Users’ perceptions and willingness to pay in interurban toll roads: identifying differences across regions from a nationwide survey in Spain

Users’ acceptability is considered one of the key drivers for the successful implementation of transport policy measures. This is especially crucial in the case of toll roads since they are financed through drivers’ contributions. Previous literature in this field has mainly focused on measuring users’ attitudes towards urban congestion pricing strategies. However limited research has been developed concerning interurban toll roads. Previous research shows that socioeconomic variables are not conclusive to explain users’ perceptions towards tolls. By contrast, other drivers such as regional differences seem to play a more important role, especially when charging conditions within the same nation greatly vary across regions. This paper analyzes regional differences in users’ attitudes within an asymmetrical distribution of the toll road network across regions. Based on a nationwide survey conducted to road users in interurban toll roads in Spain, we develop both a binomial logit and a censored regression (tobit) model to explore drivers’ perceptions and willingness to pay. The research concludes that users from regions with a more extensive tolled network generally show a more negative attitude towards charges, but not necessarily a lower willingness to pay. The paper also points out that an asymmetrical distribution of toll roads across regions may result in negative perceptions among those users perceiving to be unfairly treated when compared to citizens in other regions.     

An activity-based approach of investigating travel behaviour of older people

The paper presents the results of an investigation on daily activity-travel scheduling behaviour of older people by using an advanced econometric model and a household travel survey, collected in the National Capital Region (NCR) of Canada in 2011. The activity-travel scheduling model considers a dynamic time–space constrained scheduling process. The key contribution of the paper is to reveal daily activity-travel scheduling behaviour through a comprehensive econometric framework. The resulting empirical model reveals many behavioural details. These include the role that income plays in moderating out-of-home time expenditure choices of older people. Older people in the highest and lowest income categories tend to have lower variations in time expenditure choices than those in middle-income categories. Overall, the time expenditure choices become more stable with increasing age, indicating that longer activity durations and lower activity frequency become more prevalent with increasing age. Daily activity type and location choices reveal a clear random utility-maximizing rational behaviour of older people. It is clear that increasing spatial accessibility to various activity locations is a crucial factor in defining daily out-of-home activity participation of older people. It is also clear that the diversity of out-of-home activity type choices reduces with increasing age and older people are more sensitive to auto travel time than to transit or non-motorized travel time.     

Bicycle mode share in China: a city-level analysis of long term trends

In the past 15 years, cities in China have experienced big changes in socioeconomic and traffic conditions, resulting in a long term change in bicycle use. This study aims to quantify the changes in bicycle mode share in Chinese cities and explore the potential causes. Based on data from 51 cities, it is found that bicycle mode share at the city level decreased gradually in the past. Conventional bicycle mode share decreased with a rate of 3 % per year, but electric bicycle mode share increased with a rate of 2 % per year. The correlations between city features such as demographics and built environments and bicycle mode share at different city sizes are compared. The generalized linear models are estimated to relate the changes in the share of different trip modes to various city-level factors. The results show that the bicycle mode share in a city is impacted by factors including city area size, population density, number of cars, percentage of local road mileage among all roads, and trip purpose. Possible reasons for the changes in bicycle uses in Chinese cities are explored and policy implications are discussed.     

Cost and time damping: evidence from aggregate rail direct demand models

There is a significant body of evidence from both disaggregate choice modelling literature and practical travel demand forecasting that the responsiveness to cost and possibly to time diminishes with journey length. This has, in Britain at least, been termed ‘Cost Damping’, and is recognised in guidance issued by the UK Department for Transport. However, the consistency of the effect across modes and data types has not been established. Cost damping, if it exists, affects both the forecasting of demand and our understanding of behaviour. This paper aims to investigate the evidence for cost and time damping in rail demand using aggregate rail ticket sales data. The rail ticket sales data in Britain has, for many years, formed the basis of analysis of a wide range of impacts of rail demand. It records the number of tickets sold between station pairs, and it is generally felt to provide a reasonably accurate reflection of travel demand. However, the consistency of these direct demand models with choice modelling and highway demand model structures has not been investigated. Rail direct demand models estimated by ticket sales data indicate only slight variation in the fare elasticity with distance, as is evidenced in the largest meta-analysis of price elasticities conducted to date (Wardman in J Transp Econ Policy 48(3):367–384, 2014). This study of UK elasticities shows strong variation between urban and inter-urban trips, presumably a segmentation at least in part by purpose, but less remaining variation by trip length. A lack of variation by length supports the hypothesis of cost damping, because constant cost sensitivity would imply that fare elasticity would increase strongly with distance, because of the increasing impact of higher fares at longer distances. In this paper we indicate that rail direct demand models have some consistency of behavioural paradigm with utility based choice models used in highway planning. We go on to use rail demand data to estimate time and fare elasticities in the context of various cost damping functions. Our empirical contribution is to estimate time elasticities on a basis directly comparable with cost elasticities and to show that the phenomenon of cost damping is strongly present in ticket sales data. This finding implies that cost damping should be included in models intended for multimodal analysis, which may otherwise give incorrect predictions.     

Isolating high-priority metro and feeder bus transfers using smart card data

Fixed-rail metro (or ‘subway’) infrastructure is generally unable to provide access to all parts of the city grid. Consequently, feeder bus lines are an integral component of urban mass transit systems. While passengers prefer a seamless transfer between these two distinct transportation services, each service’s operations are subject to a different set of factors that contribute to metro-bus transfer delay. Previous attempts to understand transfer delay were limited by the availability of tools to measure the time and cost associated with passengers’ transfer experience. This paper uses data from smart card systems, an emerging technology that automatically collects passenger trip data, to understand transfer delay. The primary objective of this study is to use smart card data to derive a reproducible methodology that isolates high priority transfer points between the metro system and its feeder-bus systems. The paper outlines a methodology to identify transfer transactions in the smart card dataset, estimate bus headways without the aid of geographic location information, estimate three components of the total transfer time (walking time, waiting time, and delay time), and isolate high-priority transfer pairs. The paper uses smart card data from Nanjing, China as a case study. The results isolate eight high priority metro-bus transfer pairs in the Nanjing metro system and finally, offers several targeted measures to improve transfer efficiency.     

在建盾构隧道突发管片破损病害成因分析及治理措施研究北大核心CSCD

盾构法广泛应用于我国城市轨道交通隧道的建设中,盾构管片的病害问题也越发受到重视。文章针对某地铁在建盾构隧道突发管片破损病害,绘制了管片破损病害展布图,分析了相关资料和检测数据,明确了病害的成因机理,制定并实施了相应治理措施。研究结果表明:管片背后大范围空洞导致围岩对隧道的约束不足,引起已成型隧道在盾构机反推力和扭矩、同步注浆浆液浮力、刀盘水土压力和扭矩等作用下发生类压杆弯扭失稳是导致该病害的主要原因;隧道变形监测数据表明"背后注浆填充+破损部位修复"两阶段治理措施取得了良好的治理效果;盾构隧道施工过程中,应严格管控同步注浆质量,防止隧道轴线偏移引起盾构管片发生开裂破损等病害。     

超宽带雷达和高功率微波武器一体化设计

介绍具有武器效应雷达的研究现状;分析超宽带雷达（UWBR）和高功率微波武器（HPMW）的组成、基本原理,总结两者的异同点;结合国内外现有技术成果,探讨UWBR和HPMW一体化设计的可行性及发展趋势;参照数字阵列雷达,构想出一种UWBR和HPMW一体化概念设计结构图。     

雷达电子战仿真模型库构建方法研究

对雷达电子战仿真模型构建方法进行了探讨,对雷达电子战仿真模型层次结构进行了分析研究,确定雷达电子战仿真模型库存放的模型内容及模型库的功能,对模型进行分析研究并建立面向对象的仿真模型,分析研究了仿真模型库管理系统的实现方法及模型管理过程。     

基于SOPC的视频监控系统设计与实现

基于目前视频监控系统的现状,提出了一个基于SOPC的视频监控系统。系统以NIOS II软核作为嵌入式系统核心、自定义用户外设和用户指令为接口电路I、ME 6400及BT835为外围电路,并采用DMA传输视频监控数据以及UART传输摄像头控制指令。.该嵌入式视频监控系统构建灵活、占用资源少、系统效率高,有较高的可靠性和安全性。     

小波软阈值滤波在信号去噪中的有效性研究

对于高幅度和宽尺寸的噪声要素,尤其是当有用信号的幅度和噪声尺度相差不大时,使用传统的傅里叶滤波和一般的小波变换去噪的效果不是很好,对此提出了一种软阈值去噪方法。根据小波理论及软阈值滤波的算法,用MAT-LAB对四种典型信号和陀螺信号进行去噪仿真研究。理论分析和仿真结果表明,这种方法能有效消除高频随机信号和特定尺度的噪声,同时又能很好地保留原有的有用信号。