Response-based analysis for Tension Leg Platform

The typical industry practice for Tension Leg Platform (TLP) design focuses on a conventional short-term design recipe, which assumes that an N-year design environment leads to an N-year response. In the response-based design method, the TLP is designed to withstand N-year responses rather than respond to N-year environmental conditions. In this paper, we present an overview and a general procedure for the response-based design method and use a case study to compare the critical TLP responses between the two methods. The results of our comparison show that the conventional short-term design method often contains an element of conservatism and that the response-based design method can reduce the design conditions and thereby achieve cost savings.     

Users’ perceptions and willingness to pay in interurban toll roads: identifying differences across regions from a nationwide survey in Spain

Users’ acceptability is considered one of the key drivers for the successful implementation of transport policy measures. This is especially crucial in the case of toll roads since they are financed through drivers’ contributions. Previous literature in this field has mainly focused on measuring users’ attitudes towards urban congestion pricing strategies. However limited research has been developed concerning interurban toll roads. Previous research shows that socioeconomic variables are not conclusive to explain users’ perceptions towards tolls. By contrast, other drivers such as regional differences seem to play a more important role, especially when charging conditions within the same nation greatly vary across regions. This paper analyzes regional differences in users’ attitudes within an asymmetrical distribution of the toll road network across regions. Based on a nationwide survey conducted to road users in interurban toll roads in Spain, we develop both a binomial logit and a censored regression (tobit) model to explore drivers’ perceptions and willingness to pay. The research concludes that users from regions with a more extensive tolled network generally show a more negative attitude towards charges, but not necessarily a lower willingness to pay. The paper also points out that an asymmetrical distribution of toll roads across regions may result in negative perceptions among those users perceiving to be unfairly treated when compared to citizens in other regions.     

An activity-based approach of investigating travel behaviour of older people

The paper presents the results of an investigation on daily activity-travel scheduling behaviour of older people by using an advanced econometric model and a household travel survey, collected in the National Capital Region (NCR) of Canada in 2011. The activity-travel scheduling model considers a dynamic time–space constrained scheduling process. The key contribution of the paper is to reveal daily activity-travel scheduling behaviour through a comprehensive econometric framework. The resulting empirical model reveals many behavioural details. These include the role that income plays in moderating out-of-home time expenditure choices of older people. Older people in the highest and lowest income categories tend to have lower variations in time expenditure choices than those in middle-income categories. Overall, the time expenditure choices become more stable with increasing age, indicating that longer activity durations and lower activity frequency become more prevalent with increasing age. Daily activity type and location choices reveal a clear random utility-maximizing rational behaviour of older people. It is clear that increasing spatial accessibility to various activity locations is a crucial factor in defining daily out-of-home activity participation of older people. It is also clear that the diversity of out-of-home activity type choices reduces with increasing age and older people are more sensitive to auto travel time than to transit or non-motorized travel time.     

Bicycle mode share in China: a city-level analysis of long term trends

In the past 15 years, cities in China have experienced big changes in socioeconomic and traffic conditions, resulting in a long term change in bicycle use. This study aims to quantify the changes in bicycle mode share in Chinese cities and explore the potential causes. Based on data from 51 cities, it is found that bicycle mode share at the city level decreased gradually in the past. Conventional bicycle mode share decreased with a rate of 3 % per year, but electric bicycle mode share increased with a rate of 2 % per year. The correlations between city features such as demographics and built environments and bicycle mode share at different city sizes are compared. The generalized linear models are estimated to relate the changes in the share of different trip modes to various city-level factors. The results show that the bicycle mode share in a city is impacted by factors including city area size, population density, number of cars, percentage of local road mileage among all roads, and trip purpose. Possible reasons for the changes in bicycle uses in Chinese cities are explored and policy implications are discussed.     

Cost and time damping: evidence from aggregate rail direct demand models

There is a significant body of evidence from both disaggregate choice modelling literature and practical travel demand forecasting that the responsiveness to cost and possibly to time diminishes with journey length. This has, in Britain at least, been termed ‘Cost Damping’, and is recognised in guidance issued by the UK Department for Transport. However, the consistency of the effect across modes and data types has not been established. Cost damping, if it exists, affects both the forecasting of demand and our understanding of behaviour. This paper aims to investigate the evidence for cost and time damping in rail demand using aggregate rail ticket sales data. The rail ticket sales data in Britain has, for many years, formed the basis of analysis of a wide range of impacts of rail demand. It records the number of tickets sold between station pairs, and it is generally felt to provide a reasonably accurate reflection of travel demand. However, the consistency of these direct demand models with choice modelling and highway demand model structures has not been investigated. Rail direct demand models estimated by ticket sales data indicate only slight variation in the fare elasticity with distance, as is evidenced in the largest meta-analysis of price elasticities conducted to date (Wardman in J Transp Econ Policy 48(3):367–384, 2014). This study of UK elasticities shows strong variation between urban and inter-urban trips, presumably a segmentation at least in part by purpose, but less remaining variation by trip length. A lack of variation by length supports the hypothesis of cost damping, because constant cost sensitivity would imply that fare elasticity would increase strongly with distance, because of the increasing impact of higher fares at longer distances. In this paper we indicate that rail direct demand models have some consistency of behavioural paradigm with utility based choice models used in highway planning. We go on to use rail demand data to estimate time and fare elasticities in the context of various cost damping functions. Our empirical contribution is to estimate time elasticities on a basis directly comparable with cost elasticities and to show that the phenomenon of cost damping is strongly present in ticket sales data. This finding implies that cost damping should be included in models intended for multimodal analysis, which may otherwise give incorrect predictions.     

Isolating high-priority metro and feeder bus transfers using smart card data

Fixed-rail metro (or ‘subway’) infrastructure is generally unable to provide access to all parts of the city grid. Consequently, feeder bus lines are an integral component of urban mass transit systems. While passengers prefer a seamless transfer between these two distinct transportation services, each service’s operations are subject to a different set of factors that contribute to metro-bus transfer delay. Previous attempts to understand transfer delay were limited by the availability of tools to measure the time and cost associated with passengers’ transfer experience. This paper uses data from smart card systems, an emerging technology that automatically collects passenger trip data, to understand transfer delay. The primary objective of this study is to use smart card data to derive a reproducible methodology that isolates high priority transfer points between the metro system and its feeder-bus systems. The paper outlines a methodology to identify transfer transactions in the smart card dataset, estimate bus headways without the aid of geographic location information, estimate three components of the total transfer time (walking time, waiting time, and delay time), and isolate high-priority transfer pairs. The paper uses smart card data from Nanjing, China as a case study. The results isolate eight high priority metro-bus transfer pairs in the Nanjing metro system and finally, offers several targeted measures to improve transfer efficiency.     

典型地铁站台射频天线电磁暴露安全评估

为有效评估典型地铁站台射频天线对乘客电磁暴露的安全性,设计地铁站台无线通信系统吸顶天线和乘客人体模型,利用基于有限元的电磁仿真软件,构建吸顶天线辐射下的地铁站台乘客候车电磁环境模型,研究候车乘客的公众电磁暴露问题。结果表明:天线分别工作在900和2 440 MHz时,人体组织的平均比吸收率最大值分别为4.441×10-7和1.165×10^-6W·kg^-1,电场强度最大值分别为0.139和0.148V·m^-1,平均比吸收率在人体组织内的衰减均大于电场强度的衰减;2 440MHz时的射频电磁能量在颅内的穿透能力小于900MHz时;所有计算值均低于国际非电离辐射委员会制定的公众电磁暴露限值,说明地铁站台射频天线对乘客的电磁暴露不会构成健康威胁。     

青岛前湾港南港区混合土的研究

工程中常见淤泥类土与砂类土相混构成的混合土,其中淤泥类土土质极软但在土工试验中却可得出较大内摩擦角.以青岛港前湾港区南区的混合土为例,阐述混合土的成因和分布特征,分析与评价混合土的物理力学性质和采用混合土工程设计特性指标的原则、方法,并提出该地区混合土工程特性指标.     

对邓小平驾驭中国航船战略方针的再认识

邓小平在国际风云中驾驭中国航船的战略思想是以东方政治家特有的政治智慧对新形势作出的高人一筹的科学的战略方针,在实践中得到了检验,并发挥了它应有的作用,对构建和谐社会的新时期具有重大的现实意义.     

利用PLC对定位车进行运动控制

黄骅港的翻车机系统分为翻车机、定位车、推车机三大运动机构。它们之间紧密配合,协调动作,共同完成火车的翻卸工作。由于现场实际的需要,对其运动的速度、加速度和定位精度的要求非常高。图1是定位车的运动控制的方框图。