A new regulation for the European public transport

Authority intervention in the public transport sector has a long history and has led to a growing corps of legal texts in European countries. These texts are often divergent, if not incompatible. This was no problem until the rather recent internationalization of the sector. With this internationalization, the European Commission decided to address this issue. This chapter describes what has led to the appearance of this new Regulation and the main steps on the 10-year long road that led to the adoption of the new Regulation. The chapter also formulates some comments on the results reached.     

Exploring the distances people walk to access public transport

ABSTRACT

A shift from private motorised transport to more active transportation can, among other things, deliver significant health benefits. The main disadvantage of active transport (in particular walking) for most people compared to private motorised transport is the limited range. Public transport (PT) can complement the use of active modes and extend their range. Therefore, there might be potential to increase physical activity through an increase in PT use. This article takes a closer look at how walking relates to the use of PT by examining existing literature on the topic. It aims to study how far people walk to and from PT and what key factors influence this. Scopus, Transport Research International Documentation and Web of Science have been searched systematically for relevant articles, conference papers and books. After screening of titles and abstracts, 41 relevant publications were identified. Studies were included if they quantified the amount of walking (measured as either distance or time) that is directly related to the use of PT. Studies that quantified walking using general measures of daily physical activity or daily walking or that used stated preference designs were excluded. The PT systems considered in this paper are mass transport systems in urban areas, either road- or rail-based, with fixed schedules and stops. Demand responsive transport services, which can offer door-to-door travel, are not considered, as these systems can to a large extent eliminate the need to walk. In the identified publications, a large variety of walking distances and times have been reported, and these seem to be highly context-specific. The paper establishes the evidence for the wide range of factors that influence walking related to PT, which have been categorised as personal, PT-related, environmental, and journey-related. The different methods that have been used are discussed by critically analysing their advantages and limitations. Only a limited number of these methods used allow for an accurate assessment of the walking distances to and from PT. The paper concludes with suggestions for future research, such as a need for more accurate measurement of walking and research in different geographical areas to shed light on underlying influences of culture and climate.     

Coordination problems in container barging in the port of Rotterdam: an institutional analysis

Container barging has gained in importance in port-related transport along with the need for sustainable transport. Nevertheless, coordination problems between terminal operator and barge operator exist, and performance lags behind. This paper analyses factors that may hinder or stimulate a better future performance of container barging in the port of Rotterdam. A case study is accomplished and guided by a framework rooted in Institutional Economics. Despite favourable conditions set by governments and the port authority, the share of container barging has hardly grown. The container barging sector in Rotterdam is embedded in a history with many alliances, a high degree of organisation, and a good track record in the development of institutional arrangements to solve coordination problems. However, the present contractual relations in the transport chain form an inadequate condition. From a theoretical perspective, the paper shows the value of studying port-related transport chains by acknowledging their institutional context.     

Robust control of traffic networks under uncertain conditions

Uncertainty of traffic network operations has been a subject of lively debate in the last decade. However, little effort has been put in developing control frameworks that are not only aimed at improving the average performance of the system, but also at improving the system robustness and reliability. In fact, it can be argued that most of the current control approaches are only aimed at improving the efficiency, which can even be counterproductive from a robustness point of view. The main contributions of this article is the proposition of a new control framework based on the notion of controlled Markov processes, which explicitly takes into account the uncertainty in predicted traffic conditions and system performance. Furthermore, in contrast to traditional optimal control approaches, the objective function can include general statistic of the random system performance, such as the mean, standard deviation or 95‐percentile. The contribution aims to make clear how different performance function specifications yield different control strategies. This is shown for a relatively simple case study.     

铁道车辆液压减振器的工作原理和数值模型

基于液压减振器的工作原理、内部结构和阀元件的性能,建立了一个新的液压减振器数值模型。该数值模型不仅将阻尼力作为减振器活塞杆的速度与位移的函数,同时还含有用于描述内部结构的基本参量,可以清楚地描述液压减振器的阻尼机制。应用该模型可进行液压减振器的动态性能分析、结构设计、元件选用等。模型计算结果与实验数据有较好的符合性。该数值模型易于实现计算机数值仿真,可以应用于车辆系统动力学性能的研究和减振器的结构参数、动态性能对车辆舒适性和稳定性影响的深入分析。     

Empirical evidence on cruising for parking

The literature on car cruising is dominated by theory. We examine cruising for parking using a nation-wide random sample of car trips. We exclude employer-provided and residential parking. We focus on the Netherlands, where levels of on-street and off-street parking prices are locally the same. We demonstrate then that due to this price setting the average cruising time in the Netherlands is only 36 s per car trip. Furthermore, we show that cruising is not random. It is more common in (large) cities that receive more car trips, particularly for shopping and leisure activities. Cruising time increases with travel duration as well as with parking duration. Cruising has a distinctive pattern over the day with a peak in the morning, so the order of arrival is essential to parking. Because cruising has a spatial and time component, policies may be considered that reduce cruising time through flexible pricing of parking or improved information about vacant parking spaces.     

Link-level vulnerability indicators for real-world networks

It is computationally expensive to find out where vulnerable parts in a network are. In literature a variety of methods were introduced that use simple indicators (measured in real-life or calculated in a traffic simulator) to pre-determine the seriousness of the delays caused by the blocking of that link and thereafter perform a more detailed analysis. This article reviews the indicators proposed in the literature and assesses the quality of these indicators. Furthermore, a multi-linear fit of the indicators is made to find a better, combined, indicator to rank the links according to their vulnerability. The article shows that different indicators assess different links to be vulnerable. Also combined they cannot predict the vulnerability of a link. Therefore, it is concluded that to find vulnerable links, one has to look further than link-based indicators.     

Experimental investigation of the strength and stability of submarine pressure hulls with and without artificial corrosion damage

A submarine may have to operate for a period of time with local corrosion damage in the pressure hull if a suitable repair method is unavailable or too expensive for implementation. This paper describes collapse tests on twenty ring-stiffened aluminium cylinders, which were conducted to study the effect of corrosion damage on hull strength and stability. Artificial hull thinning was found to reduce the collapse strength of experimental models through high local stresses in the corroded region, leading to early onset of yielding and inelastic buckling. Bending associated with the eccentricity due to one-sided thinning was found to further increase the local stresses in the hull. Overall collapse pressures were more severely affected by corrosion damage than interframe collapse pressures. The percentage reduction in overall collapse pressure, compared with intact experimental models, was found to be closely related to the percentage depth of thinning. The accuracy of conventional collapse pressure predictions for the experimental models was significantly better for intact than for corroded cylinders.     

Modeling travel time reliability of freeways using risk assessment techniques

Travel time reliability is considered to be one of the key indicators for the performance of transport systems and is measured in various ways. This paper synthesizes both reliability concepts: traffic breakdown, the indicator of the instability of travel times, is treated as the risk, whereas travel time variability, the indicator of the uncertainty of travel times, is considered as the consequence of this risk. An analytical formula, using risk assessment technique, explicitly expresses the cost of travel time unreliability as the sum of the products of the consequences (i.e. variability) and the corresponding probabilities of breakdown. It provides a novel measure of travel time reliability and is applicable in network performance evaluations. An empirical example based on a large dataset of freeway traffic flow data from loop detectors shows that the developed travel time reliability measure is both intuitively logical and consistent.     

Risk and reward in public transport contracting

This paper synthesizes evidence from the workshop on risk and reward in public transport contracting. It broadens the usual risk/reward framework to encompass strategic/tactical level issues, identifying high level community goals as the ultimate risk/reward pay-off. The evolution of tactical level public transport planning is reviewed, noting considerable change in functional roles between purchaser and provider in some jurisdictions. No single “best” approach is evident but an emerging interest in relational contracting founded on trust is apparent. Risk allocation between purchaser and provider is considered, a key debate concerning the extent to which providers should be exposed to revenue risk.