Efficient missing data imputing for traffic flow by considering temporal and spatial dependence

The missing data problem remains as a difficulty in a diverse variety of transportation applications, e.g. traffic flow prediction and traffic pattern recognition. To solve this problem, numerous algorithms had been proposed in the last decade to impute the missed data. However, few existing studies had fully used the traffic flow information of neighboring detecting points to improve imputing performance. In this paper, probabilistic principle component analysis (PPCA) based imputing method, which had been proven to be one of the most effective imputing methods without using temporal or spatial dependence, is extended to utilize the information of multiple points. We systematically examine the potential benefits of multi-point data fusion and study the possible influence of measurement time lags. Tests indicate that the hidden temporal–spatial dependence is nonlinear and could be better retrieved by kernel probabilistic principle component analysis (KPPCA) based method rather than PPCA method. Comparison proves that imputing errors can be notably reduced, if temporal–spatial dependence has been appropriately considered.     

Improving maritime inventory routing: application to a Brazilian petroleum case

The crude oil offloading and supply problem (COSP) is a type of operation maritime inventory routing (MIR) problem encountered by petroleum companies. In COSP, the company not only is responsible for the ship scheduling to carry the crude oil from production sites to discharge ports but also must maintain inventory levels at both ports (production and consumption) between safety operational bounds to avoid disruptions in its crude oil production and/or refining processes. We show how to improve significantly the decision-making process in a Brazilian petroleum company using a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model to represent COSP. Comparison tests with a current ship-scheduling method adopted in the company indicated that the use of the MILP model increased the transportation efficiency and reduced costs by 20% on average. In addition to the quantitative gains, the use of a MILP model to solve COSP has succeeded when encountering real-life events, such as variation in production or consumption rates, berth unavailability, and changes in the storage capacities at ports.     

Corrosion rate measurements in steel sheet pile walls in a marine environment

Corrosion of steel structures in the marine environment is a major problem. The deterioration of this kind of structures is costly and difficult to predict both when designing new structures and when estimating the remaining service life time for existing structures. The aim of this investigation was to find indicative values for the corrosion rate of steel sheet piles on the Swedish west coast. Such corrosion rates (mm/year) can be used both when designing new structures by oversizing the steel thickness and when estimating the bearing capacity of existing sheet pile structures. Earlier investigations on the corrosion rates along the Swedish east coast – with salinity from about 0.2% to 0.8% – are still used today as guidelines for the corrosion rate of all steel structures in the Swedish maritime environment even though the salinity on the west coast can be as high as 3.0%.Steel sheet pile wharfs located in the port of Halmstad on the Swedish west coast were inspected by ultrasonic measurements. Three wharf structures with a total length of about 700 m were inspected. None of the inspected wharfs had or have had cathodic protection. The thickness measurements of the steel sheet pile structures were performed by divers.The age of the three inspected sheet pile structures ranged from 36 to 51 years. The dimensions of the original sheet pile sections are known. One of the quay structures is located along a river. The salinity at all wharfs varied from low values at the surface to approx. 2% at the bottom (also in the river outflow).The measured average corrosion rates were in the same order as the design values in the European code. However, the results indicate increased corrosion rates about 1 m below the mean water surface and at the level of the propellers from the ships berthing the most frequented of the inspected wharfs, 3–6 m below water surface.The tolerances of steel sheet thicknesses – usually in the order of ±6% – are often neglected when investigating the remaining thickness in steel sheet piles. A simple calculation model shows that the sheet pile must be almost 50 years of age before an accurate estimation on the corrosion rate can be made, considering the tolerances, if the true original sheet pile thickness is not known.     

沥青路面运营初期平整度竣工验收标准研究

采用数理统计原理,运用SPSS软件对陕西省7条高速公路交-竣工平整度数据进行分析,得出了陕南、关中和陕北地区路面平整度衰变幅度均值分别为0.39m/km、0.28m/km和0.24m/km,这也将作为计算竣工验收推荐值的依据;再基于交-竣工平整度变化规律,建立了平整度竣工验收推荐值的计算公式:IRIju=IRIji+IRIs,可为今后平整度竣工验收标准提供有效的理论依据。     

数控铣床加工低碳钢零件的进给速度优化

论述了数控铣床加工低碳钢零件时进给速度的优化问题．在基于加工效率（可等效转化为加工工时）和加工成本目标函数的基础上，对这两个目标函数运用多目标函数理论进行综合，得到了多目标综合函数．通过计算，并综合表面粗糙度，进而得到进给速度的优化范围，并对不同转速下的进给速度给出了相应的优化参数，目的更接近生产实际，使技术人员不仅了解影响生产效率和成本的因素，也可在实际生产的应用中更加快捷和方便．     

Evaluating the effects of bus design on passenger flow: Is agent-based simulation a feasible approach?

In this paper, we propose an agent-based simulation approach that is capable of simulating the flow of passengers on board buses and at bus stops. The intention is that it will be applied during vehicle development to analyze how vehicle design affects passenger flow, and thus also how it affects system performance such as dwell time. In turn, this could aid the developers in making design decisions early in the development process. Besides introducing the simulation tool itself, the paper explores the realism of the data generated by the tool. A number of passenger flow experiments featuring a full-scale bus mockup and 50 participants were carried out. The setup of these experiments mirrored a number of ‘bus journeys’ (regarding vehicle design, number of passengers boarding/alighting at each stop and so on) that had previously been simulated using the simulation tool. When the data from the simulations were compared with the data from the passenger flow experiments, it could be concluded that the tool is indeed able to generate realistic passenger flows, although with some errors when a large number of passengers board/alight. The simulated dwell times were rationally affected by the tested bus layout aspects. It was concluded that the tool makes it possible to evaluate how variations in bus layouts affect passenger flow, providing data of sufficiently high quality to be useful in early phases of vehicle design.     

信号采样理论在交通流检测点布设中的应用

在对交通流检测点布设领域研究应用现状进行分析与抽象的基础上,提出交通流检测点布设本质上属于空间交通流信号采样问题。依据信号采样理论,建立了确定检测点间距或密度的方法与流程,该流程包括空间交通流信号产生、离散傅里叶变换、频谱分析、间距确定、误差分析5个步骤。对高速公路拥挤状态下的仿真分析表明:100 m的检测点间距可以满足对拥挤交通流状态的真实检测,该数值接近于实际应用中的最小值(125 m),说明该理论方法具有较好的实用性。