Transport reviews prize

Bombay, the commercial capital of India, is suffering from traffic thrombosis. Bombay used to be an attractive city some three decades ago and was commonly referred to as ‘Bombay the Beautiful’. The picture is now, however, the opposite extreme.

The way Bombay has grown, an underground railway is no doubt justified. Unfortunately, the economy may not be able to afford it for many years to come. Low cost measures have therefore to be adopted like (a) development of land use with a view to controlling the traffic demand itself; (b) discouraging further growth in and around the existing congested central business district; (c) establishment of a counter‐magnet; (d) conversion of the mono‐centric pattern to a poly‐nucleated structure; (e) better pedestrian facilities; (f) intermediate public transport; (g) traffic management measures to maximize available road capacities; (h) bus priority measures; (i) creating an east‐west axis for activities to relieve the present north‐south axis.

This would form the core of transport strategy. Capital intensive rail projects will face severe shortage of funds. An additional road/rail link has also been suggested to the mainland. The congestion in Bombay can be relieved if the master plan is prepared for an integrated system. Traffic and town planning must go hand in hand with priority to traffic planning.     

Spatial differentiation,transport demands and transport model design in Kuwait

Foreign consultants still provide much of the analytical expertise for transport planning studies conducted in the Gulf States and other rapidly developing countries. Most of the systems analysis techniques used are adaptations of those developed for western urban areas. The populations of the Gulf States are unique in that they contain very large populations of foreign workers who have very different social and economic characteristics from the national populations. This paper describes these differences and shows how they have influenced the spatial evolution of the Kuwait metropolitan area and the associated transport demands. The paper also describes the analytical tools that are most appropriate for capturing the transport behaviour of residents of the Kuwait metropolitan area.     

Harmonizing heavy goods vehicle taxes in Europe: a British view

One of the biggest unresolved problems regarding the completion of the free internal transport market within the European community is the problem of harmonization of taxation on the road haulage industry. As the highest tax country, Britain might be expected to have to reduce its level of taxes as part of any harmonization.

This paper considers the current methodology of the British Department of Transport regarding the allocation of the track and external costs of road transport, in the light of developments in methodology and experience elsewhere in Western Europe and North America. We find a number of reasons for believing that, far from overstating the marginal social cost of use of roads by the road haulage industry, the current British approach actually understates it. Thus any move towards harmonizing tax levels may reduce taxes in Britain at a time when they should be increasing.     

MMAS in Belize

This article is part of a special issue that provides insight into global conservation science by analyzing a 5-year, $12.5 million global marine conservation science and policy program. In this article, we summarize the development of the program in Belize, which concentrated its effort in the southern portion of the country. The marine managed areas that developed in Belize took a variety of different forms, and involved a number of different government and private sector agencies and organizations.     

Physical processes in wheel–rail contact and its implications on vehicle–track interaction

Friction within the wheel–rail contact highly influences all aspects of vehicle–track interaction. Models describing this frictional behaviour are of high relevance, for example, for reliable predictions on drive train dynamics. It has been shown by experiments, that the friction at a certain position on rail is not describable by only one number for the coefficient of friction. Beside the contact conditions (existence of liquids, solid third bodies, etc.) the vehicle speed, normal loading and contact geometry are further influencing factors. State-of-the-art models are not able to account for this sufficiently. Thus, an Extended-Creep-Force-Model was developed taking into account effects from third body layers. This model is able to describe all considered effects. In this way, a significant improvement of the prediction quality with respect to all aspects of vehicle–track interaction is expected.     

Application study on a control strategy for a hybrid electric public bus

This paper first describes the control strategy used in a hybrid electric public bus and then proposes a torque-balancing control strategy. Simulations were performed using the designed control strategies, and the results were analyzed under different conditions. The torque-balancing control strategy was improved on the basis of the efficiency-first ideas of the hybrid system. Finally, experiments were performed to verify that the efficiency-first and torque-balancing control strategy (EFCS) is both feasible and reliable. The simulation results showed that, compared with a conventional public bus, the hybrid electric bus could save approximately 27.3 percent on fuel consumption using the EFCS control strategy in a public bus in China, while under the Wuhan urban driving cycle.     

Drive control system design for stability and maneuverability of a 6WD/6WS vehicle

This paper describes a drive controller designed to improve the lateral vehicle stability and maneuverability of a 6-wheel drive / 6-wheel steering (6WD/6WS) vehicle. The drive controller consists of upper and lower level controllers. The upper level controller is based on sliding control theory and determines both front and middle steering angle, additional net yaw moment, and longitudinal net force according to the reference velocity and steering angle of a manual drive, remotely controlled, autonomous controller. The lower level controller takes the desired longitudinal net force, yaw moment, and tire force information as inputs and determines the additional front steering angle and distributed longitudinal tire force on each wheel. This controller is based on optimal distribution control and takes into consideration the friction circle related to the vertical tire force and friction coefficient acting on the road and tire. Distributed longitudinal/lateral tire forces are determined as proportion to the size of the friction circle according to changes in driving conditions. The response of the 6WD/6WS vehicle implemented with this drive controller has been evaluated via computer simulations conducted using the Matlab/Simulink dynamic model. Computer simulations of an open loop under turning conditions and a closed-loop driver model subjected to double lane change have been conducted to demonstrate the improved performance of the proposed drive controller over that of a conventional DYC.     

Model referenced adaptive control to compensate slip-stick transition during clutch engagement

Clutches are widely used in various vehicle powertrains. The engagement process of a friction clutch has three phases, i.e., open, slipping, and sticking. Transitions between different phases introduce a discontinuity to the powertrain dynamics, which has been neglected in previous research. A model referenced adaptive controller (MRAC), based on Popov hyper-stability criterion, is designed to compensate the discontinuity. MRAC adjusts the frictional torque along with the errors of the state variables compared with those of a referenced model. The designed MRAC is applied to a clutch in a bus. Simulation and experimental results under fast and slow startup cases show that MRAC can simultaneously reduce vehicle jerk and frictional dissipation when compared with the conventional controller.     

Sharing piping CAD models of ocean plants based on international standards

In the shipbuilding industry, different computer-aided design (CAD) systems are used for different design domains, structure, and outfitting. We need to exchange data among different CAD systems such as Tribon, AutoCAD, Intergraph or PDMS to complete the whole design and production process. There are two approaches to data exchange. One is direct translation; the other is indirect translation, which is based on a neutral format. If we use a neutral format, the data specification is open to the public and the design model can be used by other CAD systems, including next-generation CAD systems. In this paper, we propose an indirect method that uses ISO 10303 (STandard for the Exchange of Product model data) AP227 and ISO 15926 to define neutral formats. A separate ShapeDB is constructed to manage the geometry information, referenced to the catalogue data defined by ISO 15926. An experimental implementation for data exchange between Tribon and PDMS is described.     

U.S. import/export container flow modeling and disruption analysis

International containerized freight movement is a vital part of the supply chain for many companies, and a critical element of moving consumer goods to points of retail sale within the U.S. Containerized imports also present a clear security concern (e.g., terrorists attempting to ship “dirty bombs,” chemical, biological or even nuclear weapons, into the U.S. in a shipping container). The goal of the research presented here is to create a modeling tool for analyzing flows of U.S. imports and exports of containerized freight, and the potential changes in those flows under a variety of conditions (e.g., port disruptions, extensive security-related delays, etc.). Our focus is on movements through maritime container ports, and not overland movements between the U.S. and Canada or Mexico.The network model, referred to as the System for Import/Export Routing and Recovery Analysis (SIERRA), represents container movements between the U.S. and 46 other countries that account for the vast majority of U.S. imports and exports. The SIERRA model is a network equilibrium model that predicts flows between foreign countries and North American ports, the total volumes handled (import and export) by each port, the modal volumes (truck and rail) moving domestically into and out of each port, and volumes between each port and a set of transportation analysis zones within the U.S.