通用大宇沉浮录·下篇·

GMDAT策略:品牌重建、弥补GM全球车型总体规划的不足和空白、增强在新兴市场知名度上篇中曾提到,为使通用大宇重新占领市场,通用面临诸多挑战。但在很短的时间内,通用就稳定了大宇的军心,重拾了客户与企业之间的信心联系,再次启动新车型开发项目,且确保对GMDAT的财政支持。以上措施尽管取得了一定的效果,但通用深知要想     

Communicating something confidential while travelling by train: the use of a telephone conversation versus silent modes

Wireless ICTs are often used in public transport. Using survey data collected amongst 98 train travellers this article aims to gain insight into important factors that affect train travellers’ intentions to communicate with distant others while travelling. More specifically, the focus is on the decision-making process that leads to the intention to choose for a confidential conversation either via ‘audible’ mobile phone or via ‘silent’ SMS/e-mail. An approach that is related to the Extended Model of Goal-directed Behaviour (EMGB) is applied. Structural equation modelling results indicate that in particular past SMS behaviour, the desire to communicate (goal desire), the perceived efficacy and controllability influence the intention to conduct a confidential phone conversation in the train. The influence of the social environment (e.g. eavesdropping) seems to be less important. Several EMGB constructs are strongly influenced by age. It seems that older respondents have more negative attitudes towards telephoning while travelling by train, and find it more difficult to call other people in such a situation. Finally, they have a lower intention than younger respondents to conduct a confidential conversation over the phone while travelling.

The Effectiveness of Conceptual Airport Terminal Designs

Abstract

Aviation passenger traffic is forecast to grow significantly over the next decade and beyond. To accommodate this growth will require investment in airport infrastructure, including terminals. These buildings represent large, lumpy investments, so it is important to provide the capacity to accommodate the forecast traffic. However, this depends on at least two factors: the accuracy of the forecast of future demand, and the process of translating these forecasts into designs. Error in either factor can be potentially catastrophic financially. Translating forecasts into designs depends on ‘rules of thumb’ formulae that convert design hour flows into area requirements for each terminal facility. This paper examines the process of translating demand forecasts into conceptual terminal designs. The basic methods used are outlined, and how they affect the conceptual terminal design process are revealed. A model for conceptual terminal design is derived, presented and validated based on a sample of UK airports. It is shown that even if demand forecasts can be taken to be completely accurate, there can still be errors in terminal design and size resulting from the use of these ‘rules of thumb’.     

通用大宇沉浮录·上篇·

2002年通用汽车决定收购倒闭的韩国大宇汽车组建通用大宇汽车技术公司(GMDAT)时,曾引来业界一片质疑之声,甚至通用董事会中也有成员持怀疑态度。现在回头来看,通用收购大宇是一件无比明智的决定。这家以打造低制造成本、低级别车型的公司经过几年的发展。不仅实现高速增长,还成为了通用面向欧洲、亚洲甚至北美市场重要的研发中心,以及公司全球发展计划中的核心组成部分。为了更深入地了解大宇的发展,Global Insight特别就该收购案中的战略关系,以及就过去五年里改变大宇的关键因素等问题,采访了曾任通用大宇汽车和科技公司总裁兼首席执行官,现升任通用汽车亚太区总裁的Nick Reilly先生。     

盘形滚刀的设计

本文主要讨论滚刀问题.滚刀已经成为TBM设计中的一个关键要素,以便在硬岩地层和夹有硬质材料的混合地层中实现较高的掘进速度.盘形滚刀由James Robbins于1956年首次推出,以后成为Robbins公司开发硬岩TBM系统的一个关键要素.     

The significance and measurement of variability in travel behaviour

It is argued that an understanding of variability is central to the modelling of travel behaviour and the assessment of policy impacts, and is not the peripheral issue that it has often been considered. Drawing on recent studies in the UK and Australia, in conjunction with a review of the literature, the paper first examines the policy and analytical rationale for using multi-day data, then illustrates different ways of measuring variability, and finally discusses issues relating to the collection of suitable data for such analyses. In a policy context, there is a growing need for multi-day data to examine issues that affect general rather than one-day behaviour (e.g. to assess the distribution of user charges for road pricing, or patterns of public transport usage); while analytically, multi-day data is needed to improve our ability to identify the mechanisms behind travel behaviour and to derive better empirical relationships. Three measures of variability are presented: a graphical form showing daily differences in behaviour at the individual level; an aggregate, similarity index; and a hybrid graphical/numerical measure, which provides new insights into variability in daily patterns of behaviour. The paper raises a number of issues for debate, probably the most crucial of which is: variability in what? The way in which behaviour is measured crucially affects our conception of stability and variability.     

The formulation of marketing strategy in urban public transport

This paper prescribes the parameters of marketing strategy formulation in the context of urban public transport and emphasises in particular the usefulness of the marketing mix and segmentation concepts. A marketing mix comprising the two primary dimensions of service attributes and promotion is advocated, the service attributes to include price, in-vehicle time, mesh density, frequency, reliability and comfort. Three primary trip purpose segments are identified viz. journey-to-work, shopping, and leisure/social trip segments, but these may be expanded into a twenty-four cell matrix once origin-destination and car access factors are included. The sensitivity of demand in these segments is examined mostly by reference to demonstration and experimental project data drawn from the United States and the United Kingdom. For the three primary trip purpose segments demand elasticity is shown to be greater for non-price than for price features; for both price and non-price service features elasticity is shown to be a function of journey purpose being least elastic for journey-to-work trips and most elastic for social/leisure trips. The role of promotion is examined and its importance to the successful marketing of public transport clearly demonstrated.This paper is a condensation of material appearing in The Management of Urban Public Transport: a marketing approach, by P. J. Hovell, W. H. Jones, and A. J. Moran, to be published by Saxon House and Lexington Books in 1975.     

Scientific research about climate change mitigation in transport: A critical review

This paper seeks to develop a deeper understanding of the research on climate change mitigation in transport. We suggest that work to date has focused on the effects of improvements in transport technologies, changes in the price of transport, physical infrastructure provision, behavioural change and alternative institutional arrangements for governing transport systems. In terms of research methodologies, positivist and quantitative analysis prevails, although there are signs of experimentation with non-positivist epistemologies and participatory methods. These particular engagements with climate change mitigation reflect mutually reinforcing tendencies within and beyond the academic transport community. We first draw on a revised version of Thomas Kuhn’s philosophy of science to explore the path dependencies within transport studies, which are at least partly responsible for the predisposition towards quantitative modelling and technology, pricing and infrastructure oriented interventions in transport systems. We then employ the governmentality perspective to examine how transport academics’ engagements with climate change mitigation depend on and align with more general understandings of climate change in UK society and beyond. The analysis makes clear that ecological modernisation and neo-liberal governmentality more generally provide the context for the current focus on and belief in technological, behaviour change, and especially market-based mitigation strategies. While current research trajectories are important and insightful, we believe that a deeper engagement with theoretical insights from the social sciences will produce richer understandings of transport mitigation in transport and briefly outline some of the contributions thinking on socio-technical transitions and practice theories can make.