Modeling duration choice in space–time multi-state supernetworks for individual activity-travel scheduling

Multi-state supernetworks have been advanced recently for modeling individual activity-travel scheduling decisions. The main advantage is that multi-dimensional choice facets are modeled simultaneously within an integral framework, supporting systematic assessments of a large spectrum of policies and emerging modalities. However, duration choice of activities and home-stay has not been incorporated in this formalism yet. This study models duration choice in the state-of-the-art multi-state supernetworks. An activity link with flexible duration is transformed into a time-expanded bipartite network; a home location is transformed into multiple time-expanded locations. Along with these extensions, multi-state supernetworks can also be coherently expanded in space–time. The derived properties are that any path through a space–time supernetwork still represents a consistent activity-travel pattern, duration choice are explicitly associated with activity timing, duration and chain, and home-based tours are generated endogenously. A forward recursive formulation is proposed to find the optimal patterns with the optimal worst-case run-time complexity. Consequently, the trade-off between travel and time allocation to activities and home-stay can be systematically captured.     

Autonomous cars: The tension between occupant experience and intersection capacity

Systems that enable high levels of vehicle-automation are now beginning to enter the commercial marketplace. Road vehicles capable of operating independently of real-time human control under an increasing set of circumstances will likely become more widely available in the near future. Such vehicles are expected to bring a variety of benefits. Two such anticipated advantages (relative to human-driver vehicle control) are said to be increased road network capacity and the freeing up of the driver-occupant’s time to engage in their choice of leisurely or economically-productive (non-driving) tasks.In this study we investigate the implications for intersection capacity and level-of-service of providing occupants of automated (without real-time human control), autonomously-operating (without vehicle-to-X communication) cars with ride quality that is equivalent (in terms of maximum rates of longitudinal and lateral acceleration) to two types of rail systems: [urban] light rail transit and [inter-urban] high-speed rail. The literature suggests that car passengers start experiencing discomfort at lower rates of acceleration than car drivers; it is therefore plausible that occupants of an autonomously-operating vehicle may wish to instruct their vehicle to maneuver in a way that provides them greater ride comfort than if the vehicle-control algorithm simply mimicked human-driving-operation.On the basis of traffic microsimulation analysis, we found that restricting the dynamics of autonomous cars to the acceleration/deceleration characteristics of both rail systems leads to reductions in a signalized intersection’s vehicle-processing capacity and increases in delay. The impacts were found to be larger when constraining the autonomous cars’ dynamics to the more-restrictive acceleration/deceleration profile of high-speed rail. The scenarios we analyzed must be viewed as boundary conditions, because autonomous cars’ dynamics were by definition never allowed to exceed the acceleration/deceleration constraints of the rail systems. Appropriate evidence regarding motorists’ preferences does not exist at present; establishing these preferences is an important item for the future research agenda.This paper concludes with a brief discussion of research needs to advance this line of inquiry.     

Travel time estimation from sparse floating car data with consistent path inference: A fixed point approach

Estimation of urban network link travel times from sparse floating car data (FCD) usually needs pre-processing, mainly map-matching and path inference for finding the most likely vehicle paths that are consistent with reported locations. Path inference requires a priori assumptions about link travel times; using unrealistic initial link travel times can bias the travel time estimation and subsequent identification of shortest paths. Thus, the combination of path inference and travel time estimation is a joint problem. This paper investigates the sensitivity of estimated travel times, and proposes a fixed point formulation of the simultaneous path inference and travel time estimation problem. The methodology is applied in a case study to estimate travel times from taxi FCD in Stockholm, Sweden. The results show that standard fixed point iterations converge quickly to a solution where input and output travel times are consistent. The solution is robust under different initial travel times assumptions and data sizes. Validation against actual path travel time measurements from the Google API and an instrumented vehicle deployed for this purpose shows that the fixed point algorithm improves shortest path finding. The results highlight the importance of the joint solution of the path inference and travel time estimation problem, in particular for accurate path finding and route optimization.     

轨道客车不锈钢车体电化学钝化工艺研究

文章通过显微组织、显微硬度、电化学性能表征测试,分析了不锈钢车体焊缝及热影响区的组织变化及性能差异,研究了钝化道次、移动速度等电化学钝化工艺参数对焊接接头及热影响区耐蚀性的影响规律.试验结果表明:焊接热影响区显微组织发生明显改变,显微硬度下降,表面耐蚀性明显下降,当以10 mm/s单道次钝化作业时,点蚀电位最高,耐蚀性最好,30天盐雾试验后,钝化处理表面未发现明显锈蚀.该工艺已在公司进行了推广应用,效果良好.     

Mental models of driving and speed: biases,choices and reality

This paper provides a review of research performed by Svenson with colleagues and others work on mental models and their practical implications. Mental models describe how people perceive and think about the world including covariances and relationships between different variables, such as driving speed and time. Research on mental models has detected the time-saving bias [Svenson, O. (1970). A functional measurement approach to intuitive estimation as exemplified by estimated time savings. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 86, 204–210]. It means that drivers relatively overestimate the time that can be saved by increasing speed from an already high speed, for example, 90–130?km/h, and underestimate the time that can be saved by increasing speed from a low speed, for example, 30–45?km/h. In congruence with this finding, mean speed judgments and perceptions of mean speeds are also biased and higher speeds given too much weight and low speeds too little weight in comparison with objective reality. Replacing or adding a new speedometer in the car showing min per km eliminated or weakened the time-saving bias. Information about braking distances at different speeds did not improve overoptimistic judgments of braking capacity, but information about collision speed with an object suddenly appearing on the road did improve judgments of braking capacity. This is relevant to drivers, politicians and traffic regulators.     

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.     

行政裁决:地方政府的制度推力

在统计时间内有效的行政裁决制度共有16项,分布在自然资源和环境、知识产权以及民间纠纷三大领域,均为中央政府的法律、行政法规和部门规章所设定.但行政裁决设定的领域范围在逐步退缩,已设定的行政裁决被纷纷废止,新的法律更倾向规定调解或仲裁.行政裁决实施性规定多集中于与土地有关的行政裁决,其中绝大多数系由地方政府所制定.地方政府不仅做出了细密规定,而且纷纷制定了专门性规定.但在矿权、环境、知识产权和民间纠纷领域,地方政府并未充分发挥出细化法律、行政法规和部门规章中行政裁决条款的作用,更没有制定专门的行政裁决规定.有关行政裁决的行政规范性文件高度集中于征地补偿裁决、拆迁补偿裁决和林地权属裁决.其中,林地权属裁决的中央行政规范性文件较多,征地补偿裁决和拆迁补偿裁决的地方行政规范性文件较多.这些行政规范性文件的内容,集中在纠纷的化解而非行政裁决制度本身.从行政裁决引发的诉讼案件反观行政裁决制度,征地补偿裁决、拆迁补偿裁决和林地权属裁决都在运行,其他行政裁决制度都没有运行.其中,拆迁补偿裁决的运行异常活跃,征地补偿裁决的运行却极为低迷.统计发现的耦合是:凡地方政府对行政裁决制定了专门性实施规定的,行政裁决制度都在运行,否则都已停滞；地方行政规范性文件被用作行政裁决依据的多少,与该行政裁决的活跃程度成正比.当然,上述发现的证成或证伪,有待于另一项研究.     

舰船加筋板局部强度评估中的总纵应力折减系数研究

舰船加强筋尺寸的合理确定一直是结构设计中的热点问题。本文综合考虑总纵弯曲应力和局部载荷的相互作用,研究加强筋的许用应力折减系数(C_s)的影响因素与合理取值方法。通过分析加强筋的力学模型、对比不同规范中的C_s取值,以及用非线性有限元软件Abaqus计算一系列加筋板模型,拟合C_s曲线并与规范对比,并验证剖面对称性和局部载荷作用方向对C_s取值的影响方式,丰富了舰船局部强度校核方法的技术背景,为板架设计、舰船三维局部校核程序开发提供借鉴。     

基于客流需求的城市轨道交通动态时刻表优化模型

为使城市轨道交通列车运行时刻表更贴合客流需求,依据不断变化的客流需求确定每列车的发车时刻和停站时间,采用多目标优化方法构建以乘客出行时间费用和列车运行时间费用最小为目标、列车发车时刻和停站时间为决策变量的城市轨道交通动态时刻表优化模型,并采用粒子群算法求解。以广州地铁13号线为例进行验证,结果表明优化后的时刻表更满足客流需求,能有效地提高乘客出行效率,具有更好的动态适应性。     

Policy packages for modal shift and CO2 reduction in Lille,France

This paper proposes different policy scenarios to cut CO₂ emissions caused by the urban mobility of passengers. More precisely, we compare the effects of the ‘direct tool’ of carbon tax, to a combination of ‘indirect tools’ – not originally aimed at reducing CO₂ (i.e. congestion charging, parking charges and a reduction in public transport travel time) in terms of CO₂ impacts through a change in the modal split. In our model, modal choices depend on individual characteristics, trip features (including the effects of policy tools), and land use at origin and destination zones. Personal “CO₂ emissions budgets” resulting from the trips observed in the metropolitan area of Lille (France) in 2006 are calculated and compared to the situation related to the different policy scenarios. We find that an increase of 50% in parking charges combined with a cordon toll of €1.20 and a 10% travel time decrease in public transport services (made after recycling toll-revenues) is the winning scenario. The combined effects of all the policy scenarios are superior to their separate effects.