Dial-a-ride with customer operated dispatching

Demand responsive bus operation generally requires some type of manual dispatching. If the volume of traffic is low and few vehicles are in service, the cost of dispatching relative to the total operating costs will be substantial. Consequently, many operators hesitate to introduce a dial-a-ride system.In a joint project between Gothenburg Transport Authority (GS) and Volvo, the latter has designed a device to be fitted to the general telephone system whereby a telephone dial can be used to transmit coded information over the public telephone network to a central recorder. In a dial-a-ride service this device can be used as a robot dispatcher.During a period of 11 weeks in 1976 this device was tested in practical operation in the northeastern part of Gothenburg, the second largest city of Sweden. During the same period a prototype Volvo vehicle for low volume demand was also tested in this dial-a-ride service.During this experiment it appeared that customers easily adjusted to the new procedure of getting their bus. These promising results have led GS to continue the development of this system for large scale operation.At the time of the experiment in Gothenburg, Mr. Elmberg was the director of planning of the Gothenburg Transport Authority.     

The marginal cost taxation of a transportation network

The paper shows that if the cost and demand functions satisfy certain weak smoothness conditions then the marginal cost taxation of a transportation network is optimal in the usual local sense. Interactions between the cost of travel along a link and flow along other links and between the demand for travel along a route and flow along other routes are permitted.     

Two alternative definitions of traffic equilibrium

The paper shows that, under reasonable conditions, if there are junction or modal interactions then a Wardrop equilibrium exists but a user—optimised flow may well not.     

Optimized fuzzy control strategy for a spa hybrid truck

In this paper, an optimized control strategy is proposed for a split parallel hydraulic hybrid truck. The model of the vehicle was simulated in Simulink. According to a global optimization technique, a fuzzy control strategy is developed for the vehicle. This strategy shows flexibility for different drive cycles and a desirable fuel consumption reduction, especially for a low speed drive cycle, which is extracted according to an urban utility vehicle mission.     

A simplified model for evaluating tire wear during conceptual design

In the field of vehicle dynamics, commercial software can aid the designer during the conceptual and detailed design phases. Simulations using these tools can quickly provide specific design metrics, such as yaw and lateral velocity, for standard maneuvers. However, it remains challenging to correlate these metrics with empirical quantities that depend on many external parameters and design specifications. This scenario is the case with tire wear, which depends on the frictional work developed by the tire-road contact. In this study, an approach is proposed to estimate the tire-road friction during steady-state longitudinal and cornering maneuvers. Using this approach, a qualitative formula for tire wear evaluation is developed, and conceptual design analyses of cornering maneuvers are performed using simplified vehicle models. The influence of some design parameters such as cornering stiffness, the distance between the axles, and the steer angle ratio between the steering axles for vehicles with two steering axles is evaluated. The proposed methodology allows the designer to predict tire wear using simplified vehicle models during the conceptual design phase.     

Performance measurements of a tracked vehicle system

To improve crossing ability, the most important performance factor for tracked vehicle systems operating on low-bearing capacity peats, and to minimize income losses that result from downtime and maintenance costs, a vehicle was designed in order to adapt to operating condition changes. This article describes the mobile performance of a novel vehicle with segmented rubber tracks on a low-bearing capacity peat. At an equivalent travelling speed, the novel vehicle’s tractive performance in a variable operating environment caused by changes in terrain cohesiveness and hydrodynamic responses was superior to that of the previous model. The new vehicle, which could be operated on the Sepang peat, showed a tractive effort of 42.2% of the gross vehicle weight in field experiments; the recommended minimum tractive effort is between 30 and 36% of the gross vehicle weight.     

Neural-empirical tyre model based on recursive lazy learning under combined longitudinal and lateral slip conditions

The behaviour of the tyre plays an important role in the vehicle handling. An accurate tyre model that estimates these forces and moments it is highly essential for the studies of vehicle behaviour. For the last ten years neural networks have attracted a great deal of attention in vehicle dynamics and control. Neural networks have been effectively applied to model complex systems due to their good learning capability. In this paper a recursive lazy learning method based on neural networks is considered to model the tyre characteristics under combined braking and cornering. The proposed method is validated by comparison with experimental obtained responses. Results show the estimated model correlates very well with the data obtained experimentally. Moreover, the neural model proposed allows to include the asymetric tyre behaviour in the tyre model without difficulty.     

Development of a hardware in the loop simulation system for electric power steering in vehicles

In this paper, a hardware-in-the-loop simulation (HILS) system was developed before the development of an electric power steering (EPS) system in a vehicle. This study was focused on the establishment of the HILS system. Driving conditions are simulated with the HILS system. The actual steering input parameters are confirmed on the monitor while driving the HILS system. The steering forces observed in the simulation with the developed HILS system are similar to those in real vehicle tests. The developed HILS system can be applied in the development of various types of EPS systems.     

Theoretical Comparison Between Different Configurations of Radial and Conventional Bogies

This article compares the dynamic behaviour of different configurations of radial and conventional two-axle bogies. In general, the design parameters for a better curve negotiation are not compatible with those for good stability. As the main target of this article is to compare the curving performances of different bogies under the same design basis, several bogie configurations with the same level of stability, obtained by choosing proper primary suspension stiffnesses, have been used. The comparison includes a conventional bogie and three radial bogies with differing self-steering and forced-steering principles in three different passenger services: High Speed, Regional and Mass Transit. The analysis has been concentrated on parameters such as stability, lateral wheel-track forces in curve and wheel wear indices. The results show that the radial bogie configurations studied do not make significant contributions in general applications with regard to a conventional bogie. It is only under specific running conditions and types of service that some radial bogie configurations provide advantages with respect to the conventional bogie.     

Lateral Vehicle Behaviour: Comparison of Subjective/Objective Assessment Using the Choquet Integral

This paper presents an original method for the aggregation of transverse behaviour indicators obtained first from a subjective assessment then from an objective one of different vehicles tested under normal working conditions. The Choquet integral is used with respect to fuzzy measures. The main advantage of this method is to take account of the existing interactions between the indicators: redundancy, complementarity, inde-pendence. When this tool is used for subjective and objective evaluations, the computation methods of the objective indicators can be validated. Moreover, the influence of the human factor in the judgment of vehicle behaviour is easier to understand.