Latent temporal preferences: An application to airline travel

An essential element of demand modeling in the airline industry is the representation of time of day demand—the demand for a given itinerary as a function of its departure or arrival times. It is an important datum that drives successful scheduling and fleet decisions. There are two key components to this problem: the distribution of the time of day demand and how preferred travel time influences itinerary choice. This paper focuses on estimating the time of day distribution. Our objective is to estimate it in a manner that is not confounded with air travel supply; is a function of the characteristics of the traveler, the trip, and the market; and accounts for potential measurement errors in self-reported travel time preferences. We employ a stated preference dataset collected by intercepting people who were booking continental US trips via an internet booking service. Respondents reported preferred travel times as well as choices from a hypothetical set of itineraries. We parameterize the time of day distribution as a mixture of normal distributions (due to the strong peaking nature of travel time preferences) and allow the mixing function to vary by individual characteristics and trip attributes. We estimate the time of day distribution and the itinerary choice model jointly in a manner that accounts for measurement error in the self-reported travel time preferences. We find that the mixture of normal distributions fits the time of day distribution well and is behaviorally intuitive. The strongest covariates of travel time preferences are party size and time zone change. The methodology employed to treat self-reported travel time preferences as potentially having error contributes to the broader transportation time of day demand literature, which either assumes that the desired travel times are known with certainty or that they are unknown. We find that the error in self-reported travel time preferences is statistically significant and impacts the inferred time of day demand distribution.     

Who doesn’t mind waiting? Examining the relationships between waiting attitudes and person- and travel-related attributes

Transportation - Waiting, whether for services, for someone, or for something, is an inescapable part of life. This paper addresses a gap in the waiting time literature by examining previously...     

Nudging people towards more sustainable residential choice decisions: an intervention based on focalism and visualization

Transportation - There have been numerous behavior change studies focused on sustainable travel mode choices. In this study we focused on the residential choices that in turn influence travel...     

Evaluating road safety audit procedures: some questions and a new method of study

This article discusses the current views on the application of road safety audits (RSAs) as a tool for the improvement of road safety and proposes a new method of study for detailed evaluation of some features that can influence their effectiveness. This is demonstrated in the practical setting of RSAs applied to existing road reviews or inspections. Starting from a review of published sources on RSAs in different countries, a set of questions has been identified and a case study undertaken on the impact of alternative RSA procedures on its overall effectiveness. RSA effectiveness is measured both as agreement with a safety expert assessment and to an accident-based study. The main features analyzed in the case study include the type of observer used for data collection and the type of checklist used as a guide to field work. Based on an exploratory study, the performance of RSA application is evaluated using weighted indices of concordance and disagreement, and the rating of detection or omission for the observations gathered in the accident diagnosis of the safety problems at the intersection studied, supplemented by a statistical analysis of the influence of selected covariates on these scores. The main results of the case study can be summarized as clear support to team work for field observation and also to employing less-experienced personnel for field observation. The study also stresses the need for procedures/criteria for priority setting. These conclusions are useful for the selection of alternative RSA procedures in agencies responsible for promoting or enforcing RSA and in professional teams carrying out RSA tasks. Several features deserving further study are also identified.     

Range profile target recognition using sparse representation based on feature space

A novel method is presented to improve the recognition rate of warhead in this paper. Firstly, a tool for electromagnetic calculation, like CST Microwave Studio, is used to simulate the frequency response of the electromagnetic scattering. Secondly, the echo and further the range profile are acquired from the frequency response by further processing. Thirdly, a set of discriminative features is extracted from the range profiles of the target. Fourthly, these features are used to construct a dictionary for the sparse representation classifier. Finally, the sample of the target can be classified by solving the sparsest coefficients. Since the reconstruction result is determined by a linear combination of the training samples, this method has a good robustness for the variable features. By formulating the problem within a feature-based sparse representation framework, the presented method combines the discriminative features of each sample during the sparse recovery process rather than in a postprocessing manner. Moreover, based on the feature representation space rather than a single feature or image pixel, the constructed dictionary exhibits both strong expressive and discriminative powers that can enhance the classification performance of the test sample. A series of test results based on the simulated data demonstrates the effectiveness of our method.     

Marine Shoreline Management—A 35-Year Evaluation of Outcomes in San Juan County,Washington, US

In 1976, Washington became the first state to implement the federal Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA) primarily through the 1971 WA Shoreline Management Act (SMA). However, there has been little effort in Washington to evaluate outcomes of shoreline protection programs post SMA. In 2006–2008, we characterized shoreline conditions in San Juan County over three time periods spanning pre and post SMA and engaged community members to improve effectiveness of shoreline protection. We found modest improvements in forest retention on marine shorelines between pre and post 1977, but few other improvements through time. While we could not measure shoreline construction rates, construction practices for shore armor and overwater structures (docks) have changed very little, despite the increased regulatory standards. The vast majority of shore armor constructed post SMA occurred without mandatory county or state permits likely due to: widespread perception that permits were unnecessary and that permit standards were arbitrary and inconsistently applied; poor understanding of shoreline ecology by community members; lack of county or state enforcement authority and shoreline monitoring programs; and poor permit tracking systems.     

Conceptualizing Social Outcomes of Large Marine Protected Areas

There has been an assumption that because many large marine protected areas (LMPAs) are designated in areas with relatively few direct uses, they therefore have few stakeholders and negligible social outcomes. This article challenges this assumption with diverse examples of social outcomes that are distinctive in LMPAs. We define social outcomes as inclusive of both social change processes and social impacts, where “social” includes all perceptual or material human dimensions. We draw on five in-depth case studies to report social outcomes resulting from proposed or designated LMPAs in Bermuda, Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Kiribati, Palau, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands & Guam. We conclude: (1) social outcomes arise even in remote LMPAs; (2) LMPA efforts generate social outcomes at all stages of development; (3) LMPAs have the potential to produce outcomes at a higher level of social organization, which can change the scope and type of affected populations and, in some cases, the nature and stakes of the outcomes themselves; (4) the potential for LMPAs to impart distinctive social outcomes results from their unique geographies and/or intersection with high-level politics and policy processes; and (5) social outcomes of LMPAs may emerge in the form of social change processes and/or social impacts.     

Reducing CO<Subscript>2</Subscript> from cars in the European Union

The European Union (EU) recently adopted CO₂ emissions mandates for new passenger cars, requiring steady reductions to 95 gCO₂/km in 2021. We use a multi-sector computable general equilibrium (CGE) model, which includes a private transportation sector with an empirically-based parameterization of the relationship between income growth and demand for vehicle miles traveled. The model also includes representation of fleet turnover, and opportunities for fuel use and emissions abatement, including representation of electric vehicles. We analyze the impact of the mandates on oil demand, CO₂ emissions, and economic welfare, and compare the results to an emission trading scenario that achieves identical emissions reductions. We find that vehicle emission standards reduce CO₂ emissions from transportation by about 50 MtCO₂ and lower the oil expenditures by about €6 billion, but at a net added cost of €12 billion in 2020. Tightening CO₂ standards further after 2021 would cost the EU economy an additional €24–63 billion in 2025, compared with an emission trading system that achieves the same economy-wide CO₂ reduction. We offer a discussion of the design features for incorporating transport into the emission trading system.     

汽车钢板弹簧多体动力学建模综述

本文中首先综述了板簧设计与建模的研究现状。接着,系统分析了螺旋弹簧模型、beam element模型、ANSYS模型、SAE三连杆模型这4种板簧模型的优缺点及适用情况,在模型复杂程度、仿真速度、参数化等方面进行了对比。最后,以某8×4重型货车为例,分别建立了包含4种板簧模型的整车模型,进行平顺性和操纵稳定性的仿真,并与实车试验进行了对比。结果表明,在4种板簧模型中,SAE三连杆板簧模型的综合性能最好。     

基于距离信息的鱼雷攻击意图判别方法研究

编队作战是未来海上作战的基本样式,进行舰艇编队水声对抗研究具有十分重要的意义.如果舰艇编队能够通过数据融合等方式获取鱼雷距离和方位的报警信息,并根据这些信息判断出鱼雷对舰艇编队的攻击意图,即鱼雷攻击的具体目标舰艇,则有助于指挥员采取有效、合理的对抗方法,从而提高舰艇编队的生存能力.论文在建立声自导鱼雷攻击模型和舰艇编队运动模型的基础上,对鱼雷从不同区域来袭时的态势划分,提出了攻击意图的判断准则,并且通过仿真验证,分析了影响判断准确度的因素,为编队协同水声对抗指挥决策提供了必要参考.