Fatigue in transport: a review of exposure,risks, checks and controls*

Human fatigue continues to threaten safe transport. There are claims that employers of operators should do more to mitigate the risks, and several regulators are promoting fatigue-risk management in the context of safety management systems (SMS). The current paper reviews fatigue-related risk and exposure factors and control measures for operators of land- and sea-based transport forms. Our review identifies 13 types of measures for the monitoring or control of fatigue risks: optimal staffing; optimal schedule design; optimisation of breaks/naps; monitoring of actual hours worked; optimisation of work content; monitoring and feedback of actual sleep; health screening and treatment; promotion of recovery from work; fitness-for-duty testing; monitoring of fatigue symptoms while operating; control of fatigue while operating; performance monitoring and assistance; and fatigue-proofing. We also identify two systemic measures needed to anchor risk mitigation in SMS: organisational learning and training/other. By structuring monitoring and control measures along Dawson and McCulloch’s [Managing fatigue: It’s about sleep. Sleep Medicine Reviews, 9(5), 365–380] fatigue-risk trajectory, a framework is obtained that acts as a guide for fatigue-risk management by transport employers. To inform transport managers further, evaluations are needed of the effectiveness of individual control measures as well as whole fatigue-risk management interventions.     

Logsums for utility-maximizers and regret-minimizers,and their relation with desirability and satisfaction

This paper studies to what extent the Logsum-measure of user benefits relates to travelers’ perceptions of choice set-desirability and choice-satisfaction. Knowing these relations is important since researchers have recently started to analyze and interpret user benefits in general – and Logsums in specific – in terms of these more behaviorally oriented notions, rather than in terms of expected utility. Participants to a stated route choice experiment were asked to indicate, after each choice made, to what extent they considered the choice set to be desirable, or to what extent they were satisfied with the chosen alternative. These measurements were correlated with Logsums that were computed for each choice situation. In addition, the paper derives a regret-based Logsum (which gives the expected regret of a choice situation) and presents a comparison with its utilitarian counterpart. Also for this regret-based Logsum, correlations with desirability- and satisfaction-ratings are computed. As a general finding, it appears that all computed correlations are rather weak. This suggests that, at least in the context of our data, the utility-based Logsum and its regret-based counterpart appear to have only a fairly weak connection with the behavioral notions of choice set-desirability and choice-satisfaction.     

Leisure mobility styles in Swiss conurbations: construction and empirical analysis

Leisure travel is the most difficult travel purpose to analyse due to the lack of fixed spatial and temporal referents and the consequent flexibility in patterns. This paper addresses lifestyles, social influence, and the travellers’ social networks, issues that have proved valuable for travel behaviour research in confronting the complexity of leisure travel. An approach for constructing leisure mobility styles, based on orientations towards leisure and mobility, will be presented first and then the hypotheses that transport behaviour can be better explained through analysis of leisure mobility styles will be tested. Multivariate analysis reveals that the leisure mobility style group makes a significant contribution towards clarifying variance for the activities ‘Visiting friends and relatives’, ‘Travel participation’, ‘Mode choice’, and ‘Travel distance for leisure’. The use of leisure mobility styles is most useful for developing practical intervention pointers where the in-group homogeneity of lifestyle should be addressed in greater detail.     

Transport for older people: Characteristics and solutions

Entering the 21st century, one of the most significant demographic changes in developed countries is the aging of the population. Travel is an important aspect of older people's economic well-being, so with the aging of the population, improving transport for older people is increasingly important. This article presents the results of a study of older people's travel behaviour based largely but not exclusively on LATS (London Area Travel Survey) 2001 data. The focus is on older people's trip chaining behaviour, including trip chain complexity, trip purpose sequence and mode choice in a chain. After identifying the policy implications it looks at the role of Special Transport Services in improving the supply of transport for older people, taking the London Borough of Camden as a case study.     

Sensor fusion-based lane detection for LKS+ACC system

This paper discusses the market trends and advantages of a safety system integrating LKS (Lane Keeping System) and ACC (Adaptive Cruise Control), referred to as the LKS+ACC system, and proposes a method utilizing the range data from ACC for the sake of lane detection. The overall structure of lane detection is the same as the conventional method using monocular vision: EDF (Edge Distribution Function)-based initialization, sub-ROI (Region Of Interest) for left/right and distance-based layers, steerable filter-based feature extraction, and model fitting in each sub-ROI. The proposed method adds only the system for confining lane detection ROI to free space that is established by range data. Experimental results indicate that such a simple adaptive ROI can overcome occlusion of lane markings and disturbance of neighboring vehicles.     

Adsorption models and structural characterization for activated carbon fibers

The nitrogen adsorption isotherms at 77.69 K were measured for two samples of activated carbon fibers and their microstructures were investigated. Among established isotherm equations, the Dubinin-Radushkevich equation showed the best agreement with the experimental data, while the Langmuir equation showed a large deviation when employed at low relative pressures. The MP method, t-method and αs-method were used to analyze the pore size distribution. The calculated average pore widths and BET (Brunauer-Emmett-Teller) surface areas for the sample A-13 were 0.86 nm and 1 286.60 m2/g, while for the sample A-16, they were 0.82 nm and 1 490.64 m2/g. The sample with larger pore width was more suitable to be used as additive in chemical heat pumps, while the other one could be used as adsorbent in adsorption refrigeration systems.     

Analysis of intended bus usage

In order to plan bus operations, it is necessary for transit planners to understand what factors may influence travelers’ choice of buses for travels within a city. The proposed method involves various scenarios of a hypothetical bus operation which was rated by a group of individuals.

Analysis of Covariance technique is employed to analyze people's sensitivities to their perceived levels of bus service characteristics. The technique involves:

1. testing for the significant effects of varying levels of service characteristics upon people's intentions to use bus service, and

2. assessing differences among various population segments in their sensitivity patterns towards bus service characteristics.

Results from the application of the technique to attitudinal data collected by the Orange County Transit District indicate that bus service characteristics do influence, independently and jointly, respondents’ stated intentions to use buses.

Sensitivity pattern differed across the five homogeneous segments identified in an earlier research based on socioeconomic characteristics.

One segment (an older, predominatly male population segment with higher home ownership level and lower income than the rest of the sample) was relatively insensitive to changes in bus fare and was influenced by changes in headway independent of changes in access distance. Another segment consisting of fewer registered voters with lower education also exhibited similar independent impact of headway and access distance.

The technique is especially useful in reducing a large number of proposed alternative bus systems to a smaller set for further planning considerations by specifying the ranges within which variation of service characteristic would cause substantial changes in the intended usage responses.     

富水区隧道环向盲管间距优化分析北大核心CSCD

富水区隧道涌水遵循“以堵为主、防排结合”的处置原则,其中排水体系构建的合理性是隧道安全施工与良好运营的关键因素。首先分析隧道排水体系,揭示其工作原理,然后利用FLAC 3D有限差分软件,对鸿图特长隧道富水断层区设置的不同环向盲管间距进行三维流固耦合模拟,通过分析渗水压力、锚杆受力及涌水量,揭示塑性区体积及分布区域特征。研究结果表明:沿隧道轴向,支护结构孔隙水压力大致呈周期性分布,其周期近似等于环向盲管纵向间距;加密环向盲管,在降低支护结构受力并减小塑性区体积的同时,会增加隧道排水量;随环向盲管间距的增大,注浆加固圈塑性区首先出现在围岩好的区域,断层区出现塑性区最晚;断层区锚杆加固效果较差,可通过减小钢拱架环向间距以提高结构刚度,使注浆加固圈沿轴向受力更合理。综合考虑各种因素,建议在建工程断层区环向盲管间距设置为3 m,断层附近区间距为4 m。     

高烈度地震区隧道洞口段纤维混凝土衬砌抗震效果分析北大核心CSCD

为提高隧道洞口段衬砌结构的震时安全性,以某公路隧道洞口段为研究背景,利用有限元分析软件ABAQUS,对使用钢纤维混凝土(SFRC)、钢-玄武岩混杂纤维混凝土(SBHFRC)与素混凝土作为二次衬砌结构材料时的抗震效果进行对比分析。结果表明:在同体积纤维掺量的条件下,与素混凝土二次衬砌相比,SFRC二次衬砌的最大、最小主应力峰值分别增加34.27%、23.56%,剪应力峰值增加23.54%,SBHFRC二次衬砌的最大、最小主应力峰值分别增加3.90%、3.37%,剪应力峰值增加3.32%;SFRC、SBHFRC二次衬砌结构的等效位移分别减少了8.08%、2.36%;SFRC、SBHFRC二次衬砌结构监测面各监测点平均安全系数分别提高了38.73%、50.04%。