Urban public transport in Australia

Urban public transport in Australia has been the responsibility of State governments. The National government has indicated that it wishes to assume some financial responsibilities for capital programmes, but not for funding of operational deficits. This paper is a review of the problems of the urban public transport industry. Economic, social and financial issues are examined in the context of these changing governmental responsibilities.     

Evaluation of different contraflow strategies for hurricane evacuation in Charleston,South Carolina

Abstract

Limited specific evidence is available on the effectiveness of using contraflow as an evacuation traffic management tool. This study was conducted to determine the best combination of strategy options for evacuating Charleston, SC, along route I-26 during the event of a hurricane or other events. PARAMICS microscopic traffic simulator was used to evaluate the impact of each combination of evacuee response timing and traffic control strategy, such as contraflow, with respect to average vehicular travel time and evacuation duration. Analysis revealed the combination of management strategies that created the lowest evacuation durations and travel times for several types of anticipated evacuee responses. Furthermore, a proposed reconfiguration of the I-526/I-26 interchange for contraflow operations produced additional savings in travel times and evacuation durations. These findings support the use of all lanes for contraflow during all evacuations and provide justification to examine a possible reconfiguration of the I-526/I-26 interchange for use during evacuations.     

Development and evaluation of a knowledge-based system for traffic congestion management and control

This paper describes a real-time knowledge-based system (KBS) for decision support to Traffic Operation Center personnel in the selection of integrated traffic control plans after the occurrence of non-recurring congestion, on freeway and arterial networks. The uniqueness of the system, called TCM, lies in its ability to cooperate with the operator, by handling different sources of input data and inferred knowledge, and providing an explanation of its reasoning process. A data fusion algorithm for the analysis of congestion allows to represent and interpret different types of data, with various levels of reliability and uncertainty, to provide a clear assessment of traffic conditions. An efficient algorithm for the selection of control plans determines alternative traffic control responses. These are proposed to an operator, along with an explanation of the reasoning process that led to their development and an estimation of their expected effect on traffic. The validation of the system, which is one of only few examples of validation of a KBS in transportation, demonstrates the validity of the approach. The evaluation results, in a simulated environment demonstrate the ability of TCM to reduce congestion, through the formulation of traffic diversion and control schemes.     

一辆车上有多少电动机?

正现在,很难找到一辆拥有少于十几台电动机的新型汽车,而美国公路上的典型现代汽车可能有40台或更多的电动机。电动汽车的日益普及将刺激汽车电动机的创新。关于汽车中的电动机应用,英国和法国已经制定了禁止内燃机(ICE)的限期,中国也在研究何时禁止内燃机车。沃尔沃已经宣布其新车将于2019年开始使用电动驱动。德州仪器(TI)将讨论强大的电动机,也就是牵引马达,它将在发动机推动车辆方面发挥日益重要的     

Modelling multiple yacht sailing interactions between upwind sailing yachts

An approach for enhancing the realism of yacht fleet race simulations based on a lifting line method is developed. The wake of an upwind sailing yacht is represented as a single heeled horseshoe vortex and image system. At each time step, changes in vortex strength are convected into the wake as a pair of vortex line elements. These subsequently move in accordance with the local wind, the self-induced velocity and the velocity induced by the presence of the wakes of other yachts. In addition, the lifting line model has a model for the viscous wake due to the drag associated with the yacht and its sails superimposed on it. A synthesis of sail yacht wake representations based on detailed 3D Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes computational fluid dynamics calculations with wind tunnel test results is used to capture the initial strength of the combined main-jib vortex system and its vertical height. The implementation of the lifting line algorithm within Robo-Race, a real-time yacht race strategy analysis tool, is described. Two upwind race interaction case studies are presented, and these show that the newly implemented wake model makes an important contribution to enhancing the realism of the sailing simulation.     

Using Socioeconomic and Fisheries Involvement Indices to Understand Alaska Fishing Community Well-Being

Over recent years, fisheries managers have been going through a paradigm shift to prioritize ecosystem-based management. With this comes an increasing need to better understand the impacts of fisheries management decisions on the social well-being and sustainability of fishing communities. This article summarizes research aimed at using secondary data to develop socioeconomic and fisheries involvement indices to measure objective fishing community well-being in Alaska. Data from more than 300 communities in Alaska were used to create a database of socioeconomic and fisheries involvement indices of objective well-being and adaptability for Alaska communities dependent on marine resources. Each index was developed using a principal components factor analysis to assess the relative position of each community compared to all other communities in Alaska. We find that creating performance measures, such as the indices presented here, provides a useful way to track the status of socioeconomic conditions and fisheries involvement by communities over time.     

Influence of turbulence closure models on the vortical flow field around a submarine body undergoing steady drift

Manoeuvring underwater vehicles experience complex three-dimensional flow. Features include stagnation and boundary layer separation along a convex surface. The resulting free vortex sheet rolls up to form a pair of streamwise body vortices. The track and strength of the body vortex pair results in a nonlinear increase in lift as body incidence increases. Consequently, accurate capture of the body vortex pair is essential if the flow field around a manoeuvring submarine and the resulting hydrodynamic loading is to be correctly found. This work highlights the importance of both grid convergence and turbulence closure models (TCMs) to the strength and path of the crossflow-induced body vortices experienced by the DOR submarine model at an incidence angle of 15°. Five TCMs are considered; Spalart–Allmaras, k-ε, k-ω, shear stress transport, and the SSG Reynolds stress model. The SSG Reynolds stress model shows potential improvements in predicting both the path and strength of the body vortex over standard one- and two-equation TCMs based on an eddy viscosity approach.