Livelihoods,daily mobility and poverty in sub-saharan Africa

Based on research funded by the UK Department for International Development, this paper investigates the utility of a livelihoods approach in identifying the mobility and accessibility needs of the poor. Mobility patterns and livelihoods of stratified samples of households in urban-to-rural corridors originating in the national capital cities of Zimbabwe and Uganda are compared, with emphasis on the poor's position relative to higher income groups. It is found that livelihood work was the most frequent purpose of short-distance travel for all income groups and localities, amounting to 38% of trip purposes in Uganda and 46% in Zimbabwe. On average, Zimbabweans were more mobile making more daily trips over longer distances reflective of greater reliance on motorized transport in the country. Nonetheless, walking dominates modal journeys in both countries. Ugandans display heavier dependence on bicycle and motorcycle transport primarily through taxi hire compared with Zimbabweans' private care and public kombi bus transport. Survey evidence suggests that Uganda's poor and middle-incomed urban and rural residents benefit from more widely available multimodal public transport.     

Attitudes to transport modes for shopping purposes in Singapore

A review of the retailing and transportation literature shows that there is an apparently large research gap in the understanding of shoppers’ attitudes towards transport modes for shopping purposes. In particular, not many studies have been done to examine shoppers’ detailed and disaggregated attitudinal image structures of the various transport modes for shopping purposes. Using Singapore as a study area, this paper has attempted to investigate shoppers’ image structure of transport modes and their comparative perception ratings for the various modes of transportation for shopping purposes. Using principal component analysis, the research has unveiled the perceptions of five transport modes for shopping purposes. While some of the factors are unique to certain transport modes, other factors, namely ‘suitability’, ‘practicality’, ‘ease of travel’ and ‘cost’, are common to all modes of transportation. By way of the weighted‐factor rating, the study found that the car recorded the highest overall perception rating while the bus rated the lowest. In addition, the shoppers have reasonably good perception of public transport modes in Singapore.     

Shopping without travel or travel without shopping? an investigation of electronic home shopping

This study explores the growth of electronic home shopping in terms of likely transportation and communication interactions. Although opportunities exist to shop from home today, most consumers initiate travel trips to stores or markets. Widespread use of automobiles has facilitated the retailing configurations we know today but the development of new electronic networks could change this. This study establishes a baseline to explore shopping activities using two‐day travel activity data from a large U.S. metropolitan area. It is found that people who telework from home today spend more time engaged in shopping activities than other workers. Potentially, their saved work travel is converted into new trips. In the future, saved shopping travel might be converted into other types of travel, and modelling results show that for busy working women, there is a latent demand for maintenance‐related activities. The study results suggest that electronic home shopping will bring into play complex interactions between communications and transportation.     

Book review

AUTOMATED‐TRANSIT GUIDEWAYS: ANALYSIS AND DESIGN, by Clarence W. de Silva and David N. Wormley. 276 pp. (£33.00)     

小鼠10号染色体上致聋突变基因hml的精确定位(英文)

目的　定位小鼠致聋基因 ,识别决定其性状的有关突变 ,为人类耳聋基因研究提供动物模型。方法　利用全基因组扫描来定位名为hml可致小鼠听力丧失突变基因。结果　①hml基因定位在小鼠 10号染色体上 ,距中心粒约4 3cM处。根据已知的鼠 人同源同线性特点 ,提示人的同源基因位于 12 q2 2 -q2 4 ;②获得了 2 5个多态性微卫星标记 ,通过高分辨的小鼠图谱将 3个已知人类基因进行了正确排列 ,并将hml侯选基因限定在一个 5 0 0kb的区域内。     

Intelligent drug delivery system using UML diagrams analysis

A novel intelligent drug delivery system potential for the more effective therapy of the diabeticswas proposed, and the composition of system was analyzed. Based on the design of micro-electro-mechanicalsystems (MEMS), an iterative modeling process was introduced. Unified modeling language (UML) was em-ployed to describe the function requirement, and different diagrams were built up to explore the static model,the dynamic model and the employment model. The mapping analysis of different diagrams can simply verifythe consistency and completeness of the system model.     

Application of Optimal Control Theory to Inverse Simulation of Car Handling

The application of Optimal Control Theory to time-optimal inverse simulation of car handling was investigated. Time-optimal inverse simulation of car handling involves the calculation of driver actions required to perform specified manoeuvres, in as short a time as possible. Driver actions consist of time-histories of front wheel steer rate and longitudinal force. Optimal time-histories of these quantities were calculated using the Gradient method after formulating the problem as one of optimal control. Simulation results are presented for two different cars performing similar lane-changes. These results show significant differences in necessary driver actions for different cars and demonstrate the suitability of the approach taken.     

Analyzing car ownership in Quebec City: a comparison of traditional and latent class ordered and unordered models

Private car ownership plays a vital role in the daily travel decisions of individuals and households. The topic is of great interest to policy makers given the growing focus on global climate change, public health, and sustainable development issues. Not surprisingly, it is one of the most researched transportation topics. The extant literature on car ownership models considers the influence of exogenous variables to remain the same across the entire population. However, it is possible that the influence of exogenous variable effects might vary across the population. To accommodate this potential population heterogeneity in the context of car ownership, the current paper proposes the application of latent class versions of ordered (ordered logit) and unordered response (multinomial logit) models. The models are estimated using the data from Quebec City, Canada. The latent class models offer superior data fit compared to their traditional counterparts while clearly highlighting the presence of segmentation in the population. The validation exercise using the model estimation results further illustrates the strength of these models for examining car ownership decisions. Moreover, the latent class unordered response models perform slightly better than the latent class ordered response models for the metropolitan region examined.     

Reliable route guidance: A case study from Chicago

Reliable route guidance can be obtained by solving the reliable a priori shortest path problem, which finds paths that maximize the probability of arriving on time. The goal of this paper is to demonstrate the benefits and applicability of such route guidance using a case study. An adaptive discretization scheme is first proposed to improve the efficiency in computing convolution, a time-consuming step used in the reliable routing algorithm to obtain path travel time distributions. Methods to construct link travel time distributions from real data in the case study are then discussed. Particularly, the travel time distributions on arterial streets are estimated from linear regression models calibrated from expressway data. Numerical experiments demonstrate that optimal paths are substantially affected by the reliability requirement in rush hours, and that reliable route guidance could generate up to 5-15% of travel time savings. The study also verifies that existing algorithms can solve large-scale problems within a reasonable amount of time.     

Transport and nation‐state governments: a global review

The review undertaken in this paper shows how, at the beginning of 1988, nation‐states of the world allocated ministerial responsibilities for the important function of transport. A total of 118 countries are examined, compared with 111 in 1982 (Transport Reviews, Vol. 2, No. 4) and 115 in 1985 (Transport Reviews, Vol. 5. No. 1). The analysis reveals an increase in the number of ministers solely responsible for one mode of transport, and notes an increase in the number of designated ministers for tourism. The paper goes on to examine the two main duties of ministers of transport: safety and economic regulation; and of the increasing need for closer international co‐operation as new transport technology, the growing demand for travel and expanding world trade make our world ‘an even more local village’ in the decades to come.