A planning tool for evaluating vehicles miles travelled and traffic safety forecasts of growth management scenarios: A case study of Baton Rouge and New Orleans

This study describes an adaptable planning tool that examines potential change in vehicle miles travelled (VMT) growth and corresponding traffic safety outcomes in two urbanized areas, Baton Rouge and New Orleans, based on built environment, economic and demographic variables. This model is employed to demonstrate one aspect of the potential benefits of growth management policy implementation aimed at curbing VMT growth, and to establish targets with which to measure the effectiveness of those policies through a forecasting approach. The primary objective of this research is to demonstrate the need to break with current trends in order to achieve future goals, and to identify specific policy targets for fuel prices, population density, and transit service within the two study regions. Models indicate based on medium growth scenarios, Baton Rouge will experience a 9 percent increase in VMTs and New Orleans will experience 10 percent growth. This translates to corresponding increases in crashes, injuries and fatalities. The paper provides forecasts for planners and engineers to consider an alternative future, based on desired goals to reduce VMTs and therefore improve safety outcomes. A constrained-forecast model shows a cap on VMTs and crash rates is achievable through policy that increases fuel prices, population density and annual transit passenger miles per capita at reasonable levels through a growth management approach.     

A methodology for evaluating the performance of model-based traffic prediction systems

Model-based traffic prediction systems (mbTPS) are a central component of the decision support and ICM (integrated corridor management) systems currently used in several large urban traffic management centers. These models are intended to generate real-time predictions of the system’s response to candidate operational interventions. They must therefore be kept calibrated and trustworthy. The methodologies currently available for tracking the validity of a mbTPS have been adapted from approaches originally designed for off-line operational planning models. These approaches are insensitive to the complexity of the network and to the amount and quality of the data available. They also require significant human intervention and are therefore not suitable for real-time monitoring. This paper outlines a set of criteria for designing tests that are appropriate for the mbTPS task. It also proposes a test that meets the criteria. The test compares the predictions of the mbTPS in question to those of a model-less alternative. A t-test is used to determine whether the predictions of the mbTPS are superior to those of the model-less predictor. The approach is applied to two different systems using data from the I-210 freeway in Southern California.     

Passenger oriented railway disruption management by adapting timetables and rolling stock schedules

In passenger railway operations, unforeseen events require railway operators to adjust their timetable and their resource schedules. The passengers will also adapt their routes to their destinations. When determining the new timetable and rolling stock schedule, the railway operator has to take passenger behavior into account. The operator should increase the capacity of trains for which the operator expects more demand than on a regular day. Furthermore, the operator could increase the frequency of the trains that serve stations with an additional demand.This paper describes a real-time disruption management approach which integrates the rescheduling of the rolling stock and the timetable by taking the changed passenger demand into account. The timetable decisions are limited to additional stops of trains at stations at which they normally would not call. Several variants of the approach are suggested, with the difference in how to determine which additional stops should be executed.Real-time rescheduling requires fast solutions. Therefore a heuristic approach is used. We demonstrate the performance of the several variants of our algorithm on realistic instances of Netherlands Railways, the major railway operator in the Netherlands.     

A copula-based approach for estimating the travel time reliability of urban arterial

Estimating the travel time reliability (TTR) of urban arterial is critical for real-time and reliable route guidance and provides theoretical bases and technical support for sophisticated traffic management and control. The state-of-art procedures for arterial TTR estimation usually assume that path travel time follows a certain distribution, with less consideration about segment correlations. However, the conventional approach is usually unrealistic because an important feature of urban arterial is the dependent structure of travel times on continuous segments. In this study, a copula-based approach that incorporates the stochastic characteristics of segments travel time is proposed to model arterial travel time distribution (TTD), which serves as a basis for TTR quantification. First, segments correlation is empirically analyzed and different types of copula models are examined. Then, fitting marginal distributions for segment TTD is conducted by parametric and non-parametric regression analysis, respectively. Based on the estimated parameters of the models, the best-fitting copula is determined in terms of the goodness-of-fit tests. Last, the model is examined at two study sites with AVI data and NGSIM trajectory data, respectively. The results of path TTD estimation demonstrate the advantage of the proposed copula-based approach, compared with the convolution model without capturing segments correlation and the empirical distribution fitting methods. Furthermore, when considering the segments correlation effect, it was found that the estimated path TTR is more accurate than that by the convolution model.     

Airport capacity increase via the use of braking profiles

Many airports are encountering the problem of insufficient capacity, which is particularly severe in periods of increased traffic. A large number of elements influence airport capacity, but one of the most important is runway occupancy time. This time depends on many factors, including how the landing roll procedure is performed. The procedure usually does not include the objective to minimize the runway occupancy time. This paper presents an analysis which shows that the way of braking during landing roll has an essential impact on runway throughput and thus on airport capacity. For this purpose, the landing roll simulator (named ACPENSIM) was created. It uses Petri nets and is a convenient tool for dynamic analysis of aircraft movement on the runway with given input parameters and a predetermined runway exit. Simulation experiments allowed to create a set of nominal braking profiles that have different objective functions: minimizing the runway occupancy time, minimizing noise, minimizing tire wear, maximizing passenger comfort and maximizing airport capacity as a whole. The experiments show that there is great potential to increase airport capacity by optimizing the braking procedure. It has been shown that by using the proposed braking profiles it is possible to reduce the runway occupancy time even by 50%.     

Commuter ride-sharing using topology-based vehicle trajectory clustering: Methodology,application and impact evaluation

This paper illustrates a ride matching method for commuting trips based on clustering trajectories, and a modeling and simulation framework with ride-sharing behaviors to illustrate its potential impact. It proposes data mining solutions to reduce traffic demand and encourage more environment-friendly behaviors. The main contribution is a new data-driven ride-matching method, which tracks personal preferences of road choices and travel patterns to identify potential ride-sharing routes for carpool commuters. Compared with prevalent carpooling algorithms, which allow users to enter departure and destination information for on-demand trips, the proposed method focuses more on regular commuting trips. The potential effectiveness of the approach is evaluated using a traffic simulation-assignment framework with ride-sharing participation using the routes suggested by our algorithm. Two types of ride-sharing participation scenarios, with and without carpooling information, are considered. A case study with the Chicago tested is conducted to demonstrate the proposed framework’s ability to support better decision-making for carpool commuters. The results indicate that with ride-matching recommendations using shared vehicle trajectory data, carpool programs for commuters contribute to a less congested traffic state and environment-friendly travel patterns.     

Personalized real-time traffic information provision: Agent-based optimization model and solution framework

The advancement of information and communication technology allows the use of more sophisticated information provision strategies for real-time congested traffic management in a congested network. This paper proposes an agent-based optimization modeling framework to provide personalized traffic information for heterogeneous travelers. Based on a space–time network, a time-dependent link flow based integer programming model is first formulated to optimize various information strategies, including elements of where and when to provide the information, to whom the information is given, and what alternative route information should be suggested. The analytical model can be solved efficiently using off-the-shelf commercial solvers for small-scale network. A Lagrangian Relaxation-based heuristic solution approach is developed for medium to large networks via the use of a mesoscopic dynamic traffic simulator.     

Bus control strategies in corridors with signalized intersections

This paper proposes a new dynamic bus control strategy aimed at reducing the negative effects of time-headway variations on route performance, based on real-time bus tracking data at stops. In routes with high demand, any delay of a single vehicle ends up causing an unstable motion of buses and producing the bus bunching phenomena. This strategy controls the cruising speed of buses and considers the extension of the green phase of traffic lights at intersections, when a bus is significantly delayed. The performance of this strategy will be compared to the current static operation technique based on the provision of slack times at holding points. An operational model is presented in order to estimate the effects of each controlling strategy, taking into account the vehicle capacity constraint. Control strategies are assessed in terms of passenger total travel time, operating cost as well as on the coefficient of headway variation. The effects of controlling strategies are tested in an idealized bus route under different operational settings and in the bus route of highest demand in Barcelona by simulation. The results show that the proposed dynamic controlling strategy reduces total system cost (user and agency) by 15–40% as well as the coefficient of headway variation 53–78% regarding the uncontrolled case, providing a bus performance similar to the expected when time disturbance is not presented.     

A carbon footprint-based closed-loop supply chain model under uncertainty with risk analysis: A case study

The management of products’ end-of-life and the recovery of used products has gained significant importance in recent years. In this paper, we address the carbon footprint-based problem that arises in a closed-loop supply chain where returned products are collected from customers. These returned products can either be disposed of or be remanufactured to be resold as new ones. Given this environment, an optimization model for a closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) in which carbon emission is expressed in terms of environmental constraints, i.e., carbon emission constraints, is developed. These constraints aim to limit the carbon emission per unit of product supplied with different transportation modes. Here, we design a closed-loop network where capacity limits, single-item management and uncertainty on product demands and returns are considered. First, fuzzy mathematical programming is introduced for uncertain modeling. Then, the statistical approach to the possibility to synthesize fuzzy information is utilized. Therefore, using a defined possibilistic mean and variance, we transform the proposed fuzzy mathematical model into a crisp form to facilitate efficient computation and analysis. Finally, the risk caused by violating the estimated resource constraints is analyzed so that decision makers (DMs) can trade off between the expected cost savings and the expected risk. We utilize data from a company located in Iran.     

Evaluating sustainability of supply chains by two-stage range directional measure in the presence of negative data

Assessing sustainability of supply chains is a critical and increasingly complex problem. In recent years sustainability has received more attention in supply chain management (SCM) literature with triple bottom lines including social, environmental, and economic factors. Conventional data envelopment analysis (DEA) models consider decision making units (DMUs) as black boxes that consume a set of inputs to produce a set of outputs and do not take into consideration internal interactions of DMUs. Two-stage DEA models deal with such DMUs. However, existing two-stage DEA models are applicable only in technologies characterized by positive inputs/outputs. This paper aims to build and present a new two-stage DEA model considering negative input-intermediate-output data. Some numerical examples along with some theorems and properties are given to show capability of proposed method. The proposed ideas are used in a case study where 29 Iranian supply chains producing equipment of expendable medical devices are evaluated in terms of sustainability.