Comparing the fatality risks in United States transportation across modes and over time

This paper analyzes the transportation fatality risk in the United States. The analysis is in two parts. The first part compares the relative risks of the different modes based on data for the decade from 2000 to 2009. The second part is a time-series analysis for each mode using annual data from 1975 to 2010. By almost any measure, transportation is considerably safer now than it was in the mid 1970s. The improvement is especially noticeable for commercial modes such as aviation, railroads and maritime. Even the risks from private highway driving have halved during the past thirty-five years.     

中国南海ASDD深水试验井中的锚泊设计与作业(英文)

Mooring systems play an important role for semi-submersible rigs that drill in deepwater.A detailed analysis was carried out on the mooring of a semi-submersible rig that conducted a trial well drilling at a deepwater location in the South China Sea in 2009.The rig was 30 years old and had a shallow platform with a designed maximum operating water depth of 457 m.Following the mooring analysis,a mooring design was given that requires upgrading of the rig’s original mooring system.The upgrade included several innovations,such as installing eight larger anchors,i.e.replacing the original anchors and inserting an additional 600 m of steel wires with the existing chains.All this was done to enhance the mooring capability of the rig in order for the rig to be held in position to conduct drilling at a water depth of 476 m.The overall duration of the drilling was 50 days and the upgraded mooring system proved to be efficient in achieving the goal of keeping the rig stationary while it was drilling the trial well in the South China Sea.This successful campaign demonstrates that an older semi-submersible rig can take on drilling in deep water after careful design and proper upgrading and modification to the original mooring system.     

Community Perceptions of a World Heritage Nomination Process: The Ningaloo Coast Region of Western Australia

The remote Ningaloo Coast region, the location of Australia's largest fringing coral reef, was designated as World Heritage (WH) in 2011 based on its outstanding natural values. In the past, the WH nomination process predominantly involved experts and state officials. More recently, local community involvement has become a required part of the process, representing a move toward participatory governance that can potentially influence WH designation. Understanding community perceptions of the WH nomination process provides insights into the consequences of community involvement. Interviews were conducted with key local community members involved in the Ningaloo Coast WH nomination. Interviews focused on the perceptions and experience of the nomination process and local meanings of WH designation. Results indicated that while there was support for WH designation, the nomination process was seen as controversial. Community involvement was dominated by local political and social concerns, mistrust, misinformation, and perceived unfairness. Concerns were influenced by past and current government actions and decision-making in the region. The article identifies some challenges associated with local community involvement in a WH nomination process. These challenges raise questions about participatory governance and how local community's engage in the WH nomination process for coastal regions identified by experts as globally significant.     

THE LA ANTIGEN INHIBITS THE ACTIVATION OF THE INTERFERON－INDUCIBLE PROTEIN KINASE PKR BY SEQUESTERING AND UNWINDING DOUBLE－ST

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The realities of combating major tanker spills

Whilst the world is much better prepared and equipped to combat major tanker spills than it was 30 years ago, it is still the case that responders are not able to overcome some of the fundamental technical problems. What is more regrettable is the fact that most significant oil spills are not dealt with as effectively as current technology should allow. This is frequently because insufficient account is taken by those in charge of preparedness programmes and response operations of the extensive technical knowledge and experience that is available around the world, especially in terms of the lessons that have been learnt from previous spills.     

A journey from adversary to partnership bus reform in NSW

This paper continues to debate the importance of understanding in the NSW Bus reform process of the relationship between central agencies, service providers, the academic community, key consultants and contractors within the setting of the transport service organisation framework. Sydney is a modern city with heavy rail, light-rail, monorail and an extensive Harbour, with bus services owned by Government as well as private interests. The paper addresses the case for reforms, the approach taken, competition policy, the subsequent development of partnerships, performance of the regulator, passenger benefits, growth and the differences between Metropolitan/Outer Metropolitan and Regional and Rural bus services.     

Urban public transport in Japan

This article describes some general features of public transport provision in the urban areas of Japan (especially the large urban areas), and some specific features of an integrated transport system currently being developed in one such area. Although there are a number of important differences between Japan and the United Kingdom — such as the degree of urbanisation, level of car ownership, the responsibilities of government organisations and the existence of private railways in Japan — there are many similarities in the role that public transport plays and the factors which influence the efficiency of public transport.The success or otherwise of the developments in urban public transport systems in Japan would seem to have important implications for the design of transport systems in the similarly dense and compact conurbations of the United Kingdom and other European countries.     

Formulating a methodology for modelling revealed preference discrete choice data-the selectively replicated logit estimation

There are a number of studies on modelling with Revealed Preference (RP) data. It is a traditional technique and it is based on actual market data. The method has been extensively used in transportation as a tool for predicting travel demand. Although the method constitutes a relevant analysis on the process of modelling, it suffers from limitations, mainly associated with the lack of control over the experiment, that sometimes overwhelm the model results. This work proposes and tests a methodology for estimating a more efficient binary RP sample set. The objective is to develop and test a methodology that identifies and eliminates potentially irrational choices made. Responses are evaluated according to the set of trade-offs in values of time. Having identified these individuals they are eliminated from the original sample and a new sample is created, the selectively replicated (SR) sample. Original and SR samples are then re-estimated in a tree nested logit structure.     

Commercially managed road funds: managing roads like a business,not like a bureaucracy

Nearly all countries are seriously short of revenues for investment and maintenance of roads. Improving utilization of the existing road budget has helped to narrow, but not eliminate, this financing gap. Requests for additional resources from the government's budget have fallen on deaf ears, because the road sector has grown too large to be fully-financed through general tax revenues. Government tax systems were not designed to finance major economic sectors like roads. Faced with an acute shortage of funds, many road agencies have introduced tolls on high-volume roads and have invited the private sector to build and operate such roads under concession agreements. Although this has narrowed the financing gap, tolling is only economic on a small part of the road network. Tolls have thus had a relatively small impact on the financing gap. Against this background, and mindful of the fact that roads are now 'big business' on the scale of the Fortune Global 500, a growing number of countries have started to 'bring roads into the market place, put them on a fee-for-service basis and manage them like a business.' The fee-for-service concept, though superficially like the user-pay principle and the associated road funds which became popular during the 1950s, differs from user-pay in a number of important respects. The key differences are that: (i) only road user charges go into the road fund (i.e., there are no earmarked taxes); (ii) the fund is managed by a representative board with half or more members representing road users and the business community; (iii) members are nominated by the constituencies they represent and there is an independent chairperson; (iv) financing arrangements are designed to ensure that money is not diverted from other sectors; (v) funds are managed pro-actively by a small secretariat; (vi) there are published financial regulations governing the way funds are managed; (vii) charges are adjusted regularly to meet agreed expenditure targets; and (viii) there are regular technical and financial audits. Other important characteristics are that most commercially managed road funds are managed through a separate road fund administration, funds are channeled to all roads (sometimes even to unclassified roads) and they are introduced as part of a wider agenda to commercialize road management. Some of these road funds have been set up as road public utilities under a board with powers to set their own tariffs.     

澳大利亚新型内燃摆式列车投入运营

澳大利亚昆士兰铁路(QR)于 2003 年 6 月 15 日采用世界上第一列窄轨(1 067 mm)内燃摆式列车,以改善北部沿海线路的运营等级。昆士兰铁路的凯恩斯摆式列车(CTT)是由负责设计、采购、制造、试验、试运行和项目管理的QR EDI/Walkers铁路联盟在昆士兰州马里伯勒的 Walkers工厂