Emergency Braking Control with an Observer-based Dynamic Tire/Road Friction Model and Wheel Angular Velocity Measurement

Summary A control scheme for emergency braking of vehicles is designed. The tire/road friction is described by a LuGre dynamic friction model. The control system output is the pressure in the master cylinder of the brake system. The controller utilizes estimated states for a feedback control law that achieves a near maximum deceleration. The state observer is designed using linear matrix inequality (LMI) techniques. The analysis shows that using the wheel angular speed information exclusively is not sufficient to rapidly estimate the velocity and relative velocity, due to the fact that the dynamical system is almost unobservable with this measurement as output. Findings are confirmed by simulation results that show that the estimated vehicle velocity and relative velocity converge slowly to their true values, even though the internal friction state and friction parameters converge quickly. The proposed control system has two main advantages when compared with an antilock braking system (ABS): (1) it produces a source of a priori information regarding safe spacing between vehicles that can be used to increase safety levels in the highway; and (2) it achieves a near optimal braking strategy with less chattering.     

Technical characteristics and efficiency of urban bus companies: The case of Spain

The aim of the present study is twofold. First, to provide new information concerning the technical characteristics of urban bus companies on the basis of a sample of medium and large-size cities in Spain. Second, to analyze the degree of efficiency of those companies and to quantify the reasons for this efficiency. The results should be useful in evaluating possible changes in public policies relating to urban transport, specifically changes in the way the market is organized and in pricing.The analysis is carried out by estimating a cost function. The sample is made up of a panel data set consisting of observations of nine Spanish companies that operated during the period 1983–1995. The specified functional form is translogarithmic. The output unit of measure adopted is bus*kms run. The cost function includes the network length for each company, thus permitting evidence concerning economies of density and economies of scale.The use of panel data allows us to estimate the cost function, taking into account that each company is affected by the specific characteristics of each individual city, the different features of the network in question and by different levels of efficiency. The economies of scale have been calculated, taking into account that the features of the network and of the city – represented by their specific individual effect – will vary with the company's level of output.Finally, an analysis is made of the relative productive efficiency of the companies, as well as of the variables likely to influence that efficiency.     

Analysis of vehicle ownership evolution in Montreal,Canada using pseudo panel analysis

This paper employs a pseudo-panel approach to study vehicle ownership evolution in Montreal region, Canada using cross-sectional origin–destination survey datasets of 1998, 2003 and 2008. Econometric modeling approaches that simultaneously accommodate the influence of observed and unobserved attributes on the vehicle ownership decision framework are implemented. Specifically, we estimate generalized versions of the ordered response model—including the generalized, scaled- and mixed-generalized ordered logit models. Socio-demographic variables that impact household’s decision to own multiple cars include number of full and part-time working adults, license holders, middle aged adults, retirees, male householders, and presence of children. Increased number of bus stops, longer bus and metro lengths within the household residential location buffer area decrease vehicle fleet size of households. The observed results also varied across years as manifested by the significance of the interaction terms of some of the variables with the time elapsed since 1998 variable. Moreover, variation due to unobserved factors are captured for part-time working adults, number of bus stops, and length of metro lines. In terms of the effect of location of households, we found that some neighborhoods exhibited distinct car ownership temporal dynamics over the years.