effects of a variety of built environment and demographic variables on teenagers’ activity behavior. In addition, spatial dependence effects (due to common unobserved residential neighborhood characteristics as well as diffusion/interaction effects) are accommodated. The variable effects indicate that parents’ physical activity participation constitutes the most important factor influencing teenagers’ physical activity participation levels, In addition, part-time student status, gender, and seasonal effects are also important determinants of teenagers’ social-recreational activity participation. The analysis also finds strong spatial correlation effects in teenagers’ activity participation behaviors.     

Modeling the effects of congestion on fuel economy for advanced power train vehicles

Fuel-speed curves (FSC) are used to account for the aggregate effects of congestion on fuel consumption in transportation scenario analysis. This paper presents plausible FSC for conventional internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles and for advanced vehicles such as hybrid electric vehicles, fully electric vehicles (EVs), and fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) using a fuel consumption model with transient driving schedules and a set of 145 hypothetical vehicles. The FSC shapes show that advanced power train vehicles are expected to maintain fuel economy (FE) in congestion better than ICE vehicles, and FE can even improve for EV and FCV in freeway congestion. In order to implement these FSC for long-range scenario modeling, a bounded approach is presented which uses a single congestion sensitivity parameter. The results in this paper will assist analysis of the roles that vehicle technology and congestion mitigation can play in reducing fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles.     

Behavior of taxi customers in hailing vacant taxis: a nested logit model for policy analysis

This study models and examines the taxi customers' preferences for hailing vacant taxis on streets. A stated preference survey was conducted to randomly select and interview 1242 taxi customers at taxi stands and pedestrians on streets, who had experiences of taking taxis recently, about their choices under different given hypothetical scenarios. In total, 4968 observations were collected and used for developing the discrete choice models for the analysis. To account for the potential correlations among alternatives, two nested logit models are developed, calibrated, and compared with a standard multinomial logit model in the investigation. The results of likelihood ratio test demonstrate that one of the developed nested logit models is better than the standard multinomial logit model to describe the search behavior of taxi customers. The model results also show that the walking time to and the waiting time at the location for hailing taxis, the extra travel time to the destination because of local circulation for finding a way from the pickup location heading to a passenger's destination, as well as the taxi customers' perceptions for walking to and waiting at taxi stands were found as significant factors to influence their decisions. In addition, the results of market segmentation analysis illustrate the variations in taxi‐search strategies of taxi customers in different districts and regions. Some policy implications on introducing more taxi stands and improving the utilization rates of taxi stands are also discussed. We believe that the proposed models, findings, and discussion are useful for developing micro‐simulation models to evaluate the performance of road traffic networks with taxi services and developing simulation‐based optimization models to answer policy questions related to taxi services. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

岷江下游中枯水碍航浅急滩段航道整治方案

山区冲积性河流滩槽明显,连续弯道间易形成中枯水期碍航的浅、急滩。针对此类滩段整治中简单疏浚可能引起水流归槽而恶化的问题,以岷江新开河滩段Ⅲ级航道工程为例,建立全长约10 km的河工定床模型,对研究河段的河床演变规律与碍航特征、工程前水流特性和航道整治设计方案及优化措施的效果等进行分析,归纳总结出中枯水碍航浅急滩的整治思路和方案。结果表明,方案实施后航道纵向流速在3.5 m/s以下、水面比降小于2.45‰,满足航道治理要求。     

Review of research on ship flow field measurement technology北大核心CSCD

通过对舰船周围流场信息进行精细化描述,即可从流动机理角度反馈舰船宏观水动力表现的内在本质,而优质的流场测试技术是保证流场精细化描述的必要手段。从舰船流场测试的工程需求出发,根据技术特点梳理现阶段舰船流场试验测试技术的发展现状、应用场景及特性问题,建议从硬件升级与技术融合、算法更迭与功能扩展、数据同化与机器学习等角度切入,以推动流场测试技术朝着综合性、专业化、高效化等方向快速发展。     

Numerical analysis of transient fluid-structure interaction of warship impact damage caused by underwater explosion using the FSLAB北大核心CSCD

［Objectives］This paper aims to address the numerical simulation problems of the dynamic response of ships subject to near-, medium- and far-field underwater explosions by establishing several numerical methods and calculation models. ［Methods］First, load and fluid-structure interaction models are established on the basis of the Eulerian finite element method and acoustic finite element method using the field-split technique, and FSLAB fluid-structure interaction software is developed. Next, near-, medium- and far-field underwater explosions are numerically simulated respectively. The shock wave propagation law, bubble shape and load evolution characteristics of near free-surface and near-wall underwater explosions are obtained, and the shock response characteristics of a spherical shell and ship subject to far-field underwater explosions are analyzed. Finally, the FSLAB software results are compared with the analytical solutions, reference solutions and experimental data. ［Results］The results show that the FSLAB fluid-structure interaction software developed in this paper is effective and accurate in simulating the impact damage of underwater explosions on warships. ［Conclusion］This study can provide a basis and support for the power assessment of underwater anti-explosion and shock design of warships. © 2022 Journal of Clinical Hepatology. All rights reserved.     

某富水断层隧道涌水治理方案优化分析及工程应用北大核心CSCD

以武九高速高楼山公路隧道为例,针对以断层破碎带为主控因素的隧道突水治理问题展开数值分析研究。基于FLAC 3D有限差分法及流固耦合分析原理,研究了导水洞排水、注浆堵水和排堵结合等不同治理方式对隧道涌水量及围岩稳定性的影响。结果表明:对于富水断层隧道发生A、B级别的大量涌水时,建议同时采取导水洞排水、注浆堵水的排堵结合措施,导水洞设置在近断层处,且与隧道相对距离为0.75(D+l),注浆圈厚度控制在7 m以内,注浆圈相对渗透系数比不超过10,既能降低涌水量,又能保证围岩的稳定性;对于C级涌水隧道,可采取注浆措施,注浆厚度不低于3 m,相对渗透系数不低于20;对于D级及以下涌水隧道,采取常规抽排水措施即可。