Risk and reward in public transportation contracting

The workshop discusses and documents a number of countries’ experiences regarding risk and reward in the delivery of public transport and determines the way in which competitive pressures actually work (or not) to deliver efficient and effective services. Papers are grouped into three main themes, i.e., public versus private management; negotiated versus competitively tendered contracts; and measures to improve performance. This chapter begins with a brief overview of each of the eight papers. This is followed by a section that out the discussions that emanated from the papers. Finally, the main policy and research recommendations are presented.     

Potential of Real-Time Cylinder Pressure Analysis by Using Field Programmable Gate Arrays

In this paper, a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) was used to implement a real-time cylinder pressure analysis. The goal of the project was to improve the accuracy of calculated heat release and center of combustion calculations to enhance the precision of engine control functions. Compared to today’s real-time pressure analysis systems, several additional physical effects were taken into account for this objective. The wall heat transfer was calculated based on the approach published by Hohenberg. A chemical equilibrium with six substances was assumed for the mixture composition and a real-time calculation method was developed. Furthermore, a two-zone model was adapted and implemented for this realtime analysis. The validation of the results and the rating of the improvement in precision were based on GT-SUITE simulation results as an offline reference tool. Compared to state-of-the-art analysis systems, it was possible to reduce the average error of the center of combustion position from 1.6° to 0.5° crank angle (CA) by taking the investigated effects into account. Moreover, it was possible to significantly reduce the time required for the calculation from one complete combustion cycle to 0.2°CA at an engine speed of 3,000 rpm by using a continuous calculation method on the FPGA. This led to an additional improvement of the ability to control the engine, especially under highly dynamic operation conditions.     

Implementation and validation of a three degrees of freedom steering-system model in a full vehicle model

This paper describes the coupling between a three degrees of freedom steering-system model and a multi-body truck model. The steering-system model includes the king-pin geometry to provide the correct feedback torque from the road to the steering-system. The steering-system model is combined with a validated tractor semi-trailer model. An instrumented tractor semi-trailer has been tested on a proving ground and the steering-wheel torque, pitman-arm angle, king-pin angles and drag-link force have been measured during steady-state cornering, a step steer input and a sinusoidal steering input. It is shown that the steering-system model is able to accurately predict the steering-wheel torque for all tests and the vehicle model is accurate for vehicle motions up to a frequency where the lateral acceleration gain is minimum. Even though the vehicle response is not accurate above this frequency, the steering-wheel torque is still represented accurately.     

Environmental impact assessment of sediment dumping in the southern Baltic Sea using meiofaunal indicators

An experimental sediment dumping was carried out in the southern part of the Mecklenburg Bight in June 2001. Foraminiferans and ostracods from superficial sandy sediment were studied in a time series from before dumping until March 2004 in order to assess changes in associations and recolonization patterns of both groups. Additionally, an area sampling covering the dumping site and its surroundings from 15.5 to 20.7 m water depth made it possible to compare associations inside and outside the dumping area as well as the water depth dependent distribution of foraminiferans and ostracods. Salinity values vary within the high alpha-mesohaline and low polyhaline range. The dominating species are Ammotium cassis (Foraminifera) and Sarsicytheridea bradii (Ostracoda). The diversity is low (Fisher alpha index from 0.4 to 3.2 for foraminiferans and 1.0 to 2.5 for ostracods), but higher within the dumping site samples. These higher values are explainable by input of allochthonous tests and valves representing additional species. After the sediment dumping it took two and a half years to re-establish the total foraminiferan association and the total foraminifer/ostracod ratio within the dumping site. Total foraminiferan abundance increases remarkably with water depth (mean 83 tests in 100 ml) driven by higher nutrient availability and more suitable salinity and temperature values within the zone of the oscillating halocline. The distribution of shallow water species such as Cribroelphidium excavatum, Eucythere argus and Hirschmannia viridis, within the transient water layer A. cassis, Nodulina dentaliniformis, S. bradii and Palmoconcha laevata and below Eggerella scabra indicate the depth position of the halocline. Water depth and sediment dumping influence are the main driving factors for the distribution of foraminifer and ostracod associations within the study area. However, a significant sedimentological difference between samples inside and outside the dumping area is not recognizable.     

Environmental benefits analysis of electric vehicles in the Czech Republic

The article evaluates the environmental benefits of electric vehicles using well-to-wheel analysis in the Czech Republic. The power consumption per kilometer is determined from the combined cycle of the New European Driving Cycle. Using information from the integrated registry of polluters and mandatory disclosures of the CEZ company the specific harmful emissions production per 1 kW h of electricity is determined. The combination of electricity consumed and the production of harmful emissions per 1 kW h of electricity determine the indirect harmful emissions of an electric vehicle per kilometer. Computer simulation of the indirect production of harmful emissions is performed on the Mitsubishi MiEV engine, typical for an electric vehicle.     

Floating car based travel times for city logistics

City logistics routing requires time-dependent travel times for each network link. We rely on the concept of Floating Car Data (FCD) to develop and provide such travel times. Different levels of aggregation in the determination of time-dependent travel times from a database of historical FCD are presented and evaluated with regard to routing quality. Furthermore, a Data Mining approach is introduced, allowing for a substantial reduction of the volume of input data required for city logistics routing. The different approaches are investigated and evaluated by a huge amount of FCD collected for the urban area of Stuttgart, Germany. The results show that the Data Mining approach enables efficient provision of time-dependent travel times without a significant loss of routing quality for city logistics applications.     

Regulating CO2 emissions of transportation in Europe: A CGE-analysis using market-based instruments

This paper analyzes the use of market-based emission regulation instruments to address the carbon dioxide emissions of transportation. Simulations with a static multi-region computable general equilibrium model show that including transportation into the European emission trading system is superior to a closed emission trading system for transportation or a tax-based approach. Furthermore, we show that exempting transportation from emission regulation is the most favorable approach in terms of welfare. This counterintuitive result is due to a large tax-interaction effect caused by high pre-existing fuel taxes in the transport sector.     

The performance effect of innovation in shipping companies

The aim of this study is to investigate how innovation contributes to company performance in Norwegian shipping and to extend our knowledge concerning what organizational and inter-organizational factors influence innovation in shipping firms. The study is based on a survey of 46 Norwegian shipping companies. We find that innovation contributes to firm performance. We also find that a conscious strategy, strategy involvement, external relationships, especially market relationships, and productivity slack have a significant positive effect on the degree of innovation. The results are dependent upon the companies' degree of differentiation and the type of innovation.