Assessing the employment agglomeration and social accessibility impacts of high speed rail in Eastern Australia

There is growing interest in establishing additional evidence, under the umbrella of the wider economy impacts of transport infrastructure projects, to support transport projects in general and public transport projects in particular that struggle to obtain benefit–cost ratios sufficient to gain the support of financial agencies. This paper focuses on one element of wider economy impacts, often referred to as effective economic (employment) density or employment agglomeration impacts, and another, less usually identified, social accessibility impact (SAI) which we refer to as effective social density, which in broad terms provide, correspondingly, evidence of the potential gains in work-related output (often referred to as productivity gains) and potential gains in non-work-related outputs. Both are associated with gains in individual and household benefit attributable to improved accessibility to services linked with populations and particular locations. The SAIs may capture some of the induced benefits in those jurisdictions where these are included routinely in benefit–cost analysis, and the methodology here is most appropriate to those settings where an existing calibrated demand curve may not be available. Using the proposed high speed rail (HSR) project between Sydney and Melbourne as the empirical setting, we identify economic agglomeration and social accessibility benefits for work and non-work related activity respectively. We find the former to be relatively small compared to the significant gains associated with non-work related travel activity, suggesting the greatest benefits associated with HSR, especially for those residents outside of the major metropolitan areas, will be non-work related travel activity.     

Multi‐criteria analysis for evaluating the impacts of intelligent speed adaptation

Road safety is a policy priority due to the high casualties and costs associated with road accidents. Since speed is a major cause of road accidents, in‐vehicle speed limiters or Intelligent Speed Adaptation (ISA), seems a promising solution. ISA implementation, however, is hindered by large uncertainties, for example about the impacts of ISA, the way users might respond to ISA, and the relationship between speed and accidents. Traditional Multi‐Criteria Analysis (MCA) has limitations in handling these uncertainties. We present an MCA approach based on exploratory modeling, which uses computational experiments to explore the multiple outcomes of ISA policies (safety, emissions, throughput, and cost) across a range of future demand scenarios, functional relationships for performance criteria, and user responses to ISA. As an illustration, by testing the impacts of different ISA penetration levels on two driver groups, we show that when compliance with ISA is expected to be low, a policy aimed only at novice drivers outperforms other ISA policies on safety improvement.     

Developing link-based particle number emission models for diesel transit buses using engine and vehicle parameters

To better assess health impacts from diesel transportation sources, particle number emissions can be modeled on a road network using traffic operating parameters. In this work, real-time particle number emissions rates from two diesel transit buses were aggregated to the roadway link-level and modeled using engine parameters and then vehicle parameters. Modern statistical methods were used to identify appropriate predictor variables in the presence of multicollinearity, and controlled for correlated emission measurements made on the same day and testing route. Factor analysis helped to reduce the number of potential engine parameters to engine load, engine speed, and exhaust temperature. These parameters were incorporated in a linear mixed model that was shown to explain the variation attributable to link-characteristics. Vehicle specific power and speed were identified as two surrogate vehicle travel variables that can be used in the absence of engine parameters, although with a loss in predictive power compared to the engine parameter model. If vehicle speed is the only operating input available, including road grades in the model can significantly improve particle number emission estimates even for links with mild grade. Although the data used are specific to the buses tested, the approach can be applied to modeling emissions from other vehicle models with different engine types, exhaust systems, and engine retrofit technologies.     

Causal linkages between highways and sector-level employment

While transport infrastructure investments have usually been viewed to have long-term impacts on employment, what is perhaps not immediately clear is the direction of causality. This paper has sought to disentangle the causal relationship between highway infrastructure and employment, using panel data for the 48 contiguous US states from 1984 to 1997. Of particular emphasis in this analysis is the sectoral differences in the causal and spatial effects of highway capacity expansions for employment growth in alternative sectors of the economy. The results indicate that lane-mile additions of own-state major highways could increase state employment growth in the services sector while reducing growth in manufacturing. However, the causal relationship is also found to work the other way around. That is, both the rapid growth in services employment and the slowdown in manufacturing jobs temporally lead to increases in roadway capacity of non-interstate major roads. Our analysis also shows that highway infrastructure could produce both positive and negative employment spillovers across states. We find that improvements in non-interstate major roads outside the state border are beneficial to the manufacturing sector which generally serves regional and national markets. For the services sector, however, employment gains from interstate highways in the same state may come at the expense of other states as there is clear evidence of negative employment spillovers from interstate lane-mile additions.     

Identification and quantification of link vulnerability in multi-level public transport networks: a passenger perspective

Robust public transport networks are important, since disruptions decrease the public transport accessibility of areas. Despite this importance, the full passenger impacts of public transport network vulnerability have not yet been considered in science and practice. We have developed a methodology to identify the most vulnerable links in the total, multi-level public transport network and to quantify the societal costs of link vulnerability for these identified links. Contrary to traditional single-level network approaches, we consider the integrated, total multi-level PT network in the identification and quantification of link vulnerability, including PT services on other network levels which remain available once a disturbance occurs. We also incorporate both exposure to large, non-recurrent disturbances and the impacts of these disturbances explicitly when identifying and quantifying link vulnerability. This results in complete and realistic insights into the negative accessibility impacts of disturbances. Our methodology is applied to a case study in the Netherlands, using a dataset containing 2.5 years of disturbance information. Our results show that especially crowded links of the light rail/metro network are vulnerable, due to the combination of relatively high disruption exposure and relatively high passenger flows. The proposed methodology allows quantification of robustness benefits of measures, in addition to the costs of these measures. Showing the value of robustness, our work can support and rationalize the decision-making process of public transport operators and authorities regarding the implementation of robustness measures.     

The influence of workplace environment on lung function of shopkeepers working near National Highway in Jalgaon: A note

The inferior ambient air quality was observed near highway passing through Jalgaon urban center. Among the pollutants critical level of particulates are observed at the roadside during May 2003 to April 2004. The shopkeepers working at the highway sides are at high risk of exposure to the air pollution caused by heavy highway traffic. The lung function test of the shopkeepers shows significant decrease in forced vital capacity, forced expiratory volume in one second and peak expiratory flow rate. The regular periodic health checkup and use of nose mask will protect the health of shopkeepers working near National Highway passing through Jalgaon urban center.     

Experimental Study of the Tunnels with Natural Ventilation for Various Parameters of Ventilation Openings北大核心CSCD

In order to compare the ventilation efficiency and air speed of the tunnel for different parameters of ventilation openings, the acrylic board is used to build a 1:15 tunnel model and carry out the proportional model test. Four working conditions are set up to compare the ventilation in the tunnel under different ventilation openings in terms of number, length and height. The experimental results show that the air velocity distribution and ventilation efficiency change significantly under different ventilation openings in terms of number, length and height. Based on the test results, the best setting pattern of the ventilation opening is proposed in this paper. © 2018, Editorial Office of "Modern Tunnelling Technology". All right reserved.     

Research on the Dust Removal Technology for Shield Tunnel Overhaul Construction北大核心CSCD

The shield tunnel is an ultra-long linear space. It will cause a lot of dust during the tunnel maintenance and overhaul operation, which is extremely unfavorable to the physical and mental health of the construction personnel and the environment outside the tunnel. It is difficult to guarantee the ventilation effect of the linear space using the conventional dust removal technology, which directly affects the construction safety and overhaul period. Therefore, based on the overhaul of a cross-river tunnel in Shanghai, combined with Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation, device optimization and process combination, a three-stage dust reduction standardization process for tunnel overhaul construction is proposed, namely taking a water sprayer at the working point to control the dust at the source (primary protection); installing electrostatic dust removal and water filtration dust removal equipment in the tunnel(secondary protection); and installing two sets of water curtain spray device at the two tunnel exits to prevent dusts from diffusing into the atmosphere. It explores the actual dust-reducing effects of different dust-removing measures and layout combinations, laying a technical foundation for green and efficient dust reduction. © 2018, Editorial Office of "Modern Tunnelling Technology". All right reserved.     

A PRT airport - Serving a transportation function

Costly and complicated airports have just three basic functions: (1) service, dispatch and recover airplanes; (2) service, process and embark/debark passengers and material; (3) generate operating cost recovery for owner, operator, sponsor. The first function is ground servicing. The second is embarking and loading, with and subsequent recovery of airplanes, unloading and disembarkation. None of the first function require a terminal of any kind. The second function does, and the third function does nothing for air travel. Use major shopping centers for PRT movement, direct to the jetway. No terminal. Place eleven square buildings between the parallel runways, diamond oriented point-to-point, with four parking spaces -the module sides. Airplanes taxi in and away on one center line, 100 feet from the module centered between in-the-ground service connections. PRT connects two story modules, 200 feet on a side. Jetways at each corner also move vertically up and down to load and unload twice as fast, DOWN the jetway, with baggage on conveyors. PRT from neighborhood centers allows passengers to get tickets from local travel agents, and security check from local police. Travel is secure. Parking and the sales tax take is distributed.     

Minimal-revenue congestion pricing Part II: An efficient algorithm for the general case

The second of a two-part series, this paper derives an efficient solution to the minimal-revenue tolls problem. As introduced in Part I, this problem can be defined as follows: Assuming each trip uses only a path whose generalized cost is smallest, find a set of arc tolls that simultaneously minimizes both average travel time and out-of-pocket cost. As a point of departure, this paper first re-solves the single-origin problem of Part I, modeling it as a linear program. Then with a change of variable, it transforms the LP's dual into a simple longest-path problem on an acyclic network. The multiple-origin problem – where one toll for each arc applies to all origins – solves analogously. In this case, however, the dual becomes an elementary linear multi-commodity max-cost flow problem with an easy bundling constraint and infinite arc capacities. After a minor reformulation that simplifies the model's input to better accommodate output from common traffic assignment software, a solution algorithm is exemplified with a numerical example.