Performance ranking methodology for roading operations management

Management of enterprises in the public domain are being asked to look beyond financial measures of performance towards a system of performance indicators which will reflect achievement in quantitative but not necessarily monetary terms. The essential element of this approach is the role that management must play in the selection of indicators which reflect key dimensions of performance and objectives of the organization. This paper identifies comparison and presentation methods which are likely to be of practical help to managers facing the tasks of control and communication in the wider accountability process.

The issues raised are illustrated in a case study derived from an analysis of road maintenance management data from New Zealand territorial local authorities 1982–87.     

The introduction of innovation in Urban transport

More than 200 new systems of transport have been proposed as solutions to problems of urban congestion. However, very few of these have reached even the prototype stage and practically none at all have ever actually been installed.

The author asks himself why this is so. If an invention is to be introduced into a field which is poorly receptive to innovation, it must not only bring something really new and attractive for the users on the functional level as opposed merely to the technological level, but must also consider the political, industrial, social and human context.

The author gives two examples of innovation conceived and developed at the Battelle Geneva Research Centre: one for private transport, a new system for an electric car which will include the interests of the petrol industry, and the other for public transport, the “Speedaway” sponsored by Dunlop Limited. These two systems will be put on the market shortly and will attempt to fulfill the criteria mentioned above.     

A systems approach to area traffic control

Since the first pilot scheme for area‐traffic control was introduced in the city of Montreal (1959–60), computer control of traffic in urban areas through the adaptation of existing traffic‐signal systems has been provided to an increasing extent. This area of work may pose problems for the professional traffic engineer whose background in computer technology and general digital electronics may be limited.

In considering the engineering implications of such schemes a systems approach is important and is adopted here. Three existing and representative schemes are briefly mentioned in order to outline basic features. A more detailed examination of the various system elements follows with mention of data collection and transmission, and the role of the control computer.

The paper continues with a reconsideration of the three representative schemes in the light of the detailed treatment of system components. It concludes with a tentative assessment of the present position of area traffic control schemes and some suggestions as to the future development.     

A study of rail demand in a two‐tier fares environment

A method based on logit analysis is suggested for predicting the effects on patronage and revenue of relative changes in peak and offpeak fares. The method also permits the ready estimation of consequent changes in service profitability. Data was collected specifically for this study from British Rail's Teesside corridor to achieve model calibration. Results show the extent to which demand in peak and offpeak fare‐periods is complementary when fare restrictions are applied only to the morning peak.     

Evaluating the impact of legislation prohibiting hand-held cell phone use while driving

As of November 2008, the number of cell phone subscribers in the US exceeded 267 million, nearly three times more than the 97 million subscribers in June 2000. This rapid growth in cell phone use has led to concerns regarding their impact on driver performance and road safety. Numerous legislative efforts are under way to restrict hand-held cell phone use while driving. Since 1999, every state has considered such legislation, but few have passed primary enforcement laws. As of 2008, six states, the District of Columbia (DC), and the Virgin Islands have laws banning the use of hand-held cell phones while driving. A review of the literature suggests that in laboratory settings, hand-held cell phone use impairs driver performance by increasing tension, delaying reaction time, and decreasing awareness. However, there exists insufficient evidence to prove that hand-held cell phone use increases automobile-accident-risk. In contrast to other research in this area that uses questionnaires, tests, and simulators, this study analyzes the impact of hand-held cell phone use on driving safety based on historical automobile-accident-risk-related data and statistics, which would be of interest to transportation policy-makers. To this end, a pre-law and post-law comparison of automobile accident rate measures provides one way to assess the effect of hand-held cell phone bans on driving safety; this paper provides such an analysis using public domain data sources. A discussion of what additional data are required to build convincing arguments in support of or against legislation is also provided.     

Gendered immobility: influence of social roles and local context on mobility decisions in Pakistan

This paper examines the instances of one-day immobility in Pakistan and reports its socio-demographic determinants using the nationally representative dataset of the 2007 Pakistan Time Use Survey. Of 37,830 time diary respondents, nearly 30% did not report travel during the diary day. Homemakers and those out of the workforce were more likely to be immobile than employed or student respondents. Immobility rates were very high among women (55%) as compared to men (4%). Among women, those between 20 and 34 years of age, married, with children, having better education, dependent on other household members and those living in higher income households were more likely to be immobile. The excessive gender nature of immobility seems to be triggered by a gender-based sociocultural environment, which restricts female mobility due to family honor concerns. Other than this, those living in the provinces of Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa or in urban areas were more likely to be immobile than those living in Punjab and Sindh provinces or in rural areas. The significant geographic effect at broader spatial scale is caused by the demographic structure as well as due to differences in the social and cultural context of these areas. Finally, questions regarding the measurement of immobility and the potential implications of increased female immobility are discussed.     

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.     

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.     

Application of warm forming aluminum alloy parts for automotive body based on impact

Aluminum alloys are important technological materials for the application on lightweight design and development of vehicle body. The research works for characterizing warm forming behavior of aluminum alloys have generally reported. However, there were few researches focused on the flow behavior of warm forming aluminum alloy parts for the energy absorbing performance during crash. The tensile stress-strain response for warm forming AA5182 specimens tested under the strain rates of 0.0015 s^?1, 0.015 s^?1, 0.15 s^?1 and 1.5 s^?1 are presented in this paper. The data were fit to the Johnson-Cook constitutive model for the simulation of frontal impact. The energy absorbing performance of warm forming AA5182 parts were analyzed. The results show the higher flow stresses and lower fractured strain of warm forming aluminum alloy parts with the strain rate increasing. The flow stresses of warm forming aluminum alloy parts are insensitive to strain rate, while the fractured strain and elongation are sensitive to strain rate. The intrusion displacement of the warm forming aluminum alloy parts is appropriate for the satisfaction of vehicle body design avoiding the excessive deformation for the injury of passenger or the failure of frontal door opening. The feasibility of warm forming aluminum alloy parts is verified with the analysis of energy absorbing performance, stiffness and modal of vehicle body.