Toll product preferences and implications for alternative payment options and going cashless

There has been a great deal of research on deriving estimates of the value of travel time savings (VTTS) as a way of converting travel time benefits of toll roads relative to free routes into monetary units, the major user benefit in the development of forecasts of traffic and hence revenue streams. By contrast there has been almost no consideration given to identifying the role that various tollroad products play in establishing preferences for toll routes over non-tolled routes. Increasingly tollroads give users the option to pay by cash at a toll booth, by electronic tolling or by a pre- or post-paid debit and credit account system involving vehicle identification. The efficiency gained by electronic tolling for both the users and the operator have resulted in moves in many jurisdictions to eliminate cash collection entirely (or not introduce it when introducing a new tolled road facility), and to introduce a range of pre- and post-payment options. This has been accompanied by a growing move to distance-based charging in some contexts which is more cumbersome to structure with a cash option. This paper investigates current and potential travellers’ preferences for a range of toll products and how much individual’s are willing to pay for very specific toll products. Data from a stated choice experiment is used in a mixed logit model to establish the role that toll products play in the context of offered times and costs of alternative routes, in choosing between alternative ways of paying for the use of tolled routes.

Accessibility in the regional CGE framework: the effects of major transport infrastructure investments in Poland

Transportation - Since its EU accession, Poland has invested strongly in the development of fast road transport network. As a result, the total length of modern, high-speed roads has increased from...     

Counting people in the crowd using social media images for crowd management in city events

Transportation - City events are getting popular and are attracting a large number of people. This increase needs for methods and tools to provide stakeholders with crowd size information for crowd...     

Using the sustainability footprint model to assess development impacts of transportation systems

A review of the sustainability literature reveals the lack of viable frameworks and management tools that can be used to accommodate both spatial and temporal variability in how stakeholder entities meet their sustainable development goals, taking into account the fact that different entities may need to pursue different priorities and also deal with different constraints and schedules at different stages of their development. This paper presents a sustainability footprint framework and model that may be used in analyzing the impacts of transportation and other infrastructure systems on regional sustainable development. A specific application of the framework is in the quality of life contributions that transportation systems may make to communities as a function of their impacts on natural assets that contribute inputs and absorb the byproducts of development. The application is illustrated in a case study that uses data from the Atlanta and Chicago Metropolitan Areas to demonstrate how this model may be applied in real life situations. The implications of this model for transport systems research, policy and practice are discussed. The value of this framework and model lie in introducing both spatial and temporal flexibility that may enable stakeholders with widely different priorities to reach consensus on interim goals for sustainable development to ultimately attain sustainability.     

Capitalization of BRT network expansions effects into prices of non-expansion areas

A before and after hedonic model is used to determine the property value impacts on properties already served by the transit system caused by extensions to Bogotá’s bus rapid transit system. Asking prices of residential properties belonging to an intervention area (N = 1407 before, 1570 after) or a control area (N = 267 before, 732 after) and offered for sale between 2001 and 2006 are used to determine capitalization of the enhanced regional access provided by the extension. Properties offered during the year the extension was inaugurated and in subsequent years have asking prices that are between 13% and 14% higher than prices for properties in the control area, after adjusting for structural, neighborhood and regional accessibility characteristics of each property. Furthermore, the appreciation is similar for properties within 500 m and properties between 500 m and 1 km of the BRT.     

An ensemble approach for conflict detection in Free Flight by data mining

Airborne separation assurance is a key requirement for Free Flight operations. A variety of conflict detection (CD) and resolution algorithms have been developed for this task. A lack of rigorous evaluation and the existence of an infinite number of possible conflict geometries in Free Flight makes the choice of which algorithm to be placed in the cockpit a challenging task for the designers of future air traffic management (ATM) systems. In this paper, we propose an ensemble approach for CD in Free Flight. The ensemble consists of several CD algorithms, a rule set for each algorithm describing its learned behavior from its past performance and a switch mechanism to choose an appropriate CD algorithm given probe characteristics. A novel mechanism to evolve complex conflict scenarios, using genetic algorithms (GA), is developed and integrated in a fast time air traffic simulator to generate the performance data of CD algorithms. Data mining techniques are then employed to identify implicit patterns in the probe characteristics where the CD algorithms missed or falsely identified a conflict. These patterns are formulated as rule sets for each CD algorithm and are then used by a switch in the ensemble to route a probe for conflict prediction. Given probe characteristics, the CD algorithm, which is less likely to miss or falsely identify a conflict, is selected to evaluate the probe for potential conflict. The performance of the ensemble and of individual algorithms is evaluated by comparing the Pareto efficient set of solutions generated by them. The ensemble approach demonstrates a significant reduction in the number of missed detects and false alarms as compared to individual algorithms. The proposed methodology is capable of accommodating existing as well as new CD models and can be extended to other ATM concepts as well.     

Lane change algorithm for autonomous vehicles via virtual curvature method

This paper addresses the lane changing problem of autonomous vehicles when there is no road infrastructure support. The autonomous vehicle should drive from the current lane to the adjacent lane in the absence of a reference path to guide the vehicle to the new lane. We suggest an algorithm that incorporates a virtual road curvature with bicycle model for lane change guidance. As the name suggests, the virtual road curvature does not physically exist. It is a user assigned radius of a curved path which connects the current lane to the adjacent lane. Since the lateral sensor readings during lane changing maneuver are erroneous, the steering angle along with the virtual curvature is fed into a bicycle model to estimate the lateral position during the transition to the next lane. Details of the algorithm and the virtual road curvature determination are presented in the paper. In contrast to other lane changing methods, controller switching is not required and the same controller is for both lane keeping and lane changing. The algorithm is verified experimentally and the results are comparable with lane changing with physical transition lane.     

Tollroads are only part of the overall trip: the error of our ways in past willingness to pay studies

With rare exception, actual tollroad traffic in many countries has failed to reproduce forecast traffic levels, regardless of whether the assessment is made after an initial year of operation or as long as 10 years after opening. Pundits have offered many reasons for this divergence, including optimism bias, strategic misrepresentation, the promise to equity investors of early returns on investment, errors in land use forecasts, and specific assumptions underlying the traffic assignment models used to develop traffic forecasts. One such assumption is the selection of a behaviourally meaningful value of travel time savings (VTTS) for use in a generalised cost or generalised time user benefit expression that is the main behavioural feature of the traffic assignment (route choice) model. Numerous empirical studies using stated choice experiments have designed choice sets of alternatives as if users choose a tolled route or a free route under the (implied) assumption that the tolled route is tolled for the entire trip. Reality is often very different, with a high incidence of use of a non-tolled road leading into and connecting out of a tolled link. In this paper we recognise this feature of route choice and redesign the stated choice experiment to account for it. Furthermore, this study is a follow up to a previous study undertaken before a new toll road was in place, and it benefits from real exposure to the new toll road. We find that the VTTS is noticeably reduced, and if the VTTS is a significant contributing influence on errors on traffic forecasts, then the lower estimates make sense behaviourally.     

应用于国Ⅲ摩托车的富钯涂层配方的研究

通过对不同催化作用涂层的对比,特别是针对小型摩托车活性、耐久性和贵金属成本的应用设计,提出以钯为主要或单一活性贵金属化合物涂料的研究数据,这些数据是通过使用合成气体反应器,对涂敷后的催化剂进行模拟发动机废气测试得到的。通过试验表明,较低成本的富钯催化涂料可用于小型摩托车的有效减排。此外,在110mL缸头补气与125mL中间补气摩托车上,按照摩托车欧Ⅲ和国Ⅲ排放法规运行ECER40冷起动循环,对不同配方催化剂的活性进行了测试,这些结果将与合成气体反应器测试结果相关联。     

Towards a dynamic discrete-choice model of household automobile fleet size and composition

The emphasis on energy consumption in studies of traveller behaviour has led to increased interest in the development of policy sensitive models of automobile demand. In recognition of the fuller dimensions of automobile demand, a number of studies have considered choice amongst types of automobiles as well as number of automobiles. With rare exception, existing studies have concentrated on either type choice or number choice. In all instances the approach has been static. This paper develops a series of linked discrete-choice models to explain household automobile holdings (type and number) and adjustments in the holdings over time. The empirical study is part of an initial data effort leading up to the development of a full scale longitudinal panel of Sydney households. A model system based on a retrospective panel of 354 households, interviewed in 1980, is reported herein. The model is dynamic in the sense that it allows for prior decisions, brand loyalty and the costs of transacting.