The influence of personality on acceptability of sustainable transport policies

Previous research has shown that fairness, infringement on freedom, and perceived effectiveness are determinants of transport pricing acceptability. In the present study we investigate determinants of acceptability of environmental (carbon) taxation for which trust in government and environmental concern are additional determinants. Carbon taxation is an extension of fuel taxes and may thus be viewed as transport pricing. Our main focus is on the role played by personality traits. Structural equation modeling reveals that acceptability is related to the personality traits extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. Extraverted individuals have higher levels of trust in government which leads to higher acceptability. Also correlations between agreeableness and conscientiousness as well as environmental problem awareness and personal norm are observed. We discuss strategies for effective marketing of transportation policies considering how acceptability is related to personality traits.     

Prediction of wave parameters by using fuzzy inference system and the parametric models along the south coasts of the Black Sea

Forecasting of sea-state characteristics has a great importance in coastal and ocean engineering studies. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate performances of Adaptive-Network-Based Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) and several parametric methods in the Black Sea. For this purpose, different fuzzy models with different input combinations were developed for two different wind data sources (TSMS and ECMWF) at two offshore buoy stations. It also aimed to apply several approaches to event-based data sets for wave predictions. Generally, in literature the tendency is to use time series data for wave predictions. In this kind of prediction approach, lagged time series data are taken as inputs and current or future variables are taken as output. In this study, event-based data for each independent storm were extracted from time series data. Simultaneous or concurrent data of wind speed, blowing duration, fetch length and wave characteristics were detected for each single storm. These event data were then used to set up models. The hindcast results were validated with significant wave height and mean wave period data recorded in Hopa and Sinop buoy stations. The performance of developed fuzzy models were also compared with that of four different parametric methods (Wilson, SPM, Jonswap, and CEM methods) applied for two wind data sources at both buoy stations. Finally, it was determined that in the prediction of both wave parameters (H _s and T _z) the ANFIS models (R = 0.66, squared correlation coefficient, and MAE = 0.37 m, mean absolute error, for the best model in prediction of H _s) were more accurate than the parametric methods (R = 0.63 and MAE = 0.75 m for the best model in prediction of H _s).     

Home-to-work commuting,urban form and potential energy savings: A local scale approach to regional statistics

The link between transport energy consumption and land use patterns has been the focus of a considerable amount of academic works over the past decades. While many empirical researches are backed up with solid statistical techniques, most of them do not fully consider the influence of scale underlying empirical quantitative investigations. Using fine-scale home-to-work commuting data for Wallonia (Belgium), this paper re-evaluates Breheny’s (1995) assertion that urban structure should hold the characteristics of major cities if substantial energy savings are to be achieved. A local scale approach highlights efficient settlements in terms of transport energy consumption not only within major towns, but also within remote rural areas. Furthermore, results suggest that influencing the urban form following local energy efficient examples rather than regional ones could also yield significant gains, without an extreme policy stance of re-urbanisation in major cities.     

Substitution and complementarity patterns between traditional transport means and car sharing: a person and trip level analysis

Transportation - Car sharing is a new transport mode which combines characteristics of private and collective traditional transport means. Understanding the relationship of this mode with existing...     

An artificial neural network based method to uncover the value-of-travel-time distribution

Transportation - This study proposes a novel Artificial Neural Network (ANN) based method to derive the Value-of-Travel-Time (VTT) distribution. The strength of this method is that it is possible...     

青岛港(董家口港区)疏港铁路规划研究

研究目的:铁路作为港口的集疏运系统的重要组成部分,其布局与港口作业效率密切相关。鉴于董家口港区详规刚刚起步,为统筹优化港口布局规划,减少不必要的废弃工程,并为港口及临港工业区发展留有余地,特开展了青岛港(董家口港区)疏港铁路规划研究。研究结论:董家口港区内部可考虑设置港湾站、港前站、物流中心站,其中港湾站至港前站是疏港的主要通路。外部通路可选择青连铁路、山西中南部铁路。由于这两条铁路均为拟建项目,外部集疏运通路选择与两条线建设时机密切相关。若两线同时建设,可考虑首选青连铁路,再视港口和临港产业区发展情况,适时考虑与山西中南部铁路联通。     

Man and his transport behaviour Part 4. Fare strategies for public transport—a problem outline

Abstract

In April 1983, the “Fourth World Conference on Transport Research” was held in Hamburg. For a period of four days, experts from all parts of the world discussed transport research and planning problems. The discussions were divided into eight so‐called ‘sub‐topics’. Fortunately, one of the sub‐topics, ‘Man and his Transport Behaviour’ (chaired by Moshe Ben‐Akiva, U.S.A. and Werner Brög, Federal Republic of Germany) dealt with the individual and his behaviour. This complemented the traditionally supply‐oriented thinking of the transport planners by introducing the demand component which had frequently been neglected in the past. Since the view has become increasingly widespread that transport is meant to serve people, and thus, that research should emphasize the (potential) users of the transport system, the number of papers submitted and presented on this sub‐topic was especially large.

However, the number of papers which could be included in the ‘Conference Proceedings’ was limited and this would have meant that a number of interesting documents could not be published. Therefore, papers on four special areas within this sub‐topic are to be published in four consecutive issues of Transport Reviews. The areas which will be dealt with are ‘Telecommunications’, ‘Non‐Motorised Transport’, ‘Special Problems in Third World Countries’ and ‘Fare Structures in Public Transport’. The papers were selected strictly according to their contents. A brief commentary in each issue explains in turn the reasons for choosing each of the four subject areas.

Parts 1–3 appeared in Transport Reviews, 4, 99–113, 173–212, 273–298.     

Propeller torque load and propeller shaft torque response correlation during ice-propeller interaction

Ships use propulsion machinery systems to create directional thrust. Sailing in ice-covered waters involves the breaking of ice pieces and their submergence as the ship hull advances. Sometimes, submerged ice pieces interact with the propeller and cause irregular fluctuations of the torque load. As a result, the propeller and engine dynamics become imbalanced, and energy propagates through the propulsion machinery system until equilibrium is reached. In such imbalanced situations, the measured propeller shaft torque response is not equal to the propeller torque. Therefore, in this work, the overall system response is simulated under the ice-related torque load using the Bond graph model. The energy difference between the propeller and propeller shaft is estimated and related to their corresponding mechanical energy. Additionally, the mechanical energy is distributed among modes. Based on the distribution, kinetic and potential energy are important for the correlation between propeller torque and propeller shaft response.     

On model-based longitudinal feed-forward motion control for low velocities on known road profiles

ABSTRACT

So far, longitudinal motion control has focused on situations like highway driving, where disturbances of the road profile can be neglected. In this paper, we show how the Two Point Tire Model can be used to derive a novel feed-forward control law for a vehicle's longitudinal motion that considers the effects of the road profile and can complement existing control approaches. For this purpose, we recapitulate the basic model assumptions and equations and briefly discuss how it can be used on arbitrary road profiles. Two approaches for implementation in a real vehicle are presented. Comparisons of these approaches in simulation and to a human driver of an experimental vehicle show that the controller can deal with stepped obstacles of up to 14?cm in height. However, the control performance is essentially limited by the actuator delay and human drivers outperform the controller due to their ability of sensing subtle vehicle motions. The results indicate that the control performance can be further improved by using a preview on the necessary drive torque, which can be provided by the solution that we propose.     

Waiting profiles: An efficient protocol for enabling distributed planning of container barge rotations along terminals in the port of Rotterdam

We consider the problem of aligning barge rotations with quay schedules of terminals in the port of Rotterdam. Every time a barge visits the port, it has to make a rotation along, on average, eight terminals to load and unload containers. A central solution, e.g., a trusted party that coordinates the activities of all barges and terminals, is not feasible for several reasons. We propose a multi-agent based approach of the problem, since a multi-agent system can mirror to a large extent the way the business network is currently organized and can provide a solution that is acceptable to each of the parties involved. We examine the value of exchanging different levels of information and evaluate the performance by means of simulation. We compare the results with an off-line scheduling algorithm. The results indicate that, in spite of the limited information available, our distributed approach performs quite well when compared to the central approach. In addition, our experiments indicate that an information exchange based on waiting profiles reduces the average tardiness per barge with almost 80% when compared to the situation with no information exchange. We therefore think that waiting profiles provide a promising protocol to tackle this problem.