Voluntary internalization of speeding externalities with vehicle insurance

High speed is an important determinant of accidents for speeders as well as for other motorists. This paper develops a framework for analyzing instruments that encourage drivers to internalize the full consequences of their behavior with respect to choice of speed using Pay-As-You-Speed (PAYS) insurance, possibly as an extension of Pay-As-You-Drive (PAYD) insurance. We demonstrate how the combination of a Pigovian taxation scheme and PAYS can be designed in a setting involving two principals (the state and an insurance company) that affect the incentives of commuters to choose between driving and other modes of transport and for those that use the car mode to drive carefully. While the government is assumed to maximize overall social efficiency and therefore wants to implement marginal cost pricing, insurance companies do actuarial pricing, i.e. average cost pricing within risk classes that are homogeneous to the degree that the insurers have information about actual behavior. PAYS insurance improves the insurance industry’s possibility to differentiate premiums according to behavior and therefore to target risk classes in a better way than today. Moreover, since our framework is designed to accomplish differentiation by self-selection, compulsory regulation is not necessary, although there may be reason for the government to facilitate the implementation of the new technology.     

Optimisation and heuristic approaches for assigning inbound containers to outbound carriers

Due to economical and/or geographical constraints, most of the time overseas containers cannot be directly shipped to their destinations. These containers visit transhipment ports where they are first unloaded and temporarily stored and then loaded onto smaller vessels (feeders) to be transported to their final destinations. The assignment of these containers to outbound vessels necessitates several factors to be taken into account simultaneously. In this paper, we develop a mathematical model to reflect multiple objectives with priorities and to assign these containers to different vessels at the transit container port terminal. Although we solve a single-objective (with the weighted sum of objectives) mathematical model to optimality, we also propose two heuristic approaches to solve this complex problem for a transit agency. The first heuristic is shipment based and has four variants differing in how the opportunity costs of the assignments are calculated. The second greedy heuristic is trip based, where the goal is to maximise the capacity utilisation of the vessels. The heuristics return very promising solutions in ignorable computational times. We also provide real-life cases and present our conclusions.     

Is ‘referencing’ a remedy to hypothetical bias in value of time elicitation? Evidence from economic experiments

This paper demonstrates that commonly used methods for eliciting value of time can give downward bias and investigates whether this can be reversed by ‘referencing’ as has been suggested (e.g., by Hensher in Transp Res B 44:735–752, 2010), i.e. with attributes of choice alternatives pivoted around a recently made journey. Value-of-time choice experiments were conducted in two rounds. In the first round, real and hypothetical purchases of performance of a simple time-consuming task were done to assess hypothetical bias; in the second round, participants were asked to do hypothetical travel choices with and without ‘referencing’ to a specific occasion, to be able to test ‘referencing’ as a remedy to the bias confirmed in the first round. A negative hypothetical bias was found for allocation of time at another occasion than the present (but not for a decision concern allocation of time ‘here and now’). A striking result was held from the second round experiments: ‘referencing’ indeed affects responses, but by reducing the elicited implicit value of time, so any negative hypothetical bias that would exist without ‘referencing’ would have been further magnified by the ‘referencing’ design.     

Elderly travel frequencies and transport mode choices in Greater Rotterdam,the Netherlands

Demographic ageing is a key societal challenge in Europe as well as in many other western and non-western societies. A crucial dimension concerns elderly daily mobility patterns. While still partaking fewer and shorter trips than younger generations, today’s elderly have been found increasingly (auto)mobile. Although the elderly benefit from the independence, freedom of movement, and social inclusion, concerns may rise regarding the environmental and accessibility impacts of this induced mobility. The present study adds to the expanding literature on elderly mobility, an integrated analysis of the effects of socio-demographic, health, trip, spatial and weather attributes on elderly mobility. Utilizing travel diary data for Greater Rotterdam, The Netherlands, trip frequencies and transport mode choices of the elderly are analysed by means of zero-inflated negative binomial models as well as multinomial logit regression models, and contrasted to the non-elderly subpopulation to explore (dis)similarities. While the results show common determinants, the models also highlight important differences in the magnitude of the estimated coefficients and factors only influencing transport patterns for the elderly. Embedded in the context of an aging population, the empirical findings assist policy-makers and planners in several respects: For transportation plans and programs it is critical to recognize mobility needs of the elderly. As the seniors are becoming increasingly automobile, the results call for strategies to encourage older people to use more physically active and environmentally friendly transport modes such as public transport, walking and cycling.     

Formulation and interpretation of optimal braking and steering patterns towards autonomous safety-critical manoeuvres

ABSTRACT

Stability control of a vehicle in autonomous safety-critical at-the-limit manoeuvres is analysed from the perspective of lane keeping or lane changing, rather than that of yaw control as in traditional ESC systems. An optimal control formulation is developed, where the optimisation criterion is a linear combination of the initial and final velocity of the manoeuvre. Varying the interpolation parameter in this formulation turns out to result in an interesting family of optimal braking and steering patterns in stabilising manoeuvres. The two different strategies of optimal lane-keeping control and optimal yaw control are shown to be embedded in the formulation and result from the boundary values of the parameter. The results provide new insights and have the potential to be used for future safety systems that adapt the level of braking to the situation at hand, which is demonstrated through examples of how to exploit theresults.     

An experimental/numerical approach for evaluating skin friction on full-scale ships with surface roughness

For an accurate evaluation of the increase in skin friction due to various surface topographies on ships, i.e. plate roughness, coatings, or bio fouling, both experimental measurements and a numerical evaluation of those measurements are necessary. The measurements are necessary as no other practical method exists to evaluate the skin friction coefficient on most surface topographies, and numerical evaluation is required to compute the roughness effects of varying ship types and speeds. Therefore, a method for measuring the skin friction coefficient for bio-fouled and structured surfaces at full-scale friction velocity is presented, and a validation of the design and measuring procedures is given. For the ship frictional resistance calculations, the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code ShipFlow has been modified to take the added friction into account.     

Program for catenary–pantograph analysis,PrOSA statement of methods and validation according EN 50318

DB Systemtechnik is a high-performing, customer-driven service provider that, as well as authoritatively serving the Deutsche Bahn Group by dint of its specialist knowledge is also increasingly active on the global railway market. Development and testing of pantograph models and catenary systems have been part of the company's essential activity fields from the beginning. Therefore, an efficient and high-performing simulation tool is indispensable. That is why DB Systemtechnik spent high efforts to develop the program PrOSA in cooperation with the Heinz–Nixdorf–Institut (HNI) of the university Paderborn to simulate the interaction of pantograph and catenary. This article gives an overview of the most relevant properties of PrOSA. Furthermore, it is described how the benchmark requirements were implemented and processed.     

Single wheel hub motor failures and their impact on vehicle and driver behaviour

This research work studies the impact of single wheel hub motor failures on the dynamic behaviour of electric vehicles and the corresponding driver reactions. An experimental study in a moving-base driving simulator is conducted to analyse the influence of single wheel hub motor failures for motorway speeds. Driver reaction times are derived from the measured data and discussed in their experimental context. The failure is rated objectively on the dynamic behaviour of the vehicle and compared to the subjective evaluation. Findings indicate that critical traffic situations impairing traffic safety can occur for motorway speeds. Clear counteractions by the drivers had to be taken.