Commuter impacts and behavior changes during a temporary freeway closure: the ‘Fix I-5’ project in Sacramento,California

One mile of Interstate 5 (I-5) in downtown Sacramento, California was closed intermittently for reconstruction (‘the Fix project’) over nine weeks in 2008. We analyze the impacts of the Fix on commuters’ travel behavior, as measured through two contemporaneous Internet-based surveys. The impacts of the Fix on traffic conditions do not appear to have been excessive: majorities in all relevant subsamples did not find conditions worse than usual, and sizable minorities actually found them to be better. Among the active changes to commute trips, the easiest options – avoiding rush hour and changing route – were the most common (adopted by 48% and 44%, respectively). Among the changes that reduced vehicle-miles traveled, increasing transit use and increasing telecommuting (TC) were the most common (each adopted by 5–6% of the relevant subsample). Binary logit models of these two choices suggest that persuading current adopters to increase their frequency of use is easier than convincing nonadopters to start TC or switch to transit. Women and those in larger households were found to be more likely to increase TC and transit use. Employer support of commute alternatives significantly influenced the adoption of both strategies.     

A critical examination of an airport noise mitigation scheme and an aircraft noise charge: the case of capacity expansion and externalities at Sydney (Kingsford Smith) airport

In the wake of the Australian airline liberalization in 1990 and its forecasted impact on air traffic, capacity has been expanded at Sydney (Kingsford Smith) airport (Sydney KSA) – Australia's busiest commercial airport – with the construction of the third runway in 1994. Coinciding with the approval for this capacity expansion, the Commonwealth Government amended the Federal Airports Corporation (FAC) Act to direct the FAC to carry out activities which protect the environment from the effects of aircraft operations, with the cost to be borne by the airline industry according to the ‘Polluter Pays Principle'. Noise management plans were part of the conditions for developmental approval for a third runway. To this end, since 1995, Sydney KSA imposes a noise levy designed to generate sufficient revenues to fund a noise mitigation scheme. Although the issues of aircraft noise, in particular its impact on property values and land use planning around the airport, have been extensively addressed in the literature, no one has empirically examined the implications of new environmental policies in conjunction with airline liberalization and change in airport infrastructure. Principles and policy analyses are discussed in this paper. By focusing on the specifics of Sydney KSA, broader policy issues likely to be relevant for other major airports around the world are discussed.     

The university workers’ willingness to pay for commuting

Using a dynamic approach, employing data on job mobility, we demonstrate that university workers?? marginal willingness to pay for reducing commuting distance is about ?0.25 per kilometre travelled. This corresponds to a marginal willingness to pay for reducing commuting time of about 75?% of the net average hourly wage. For females, the willingness to pay is substantially higher than for males. It is also substantially higher for workers that work few hours per day, as predicted by theory.     

What drives the gap? Applying the Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition method to examine generational differences in transportation-related attitudes

Transportation - Considerable recent work suggests that Millennials’ behaviors may be converging with those of Generation X as they enter later life stages, but few have investigated whether...     

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...     

Lateral Tyre Force by a Milliken Test on a Flat Track Roadway Simulator

The lateral tyre force versus slip angle and vertical load is obtained through specific tests on the single tyre or with a theoretical-empirical analysis with physical models. This study is about the possibility to use a third way: Executing a particular handling test, known as Force-Moment test, using a Flat Track Roadway Simulator (the Fiat-Elasis MTS FTRS). The understanding and the project of vehicle handling is strongly based on the knowledge of lateral tyre force response [1, 2, 3, 7].     

Spatial and temporal variability of size-fractionated biomass and primary production in the Ross Sea (Antarctica) during austral spring and summer

The results of a study on the spatial and temporal dynamics of size-fractionated biomass and production of phytoplankton in the Ross Sea during the austral spring and summer are reported. The spring cruise took place in the offshore Ross Sea from 14 November to 14 December 1994. Sampling was carried out on a transect of 27 stations distributed from 76.5 to 72.0°S along 175°E, and covered the three main Antarctic environments of the polynya open waters, the marginal ice zone and the pack ice area. Three subsystems were identified. The subsystem of the polynya was characterised by the predominance of the micro- and nano-planktonic fractions, chlorophyll (Chl a) concentrations from 69.6 to 164.7 mg m⁻² and production rates from 0.68 to 1.14 g C m⁻² day⁻¹. The second subsystem, the marginal ice zone, showed a relative increase of the micro-planktonic fraction, high biomass levels (from 99.64 to 220 mg Chl m⁻²) and production rates from 0.99 to 2.7 g C m⁻² day⁻¹. The subsystem of the pack ice area had a phytoplankton community dominated by the pico-planktonic fraction and showed low biomasses (from 19.4 to 37.7 mg Chl m⁻²) and production rates (0.28 to 0.60 g C m⁻² day⁻¹). Selective grazing by krill is considered an important factor in determining the size structure of the phytoplankton communities. The summer study consisted of a time series carried out in inshore waters of Terra Nova Bay from 12 January to 8 February 1990. In a well stabilised water column and with high levels of PAR always available, the primary production rates of a community dominated by micro-plankton varied from 0.52 to 1.2 g C m⁻² day⁻¹ (average 0.84). A high P/B ratio, up to 3, and a remarkably elevated mean phaeopigment (Phaeo)/Chl a ratio of 2.4 indicated an active removal of biomass by grazing, confirmed by the presence of faecal pellets in quantities reaching 6000 m⁻³ in the upper 50 m. The peculiarities of the inshore versus offshore environments in terms of community size structure, production processes and their implications as regards the food web are discussed.     

Thermal buckling and post-buckling behaviour of continuous welded rail track

Because thermal expansions are constrained within continuous welded rail track, the track can buckle, and does so mainly in the horizontal plane. In this paper, a parametric finite element model of railway track is presented, and its sensitivity to the variations of the main parameters that characterise the scenario has been investigated and discussed. Comparison with existing literature shows good agreement. It is found that curved tracks suffer from thermal buckling more than tangent tracks do. To simulate a track misalignment defect, a new methodology has been utilised that does not introduce, as is usual, geometrical discontinuities near the same defect, because it takes into account – in a natural way – the bending stiffness of the whole railway track in the horizontal plane. To contribute to a better understanding of the safe utilisation of raw experimental data obtained from in situ tests, a deep analysis of the effects on the thermal track buckling response produced by each parameter characterising the sleeper–ballast lateral resistance curve is presented and discussed. It is found that for current ballasted railway tracks, the minimum buckling temperature depends only on the limit lateral resistance, whereas a high value of the initial stiffness can lead to overestimation of the maximum buckling temperature, also taking into account the ‘natural’ decrease in the maximum buckling temperature due to an increase in the railway-traffic-induced defect amplitude.     

Dealing with uncertainty and volatility in the port industry network: social and instrumental antecedents of “clique” survival

The recent proliferation of inter-firm collaborative linkages within the container port industry is progressively shaping a complex architecture of voluntary ties among terminal operators, i.e. an inter-organizational network. Within the overall industry network, some stable groups of densely interconnected firms emerge suggesting the existence of “cliques” where firms repeatedly cooperate with each other and develop strong and durable ties. The growing pressure exerted by economic uncertainty and market volatility on clique stability stimulates a fruitful academic debate on clique survival and its determinants. The present contribution investigates social and instrumental antecedents of clique survival, focusing on equity joint ventures engaged by terminal operators in a 10-year time frame (2002–2011). For this purpose, this study introduces a longitudinal network analysis of inter-firm relationships. Research hypotheses are tested performing binomial logistic regression analysis. In line with network theory assumptions, the outcomes corroborate the explanatory role of a number of social (i.e., cultural similarity and organizational mismatch) and instrumental (i.e., the presence of core firms within the clique and clique equality) antecedents in the survival of cliques. The results, indeed, bring valuable implications for both academics and practitioners.     

An assignment model with modified Logit,which obviates enumeration and overlapping problems

One of the main components of stochastic assignment models is the route choice model solved with implicit or explicit path enumeration algorithms. Such models are used both for congested networks within equilibrium or dynamic models and for non-congested networks within static or pseudo-dynamic network loading models. This paper proposes a C-Logit model specification within a Dial algorithm structure for the implicit assignment of network flows. The model and its solution algorithm, called D-C-Logit, combine several positive features found in the literature for choice set generation and choices from a given choice set: generation of a set of alternatives with a selective approach; calculation of the path choice probability in a closed form; simulation of the overlapping effect among alternative paths; computation of just one tree for each origin avoiding explicit path enumeration.This paper has two main objectives: the proposition of a Dial-like algorithm to solve a C-Logit assignment model and application of the algorithm to different networks in order to demonstrate certain properties.