In search of surrogate safety indicators for vulnerable road users: a review of surrogate safety indicators

Surrogate indicators are meant to be alternatives or complements of safety analyses based on accident records. These indicators are used to study critical traffic events that occur more frequently, making such incidents easier to analyse. This article provides an overview of existing surrogate indicators and specifically focuses on their merit for the analyses of vulnerable road users and the extent to which they have been validated by previous research. Each indicator is evaluated based on its ability to consider the collision risk, which can be further divided into the initial conditions of an event, the magnitude of any evasive action and the injury risk in any traffic event. The results show that various indicators and their combinations can reflect different aspects of any traffic event. However, no existing indicator seems to capture all aspects. Various studies have also focused on the validity of different indicators. However, due to the use of diverse approaches to validation, the large difference in how many locations were investigated and variations in the duration of observation at each location, it is difficult to compare and discuss the validity of the different surrogate safety indicators. Since no current indicator can properly reflect all the important aspects underlined in this article, the authors suggest that the choice of a suitable indicator in future surrogate safety studies should be made with considerations of the context-dependent suitability of the respective indicator.     

Emission rates of intermodal rail/road and road-only transportation in Europe: A comprehensive simulation study

Intermodal rail/road transportation combines advantages of both modes of transport and is often seen as an effective approach for reducing the environmental impact of freight transportation. This is because it is often expected that rail transportation emits less greenhouse gases than road transportation. However, the actual emissions of both modes of transport depend on various factors like vehicle type, traction type, fuel emission factors, payload utilization, slope profile or traffic conditions. Still, comprehensive experimental results for estimating emission rates from heavy and voluminous goods in large-scale transportation systems are hardly available so far. This study describes an intermodal rail/road network model that covers the majority of European countries. Using this network model, we estimate emission rates with a mesoscopic model within and between the considered countries by conducting a large-scale simulation of road-only transports and intermodal transports. We show that there are high variations of emission rates for both road-only transportation and intermodal rail/road transportation over the different transport relations in Europe. We found that intermodal routing is more eco-friendly than road-only routing for more than 90% of the simulated shipments. Again, this value varies strongly among country pairs.     

Vulnerability analysis for large-scale and congested road networks with demand uncertainty

To assess the vulnerability of congested road networks, the commonly used full network scan approach is to evaluate all possible scenarios of link closure using a form of traffic assignment. This approach can be computationally burdensome and may not be viable for identifying the most critical links in large-scale networks. In this study, an “impact area” vulnerability analysis approach is proposed to evaluate the consequences of a link closure within its impact area instead of the whole network. The proposed approach can significantly reduce the search space for determining the most critical links in large-scale networks. In addition, a new vulnerability index is introduced to examine properly the consequences of a link closure. The effects of demand uncertainty and heterogeneous travellers’ risk-taking behaviour are explicitly considered. Numerical results for two different road networks show that in practice the proposed approach is more efficient than traditional full scan approach for identifying the same set of critical links. Numerical results also demonstrate that both stochastic demand and travellers’ risk-taking behaviour have significant impacts on network vulnerability analysis, especially under high network congestion and large demand variations. Ignoring their impacts can underestimate the consequences of link closures and misidentify the most critical links.     

自升式平台运行工况对危险区域设备选型的影响

分析和总结了大连中远海运重工建造并交付的Super 116E系列自升式钻井平台的危险区域部分设备选型问题;重点讲述了钻井平台危险区划分,危险区域内设备选型与平台设计运行工况之间的相互关联,可为后续海工钻井平台项目的危险区划分及设备选型工作提供参考和借鉴。     

Developing an enhanced weight-based topological map-matching algorithm for intelligent transport systems

Map-matching (MM) algorithms integrate positioning data from a Global Positioning System (or a number of other positioning sensors) with a spatial road map with the aim of identifying the road segment on which a user (or a vehicle) is travelling and the location on that segment. Amongst the family of MM algorithms consisting of geometric, topological, probabilistic and advanced, topological MM (tMM) algorithms are relatively simple, easy and quick, enabling them to be implemented in real-time. Therefore, a tMM algorithm is used in many navigation devices manufactured by industry. However, existing tMM algorithms have a number of limitations which affect their performance relative to advanced MM algorithms. This paper demonstrates that it is possible by addressing these issues to significantly improve the performance of a tMM algorithm. This paper describes the development of an enhanced weight-based tMM algorithm in which the weights are determined from real-world field data using an optimisation technique. Two new weights for turn-restriction at junctions and link connectivity are introduced to improve the performance of matching, especially at junctions. A new procedure is developed for the initial map-matching process. Two consistency checks are introduced to minimise mismatches. The enhanced map-matching algorithm was tested using field data from dense urban areas and suburban areas. The algorithm identified 96.8% and 95.93% of the links correctly for positioning data collected in urban areas of central London and Washington, DC, respectively. In case of suburban area, in the west of London, the algorithm succeeded with 96.71% correct link identification with a horizontal accuracy of 9.81 m (2σ). This is superior to most existing topological MM algorithms and has the potential to support the navigation modules of many Intelligent Transport System (ITS) services.     

Vehicle mass as a determinant of fuel consumption and secondary safety performance

One interaction between environmental and safety goals in transport is found within the vehicle fleet where fuel economy and secondary safety performance of individual vehicles impose conflicting requirements on vehicle mass from an individual’s perspective. Fleet characteristics influence the relationship between the environmental and safety outcomes of the fleet; the topic of this paper. Cross-sectional analysis of mass within the British fleet is used to estimate the partial effects of mass on the fuel consumption and secondary safety performance of vehicles. The results confirmed that fuel consumption increases as mass increases and is different for different combinations of fuel and transmission types. Additionally, increasing vehicle mass generally decreases the risk of injury to the driver of a given vehicle in the event of a crash. However, this relationship depends on the characteristics of the vehicle fleet, and in particular, is affected by changes in mass distribution within the fleet. We confirm that there is generally a trade-off in vehicle design between fuel economy and secondary safety performance imposed by mass. Cross-comparison of makes and models by model-specific effects reveal cases where this trade-off exists in other aspects of design. Although it is shown that mass imposes a trade-off in vehicle design between safety and fuel use, this does not necessarily mean that it imposes a trade-off between safety and environmental goals in the vehicle fleet as a whole because the secondary safety performance of a vehicle depends on both its own mass and the mass of the other vehicles with which it collides.     

扎（木）墨（脱）公路病害分析与处治

文章结合扎墨简易公路便道整修工程实践,介绍了扎墨公路沿线地质的工程特性、分类以及该路线上的公路病害情况,提出了相应的病害处治措施及在扎墨公路沿线区域进行公路工程施工应注意的问题。     

旧路加宽路面纵向开裂原因分析与防治

针对公路改建工程中出现的沥青路面纵向开裂这一常见现象,结合省道改建工程的设计特点与施工要点,重点就加宽路基部位与路面各结构层的施工质量控制方面进行分析和阐述,提出施工控制方法及相应的处理措施。     

防止电力机车进入无电单元(区)的安全预警方法

针对目前计划内接触网停电时电力机车进入无电单元(区)的问题,提出了基于动态停电作业区域数据对比库语音、屏幕鼠标点击坐标和高清成像分析进行"三元素二阶段"处理对比方法,以减少人员操作失误和损失.机车/车次信息及对应机车属性先由操作人员办理接发列预告(办理闭塞)的语音识别获取,再通过TDCS/CTC终端机非上位机获取并核对...     

城市地下道路入口智能控制系统设置及技术研究

当前城市地下道路建设越来越多,在城市交通体系中承担着重要作用,然而在水淹、火灾等紧急情况下,因未及时管控地下道路车辆而造成人员伤亡、财产损失的问题也时有发生,地下道路的运行安全面临挑战。通过对地下道路入口控制方法、总体方案、设备要求等开展研究,提出地下道路关闭多级预警、建立物理拦截需求和安全高效的控制系统等建议。通过文献、需求调研、技术比选验证,提出了包含物理控制设施、车道信号灯、交通感知设施、信息发布设施、声光警示设施的地下道路入口智能控制系统、控制流程及其主要的技术要求等方案,并结合广州南沙横沥岛尖地下环路的实例开展了方案设计和工程应用。研究提出的地下道路入口智能控制系统可以提升紧急工况下地下道路入口的交通控制效率,提升地下道路安全水平。