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.     

悬浮式深弹反鱼雷系统作战效能分析

基于悬浮式深弹反鱼雷系统的组成和工作原理,提出了悬浮式深弹反鱼雷系统的作战效能评估方法。根据美国工业界武器系统效能咨询委员会（WSEIAC）提出的效能模型,对悬浮式深弹反鱼雷系统作战效能的可用度向量A、可信度矩阵D和固有能力矩阵C进行了分析,重点对固有能力矩阵中反鱼雷概率这一指标进行了研究。按照悬浮式深弹反鱼雷作战物理过程,将反鱼雷概率分解为鱼雷经过悬浮式深弹阵的概率、悬浮式深弹阵探测鱼雷概率和毁伤鱼雷概率,从而建立了悬浮式深弹反鱼雷系统的作战效能模型。     

舰舰导弹对敌水面舰艇突防能力评估模型初探

舰舰导弹是对水面舰艇攻击的主要武器之一,导弹突防能力是评价导弹性能的重要指标.根据反导武器系统的特点,建立了单发和多发导弹对敌舰攻击的突防能力模型.     

基床式基础防波堤的动力软化判别标准的研究

以长江口深水航道治理二期工程为依托,进行基床基础防波堤的动力软化判别标准的研究,分析在波浪作用下3个不同沉降量的典型断面下卧地基土的自重应力、附加静应力、波浪作用的附加动应力分布间的关系,初步得出该地区软粘土可能出现动力软化现象的判别标准。     

香港地铁的安全风险管理

概述地铁有限公司在香港建立和实践安全风险管理体系的经验、运营铁路安全管理组织架构、工程项目各阶段的安全风险管理规划、主要安全风险管理任务及分析方法等.     

Analysis on the Characteristics and Development Trends of the Support Technology of High Ground Stress Tunnels in China北大核心CSCD

Combining the present situation and development trend of different tunnel support technologies at home and abroad, this paper analyzes the problems of rockburst in hard rock tunnels and large deformation in soft rock tunnels caused by high ground stress. It is concluded that: 1) regarding the rockburst problem, the current support technology is mainly influenced by the rock burst mechanism which is dominated by static factors, and so the used support components are generally of smaller deformation performance and "passive support" properties; 2) as the rockburst is the result of dynamic-static stress coupling, and only the anchor bolt has the "active support" attribute in the current "shotcrete+anchor bolt+wire net" support system, so the best support system should have the two functions of active support and energy release in terms of the rockburst problem, and the key focus of the research and development is anchorage members; 3) there are three main support types for large deformation in soft rock tunnels, e.g. the heavy support, layered support and yielding support. Among them, the heavy support system in underground cavern with large deformation is easy to induce excessive surrounding rock pressure, and so the applicable conditions are limited. The layered support system is still not the best choice due to its immature theoretical study, difficult determination of the thickness value and the installation time of each support layer and the interference to construction progress. With the characteristics of timely support and yielding while supporting, the yielding support system can give full play to the performance values of surrounding rocks and supporting materials, and make both of them reach the optimal state, so it is the best choice for supporting the soft rock tunnels with large deformations. © 2018, Editorial Office of "Modern Tunnelling Technology". All right reserved.     

Numerical Simulation of Advanced Geological Forecasting Based on Multi- Source Seismic Interferometry北大核心CSCD

For existing advanced geological forecasting, the forecast distance is short and the test frequency is high, increasing test and construction risks. Since various methods have different requirements for the test environ-ment, preparation work can be tedious and result in a long construction time thereby affecting normal construction.A new advanced geological forecast technique based on multi-source seismic interferometry for tunnels is proposed.This technique uses the blast at one end of tunnel as a centrum and receives the signal at the other end of the tun-nel, therefore allowing advanced geological forecasting of the unexcavated tunnel part by relative processing and im-aging. A numerical simulation of this kind of geological forecasting using the finite difference method to simulate two kinds of unfavorable geological bodies (karst and a fault) predicted them accurately and verified the effective-ness and accuracy of this geological forecasting method. © 2018, Editorial Office of "Modern Tunnelling Technology". All right reserved.