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.     

现场总线在地铁列车清洗机上的应用

Profibus- DP(现场总线)用于现场设备的高速数据传输.中央处理器通过高速串行总线同分散的现场设备进行通信,分散的DP从站通过总线连接到可编程程序控制器上.Profibus- DP提供强有力的组态和诊断功能,是一种低成本、灵活的信号传输解决方案,可替代麻烦的并行线路.列车清洗机是地铁列车表面自动清洗的设备.阐述...     

浮式储油轮(FPS0)上部组块放火分隔方式浅析

文章针对西江FPS0上部模块的消防工艺要求,对不同的消防方案在经济性、适用性、用水量等方面进行了对比和研究,结果表明消防炮方案是比较可行的,满足FPS0的消防要求,并且取得了很好的节能效果.     

C^4ISR作战系统仿真建模方法研究

对于建设C^4ISR系统来说,系统需求工程的出发点之一应该是基于对作战的描述,同时对目前作战过程进行描述的若干方法进行分析对比,结合实际情况对作战过程描述进行讨论并给出新的切入点。文章给出了一种实现C1ISR仿真系统和实装模拟系统互联的设计方案。该方案使用基于HLA的代理联邦将分布在仿真系统网络上的各个仿真节点和实装系统连接到C^4ISR仿真系统中,并通过HLA／RTI完成仿真系统与实装系统间的交互。     

基于UML的引俄潜艇技术保障信息系统分析

应用先进保障机制和信息化保障手段有机结合的方法,通过深入调查当前引俄潜艇技术保障存在的实际问题,对引俄潜艇技术保障中的主要要素进行简要分析,运用统一建模语言(UML)完成了信息系统的分析。通过系统应用提高了引俄潜艇的技术保障能力,提升了该类装备作战能力,并呈现军事经济效益。     

基于流形理论的数据分类挖掘

数据挖掘技术应用于作战指挥挖掘系统,能为指挥员的决策分析提供智能化的、自动化的辅助手段。在分析数据挖掘问题中的分类算法的基础上,利用流形结构对分类算法进行了改进。从而避免全局线性对分类信息造成的丢失,保留完整的数据结构信息,在一般意义下完成针对数据集的各项任务。