Extraboard team sizing: An analysis of short unscheduled absences among regular transit drivers

Several factors contribute to short-duration unscheduled absences of bus transit drivers. This article aims to understand these factors at the aggregate level and to anticipate future total absence that will need to be filled for a large-size transit operator. The aggregate level is defined as the total number of regular driver absences per garage, day of week and time period that need to be covered by the extraboards. This study analyzes absenteeism data obtained from OC Transpo, the transit provider of the city of Ottawa, Canada. A multilevel regression model is generated to investigate regular drivers’ absences. The short-unscheduled absence is estimated in relation to temporal factors, drivers’ personal characteristics, aspects of assigned work, and service delivery characteristics. Furthermore, using the model’s coefficients, sensitivity analyses are conducted to demonstrate the advantages of this technique over traditional ones adopted by various transit agencies. This study provides transit planners and policy makers with a practical methodology that can be used to support extraboard planning practice and help reduce the incidence of missed trips due to absences while having the appropriate size of extraboard drivers.     

Age related annual crash incidence rate ratios in professional drivers of heavy goods vehicles

ObjectivesEvidence concerning crash risk for older heavy vehicle drivers is sparse, making it difficult to assess if it is prudent to encourage older drivers to remain in the workforce in a climate of labour shortages. The objective of this study was to estimate annual crash rate ratios of older male heavy vehicle drivers relative to their middle aged peers.MethodsData utilized in this study includes all crashes meeting inclusion criteria involving heavy goods vehicles, categorised as rigid trucks and articulated trucks; this data was recorded by the New South Wales Roads and Traffic Authority. The exposure to the risk of a crash was represented by distance travelled for each vehicle type and year, by age of driver, as estimated by the Australian Survey of Motor Vehicle Use. Negative binomial regression modelling was applied to estimate annual crash incidence rate ratios for male drivers in various age groups.ResultsA total of 26,146 crashes occurred in New South Wales during 1999–2006, involving a total of 54,191 vehicles; removing observations that did not meet the inclusion criteria, 19,736 observations remained representing 12,501 crashes. For rigid trucks, the incidence rate ratio for drivers aged 65+ years, compared to 45–54 year olds, was 0.74 (95% CI 0.51, 0.98). For articulated trucks, the annual crash incidence rate ratio for drivers aged 65+ years compared to 45–54 year olds was 1.4 (95% CI 0.96, 1.9), and that for drivers aged 55–64 years compared to 45–54 year olds was 1.1 (95% CI 0.83, 1.3).ConclusionsOlder male professional drivers of heavy goods vehicles have lower risk of crashes in rigid vehicles, possibly due to accrued driving experience and self-selection of healthy individuals remaining in the workforce. Thus, encouraging these drivers to remain in the workforce is appropriate in the climate of labour shortages, as this study provides evidence that to do so would not endanger road safety.     

Crash risk factors associated with injury severity of teen drivers

This paper focuses on identifying crash risk factors associated with injury severity of teen drivers. Crash data obtained from the Highway Safety and Information System (HSIS) for the entire state of North Carolina, for years 2011 to 2013, was used for analysis and modeling. Among all the crashes during the study period, a total of 62,990 crashes involving teen drivers (15 to 19?years) were analyzed. A partial proportionality odds model was developed to identify factors contributing to injury severity of teen drivers. The results obtained indicate that teen drivers driving sports utility vehicles and pickup trucks are more likely to be severely injured when compared to teen drivers driving passenger cars. Teen drivers are more likely to be severely injured on weekdays, particularly during peak hours. The chances of teen drivers getting involved in severe injury crashes on Tuesdays and Fridays is higher when compared to Sundays. Age, gender, road configuration, terrain, adverse weather condition, and access control are observed to have a significant effect on teen driver's injury severity.     

Eco-driving training of professional bus drivers – Does it work?

The drive to reduce fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions is one shared by both businesses and governments. Although many businesses in the European Union undertake interventions, such as driver training, there is relatively little research which has tested the efficacy of this approach and that which does exist has methodological limitations. One emerging technology employed to deliver eco-driving training is driver training using a simulator. The present study investigated whether bus drivers trained in eco-driving techniques were able to implement this learning in a simulator and whether this training would also transfer into the workplace. A total of 29 bus drivers attended an all-day eco-driving course and their driving was tested using a simulator both before and after the course. A further 18 bus drivers comprised the control group, and they attended first aid courses as well as completing the same simulator drives (before-after training). The bus drivers who were given the eco-driving training significantly improved fuel economy figures in the simulator, while there was no change in fuel economy for the control group. Actual fuel economy figures were also provided by the bus companies immediately before the training, immediately after the training and six months after the training. As expected there were no significant changes in fuel economy for the control group. However, fuel economy for the treatment group improved significantly immediately after the eco-driving training (11.6%) and this improvement was even larger six months after the training (16.9%). This study shows that simulator-based training in eco-driving techniques has the potential to significantly reduce fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in the road transport sector.     

Modelling minimum-time manoeuvering with global optimisation of local receding horizon control

In this paper, we explore the notion that a human driver uses a receding horizon model predictive control (MPC) scheme for minimum-time manoeuvering. However, MPC is an inherently sub-optimal control scheme because not all future information is incorporated into its finite preview horizon. In many practical applications, this sub-optimality is tolerated as the solution is sufficiently close to optimal. However, it is known that professional drivers have the ability to learn driving circuits and exploit its features to minimise their global manoeuvering time. In this paper, we will model their process with a cascaded optimisation structure. Therein, the inner-loop features a local MPC scheme tasked with finding the control inputs that achieve a blended objective of minimising time and maximising velocity in each preview horizon/distance. The outer loop of this cascaded structure computes the best set of weights for the two components of the local objectives in order to minimise the global manoeuvering time. The proposed cascaded optimisation and control approach is compared against a straight-forward fixed-cost time optimal MPC applied to minimum-time manoeuvering over two well-known race courses. The paper also includes an extended literature review and details of the computational formulation of the model approach.     

European advanced driver training programs: Reasons for optimism

Post license advanced driver training programs in the US and early programs in Europe have often failed to accomplish their stated objectives because, it is suspected, that drivers gain self perceived driving skills that exceed their true skills—leading to increased post training crashes. The consensus from the evaluation of countless advanced driver training programs is that these programs are a detriment to safety, especially for novice, young, male drivers.Some European countries including Sweden, Finland, Austria, Luxembourg, and Norway, have continued to refine these programs, with an entirely new training philosophy emerging around 1990. These ‘post-renewal’ programs have shown considerable promise, despite various data quality and availability concerns. These programs share in common a focus on teaching drivers about self assessment and anticipation of risk, as opposed to teaching drivers how to master driving at the limits of tire adhesion. The programs focus on factors such as self actualization and driving discipline, rather than low level mastery of skills. Drivers are meant to depart these renewed programs with a more realistic assessment of their driving abilities. These renewed programs require considerable specialized and costly infrastructure including dedicated driver training facilities with driving modules engineered specifically for advanced driver training and highly structured curriculums. They are conspicuously missing from both the US road safety toolbox and academic literature. Given the considerable road safety concerns associated with US novice male drivers in particular, these programs warrant further attention.This paper reviews the predominant features and empirical evidence surrounding post licensing advanced driver training programs focused on novice drivers. A clear articulation of differences between the renewed and current US advanced driver training programs is provided. While the individual quantitative evaluations range from marginally to significantly effective in reducing novice driver crash risk, they have been criticized for evaluation deficiencies ranging from small sample sizes to confounding variables to lack of exposure metrics. Collectively, however, the programs sited in the paper suggest at least a marginally positive effect that needs to be validated with further studies. If additional well controlled studies can validate these programs, a pilot program in the US should be considered.     

高速公路特长隧道对驾驶人的影响

为研究驾驶人在特长隧道中心理、生理和驾驶行为的变化规律,进行了实际道路试验.试验采用多导生理记录仪实时记录行车过程中驾驶人心率,微波速度传感器测量记录车速度变化.将特长隧道分为人口段、行车段和出口段,分别研究不同路段中驾驶人心率和车速的变化规律及对应关系.结果表明:驾驶人在高速公路特长隧道人口段行驶时,心率增加,心理紧...     

Socioeconomic factors affecting the job satisfaction levels of self-employed container truck drivers: a case study from Shanghai Port

The job satisfaction level (JSL) of self-employed container truck drivers (SCTDs) is vital to the container trucking industry’s (CTI) stability in China. An anonymous field survey of 645 SCTDs was conducted at Shanghai Port. Three ordered probit models were, respectively, developed to analyze the drivers’ JSLs, their attitudes, and reactions to a CTI downturn. This study contributes to the literature that the demographic variables were not statistically significant for the SCTDs’ current JSLs, while higher income SCTDs with fewer expenses were expected to have higher JSLs. During an industry downturn, drivers with families in Shanghai showed more job dissatisfaction. More working hours, lower income, expensive diesel fuel, a high consumer price index (CPI), and a low freight-to-distance ratio (FDR) significantly lowered the JSLs. An increase in the price of diesel fuel and the CPI, and a lower FDR exposed the industry to risk and instability. Additionally, credible evidence indicated that as the dissatisfaction levels of SCTDs rise in a downturn, SCTDs implement more practical measures that may negatively affect the industry’s stability as well as society’s. Based on these findings, managerial or policy implications were proposed to efficiently improve SCTDs’ JSLs and CTI stability in Shanghai.     

货车驾驶人驾驶行为与行车安全研究进展

驾驶行为是影响交通安全最活跃的因素,在“人-车-路”复杂环境中扮演着关键角色。为了深入理解货车驾驶人驾驶行为规律和行为风险性,本文聚焦货车驾驶人驾驶行为对行车安全的影响,对货车驾驶人的驾驶行为风格、行为风险性及其与行车安全的关系等相关研究成果进行系统地梳理和分析。首先,利用构建的文献检索策略,筛选出38篇相关文献,并结合LDA(Latent Dirichlet Allocation)模型,对生成的4个研究主题,即货车驾驶人驾驶行为辨识,危险驾驶行为与行车安全,货车碰撞事故致因分析及驾驶安全风险评估进行总结;其次,针对数据源、特征工程及建模方法等分析要素,构建了适用于任意研究主题的通用研究路径,并重点归纳了目前研究主题在数据源、变量选择方法、研究地点及建模方法等关键要素的研究进展;最后,分析和探讨了货车驾驶人驾驶行为与行车安全领域面临的主要问题,从描述、解释、关联及应用的角度提炼该领域研究的未来发展趋势。研究认为：有必要将驾驶状态特性、车辆运行状态及道路交通状况等多维特征变量进行多源信息融合,开展基于大数据和人工智能双驱动的驾驶行为研究;需加强研究山区公路环境下货车与其他类型车辆之间的交互作用机制,从“人-车-路”视角分析货车碰撞事故致因;需进一步完善智能网联和自动驾驶等高新智能自动化环境下的货车驾驶人驾驶行为与行车安全关系研究;拓展面向驾驶安全的货车驾驶人驾驶风险评估的理论方法和应用框架。研究 成果将为货车事故治理、公路货运平台监控及道路线形设计等应用场景提供重要依据,并有助于相对全面地理解货车驾驶人驾驶行为与道路行车安全的交互作用机理。     

数字罗经机械复示器的设计与实现

介绍利用数字控制器件-步进电机设计罗经复示器。介绍了复示器的机械结构、硬件电路组成、步进电机的驱动方式及软件实现方法,试验表明所设计的复示器具有指示精度高、响应速度快、无抖动等优点。