Performance indicator analysis: A management tool for the improvement of bus transit operation in Bangkok

This paper intends to demonstrate that the performance indicator analysis technique can be successfully used as a diagnostic tool to identify operational inefficiency and ineffectiveness at the route level of transit operation. The technique has been applied on 14 bus routes of Bangkok Mass Transit Authority to reveal the inter-route differences in operational efficiency and effectiveness. Twenty performance indicators relating to costs of services, fuel consumption, staff ratio, crew productivity, fleet utilization, service output per bus, daily revenues, etc., were selected to represent the resource efficiency, resource effectiveness and service effectiveness of the bus system. Results of the analyses revealed that considerable variations existed across the routes against many of these 20 selected indicators. These included variations in terms of labor and capacity utilization, maintenance expenditure, etc., many of which can be improved through suitable managerial measures. Based on these findings, specific recommendations have been made for improvement in the deficient areas that are considered to be within the operator domain. These indicators also provide a basis for comparison over time, with other operators and standards. A ranking scale was also developed to determine the over all attractiveness of the routes.     

Fracture toughness of steel plate from MV Kowloon Bridge

Chemical analysis, tensile, Charpy, DW NDT and fracture mechanics toughness data are presented for a grade A steel plate from the Kowloon Bridge, a sister ship of Derbyshire. The plate is shown to have poor toughness under dynamic loading conditions. The results leave open the possibility that brittle fracture could have contributed to a structural failure in the Derbyshire even at the high temperature of +30°C which is reported to have existed at the time of the ship's disappearance. The results are felt to support the proposition that present classification society rules need tightening to reduce the risk of brittle fracture in ships.     

Comparative advantage and maritime transport in the Baltic States

Conventional wisdom has it that, because of locational and other advantages, transit trade and transport, especially maritime transport, could be expected to play a major role in the development process of the Baltic States which was expected to follow their renewed independence in 1991. This paper secks to evaluate this proposition. The first section of the paper provides a brief account of the present state of the shipping and port sectors in the three Baltic republics and offers some speculation about likely future developments. The following section considers whether there is any historical basis for the presumption in favour of transit trade. The paper concludes with a somewhat speculative discussion of whether the Baltic States might be expected to possess any long run comparative advantage in maritime transport. It is suggested that in this respect a distinction should be made between ports and shipping and that in a more prosperous future, shipping, in particular, might be expected to decline in importance.     

High speed rail market projection: Survey design and analysis

This paper summarises work done to assess the market potential and likely financial performance of a planned high-speed rail link connecting Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne, under a variety of scenarios concerning the services offered and the possible market responses of the competing transport modes in the corridor. In the Australian context, such a link has the characteristics of an essentially new transport mode since existing rail services are extremely poorly developed. The expectation was that generated demand could be a substantial part of the overall ridership. A programme of market research was commissioned by the private consortium considering the project, designed to support forecasting models capable of predicting both diverted and generated travel on the new service. A major survey of current travellers was conducted in 1988, followed by an extensive collection of stated preference evidence about the factors affecting the travel decisions of both existing travellers and those who had not recently made any journeys in the corridor. The paper focuses mainly on the design and organisation of the surveys, on the analysis approach, and on the methods used to generate forecasts for simulated populations and scenarios.     

Public subsidy of seaports

There is much contraversy regarding this issue. On the one hand there are the 'islanders' Which are generally the countries of Anglo-Saxon culture or influence in Which ports are often considered as mere commercial enterprises, and on the other hand the continentals where ports are instruments of national or local policy. The French belong by tradition to the latter. But a further examination of the subject would be useful; this article presents this reappraisal.

I would like first of all to examine what lies behind the notion of government subsidy for ports, and then to draw conclusions regarding 20 years of French law which have steadily reformed the status of French Ports.     

Dynasim 3: A Computer Program for Simulation Of Vehicle Riding Motions

The purpose of this paper is to present analytical techniques for evaluating the dynamic riding behaviour of a vehicle. These techniques have been applied to a fairly sophisticated model of a bus, where a three-dimensional structure, elastic frame and non-linear shock-absorbers have been considered.

A computer simulation program (DYNASIM 3) has been set up, which is actually used at FIAT corporation for evaluating vehicle riding qualities and improving the design process.     

Characterization of Dynamic Vehicle Stability Using Two Models of the Human Pilot Behaviour

This article deals with a study of the stability of the vehicle/pilot system for two different models of human operator behaviour. These models, are the outcome of various.approximations of the precision model for single loop compensatory situations. The vehicle is represented with two degrees of freedom and the pilot is assumed to respond to the lateral displacement and to the lateral velocity with a time delay. The properties of these resulting systems are presented and it is observed that, for any given forward visibility, a critical velocity defines a domain of controllability from a domain of uncontrollability. Furthermore this critical velocity is shown independant of the vehicle/ pilot parameters and may be considered as a possible vehicle safety criterion.     

A dual decomposition method for sector capacity constrained traffic flow optimization

An aggregate air traffic flow model based on a multicommodity network is used for traffic flow management in the National Airspace System. The problem of minimizing the total travel time of flights in the National Airspace System of the United States, subject to sector capacity constraints, is formulated as an Integer Program. The resulting solution achieves optimal delay control. The Integer Program implemented for the scenarios investigated has billions of variables and constraints. It is relaxed to a Linear Program for computational efficiency. A dual decomposition method is applied to solve the large scale Linear Program in a computationally tractable manner. A rounding algorithm is developed to map the Linear Program solution to a physically acceptable result, and is implemented for the entire continental United States. A 2-h traffic flow management problem is solved with the method.