A methodological approach for developing and assessing business models for flexible transport systems

Flexible transport services include a wide range of demand responsive transport systems that provide non-conventional passenger and freight transportation services. Several alternative business models varying according to the local market conditions, the socio-economic, legal, and institutional framework may be developed for the provision of Flexible Transport Systems (FTS). The objective of this paper is twofold: first to present an integrated methodological framework for developing and assessing alternative FTS business models and second to demonstrate its applicability to a case study regarding the prioritization of alternative FTS business models for the provision of flexible passenger transport services in Helsinki.

非线性优化AHP法在公交服务水平评价中应用

本文应用非线性优化AHP法确定指标权重系数,改进了传统AHP法的不足之处,针对评价指标的模糊性,建立城市公交服务水平模糊综合评价模型,并通过实例分析和计算,验证了该方法的可行性和实用性。     

辽宁省高速公路管理局收费中心系统改造分析

简要说明辽宁高速公路中心收费系统升级改造方向,结合辽宁高速公路收费系统现状,提出适合辽宁高速公路中心系统升级的解决方案.     

浅析钢筋混凝土Y形桥墩的优化设计

介绍并分析立交桥中桥墩构造尺寸的拟定,及其优化设计的过程与思路。     

Modelling parking choices considering user heterogeneity

We examine car driver’s behaviour when choosing a parking place; the alternatives available are free on-street parking, paid on-street parking and parking in an underground multi-storey car park. A mixed logit model, allowing for correlation between random taste parameters and estimated using stated choice data, is used to infer values of time, both when looking for a parking space and for accessing the final destination. Apart from the cost of parking, we found that vehicle age was a key variable when choosing where to park in Spain. We also found that the perception of the parking charge was fairly heterogeneous, depending both on the drivers’ income levels and whether or not they were local residents. Our results can be generalised for personalised policy making related with parking demand management.     

Mathematical properties and constraints representation for bottom-up approaches to the evaluation of GHG mitigation policies

Bottom-up models, including MARKAL, MESSAGE and AIM, are widely used when analyzing the effect of greenhouse gas (GHG) abatement policies. These bottom-up models are mostly formulated as a linear programming (LP) optimization model to find both the minimal cost combination of abatement technologies and energy flows while satisfying demands. It is not unusual that the bottom-up modeling involves a great number of technical, industrial, socioeconomic and environmental constraints. Investigating representative constraints needed for analyzing GHG abatement policies, this study proposes how to implement these constraints in bottom-up modeling.     

Measuring community reaction to urban transportation impacts using Von Neumann‐Morgenstern utility theory

This paper attempts to measure the impacts of urban transportation system improvements or changes on the community. The community's perceptions of the impacts are represented by its utilities (or disutilities) over various ranges of values of the multiple attributes representing these impacts. The utility technique used in the evaluation is based upon von Neumann‐Morgenstern (vN‐M, 1947) Utility Theory, and is applied using Raiffa's (1970) Fractile Method.

The paper specifically applies the technique to model the perceptions of five subgroups within a community to the impact of a new light rail transit system that is being incorporated in the transportation system of the City of Calgary.

Results of the modeling indicate explicitly how the community changes its perception over ranges of values of the attributes evaluated. Biases of various subgroups within the community over these attributes are also shown. Statistical tests indicate that aggregated utility perceptions can represent the utility perceptions of the individual subgroups quite reasonably.     

Alternative Modeling Approaches Used for Examining Automobile Ownership: A Comprehensive Review

Abstract

Household vehicle ownership, and the associated dimensions including fleet size, vehicle type and usage, has been one of the most researched transport topics. This paper endeavors to provide a critical overview of the wide-ranging methodological approaches employed in vehicle ownership modeling depending on the ownership representation over the past two decades. The studies in the existing literature based on the vehicle ownership representation are classified as: exogenous static, exogenous dynamic, endogenous static and endogenous dynamic models. The methodological approaches applied range from simple linear regressions to complex econometrics formulations taking into account a rich set of covariates. In spite of the steady advancement and impressive evolution in terms of methodological approaches to examine the decision process, we identify complex issues that pose a formidable challenge to address the evolution of vehicle ownership in the coming years. Specifically, we discuss challenges with data availability and methodological framework selection. In light of these discussions, we provide a decision matrix for aiding researchers/practitioners in determining appropriate model frameworks for conducting vehicle ownership analysis.     

Women’s mode and trip structure choices in daily activity-travel: a developing country perspective

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we analyze the travel patterns of Iranian women, where typical patriarchal views and specific social and cultural norms may differ from the patterns of those in western societies. In addition to inherent psycho-physical gender differences, women in Iran can face special constraints forcing them not to be involved in all activity-travel patterns that people in developed countries usually undertake. We pay special attention to the role of marital and employment status on women’s activity-travel patterns. To this end, we develop a joint mode and daily activity pattern (DAP) discrete choice model, which is a two-level mixed nested Logit. The upper nest of the proposed model embodies women’s DAP choices, and the lower nest belongs to the mode choices. In this paper, we try to show how different factors in a patriarchal Muslim society like Iran affect or restrict women’s type and structure of activity-travel patterns.     

Ant Colony Routing algorithm for freeway networks

Dynamic traffic routing refers to the process of (re)directing vehicles at junctions in a traffic network according to the evolving traffic conditions. The traffic management center can determine desired routes for drivers in order to optimize the performance of the traffic network by dynamic traffic routing. However, a traffic network may have thousands of links and nodes, resulting in a large-scale and computationally complex non-linear, non-convex optimization problem. To solve this problem, Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) is chosen as the optimization method in this paper because of its powerful optimization heuristic for combinatorial optimization problems. ACO is implemented online to determine the control signal – i.e., the splitting rates at each node. However, using standard ACO for traffic routing is characterized by four main disadvantages: 1. traffic flows for different origins and destinations cannot be distinguished; 2. all ants may converge to one route, causing congestion; 3. constraints cannot be taken into account; and 4. neither can dynamic link costs. These problems are addressed by adopting a novel ACO algorithm with stench pheromone and with colored ants, called Ant Colony Routing (ACR). Using the stench pheromone, the ACR algorithm can distribute the vehicles over the traffic network with less or no traffic congestion, as well as reduce the number of vehicles near some sensitive zones, such as hospitals and schools. With colored ants, the traffic flows for multiple origins and destinations can be represented. The proposed approach is also implemented in a simulation-based case study in the Walcheren area, the Netherlands, illustrating the effectiveness of the approach.