Design and evaluation of an integrated inventory and transportation system

This paper proposes the adoption of an integrated inventory and transportation system (IITS) to minimize the total costs of inventory and transportation. A non-linear programing is developed by analyzing transportation and inventory costs with one supplier and many retailers in the distribution environment. The paper compares the proposed model with the traditional approach in computing total costs with numerical data. The results indicate that the total costs can be optimized by adopting integrated programing rather than the traditional approach, along with achieving improved customer service levels. In particular, sensitivity analysis is applied to determine the performance of the IITS under various transportation costs, holding costs and shortage costs. It shows that the transportation cost per unit is most sensitive in the proposed model. In this situation, the IITS is more effective for cost saving when set-up cost, holding and shortage costs are high, but is less effective for situations involving high per-unit transportation costs.     

Privacy protection method for fine-grained urban traffic modeling using mobile sensors

With the ubiquitous nature of mobile sensing technologies, privacy issues are becoming increasingly important, and need to be carefully addressed. Data needs for transportation modeling and privacy protection should be deliberately balanced for different applications. This paper focuses on developing privacy mechanisms that would simultaneously satisfy privacy protection and data needs for fine-grained urban traffic modeling applications using mobile sensors. To accomplish this, a virtual trip lines (VTLs) zone-based system and related filtering approaches are developed. Traffic-knowledge-based adversary models are proposed and tested to evaluate the effectiveness of such a privacy protection system by making privacy attacks. The results show that in addition to ensuring an acceptable level of privacy, the released datasets from the privacy-enhancing system can also be applied to urban traffic modeling with satisfactory results. Albeit application-specific, such a “Privacy-by-Design” approach would hopefully shed some light on other transportation applications using mobile sensors.     

Operating cost based cruise speed reduction for ground delay programs: Effect of scope length

Ground delay programs typically involve the delaying of aircraft that are departing from origin airports within some set distance of a capacity constrained destination airport. Long haul flights are not delayed in this way. A trade-off exists when fixing the distance parameter: increasing the ‘scope’ distributes delay among more aircraft and may reduce airborne holding delay but could also result in unnecessary delay in the (frequently observed) case of early program cancellation. In order to overcome part of this drawback, a fuel based cruise speed reduction strategy aimed at realizing airborne delay, was suggested by the authors in previous publications. By flying slower, at a specific speed, aircraft that are airborne can recover part of their initially assigned delay without incurring extra fuel consumption if the ground delay program is canceled before planned. In this paper, the effect of the scope of the program is assessed when applying this strategy. A case study is presented by analyzing all the ground delay programs that took place at San Francisco, Newark Liberty and Chicago O’Hare International airports during one year. Results show that by the introduction of this technique it is possible to define larger scopes, partially reducing the amount of unrecovered delay.     

Short-term forecasting of high-speed rail demand: A hybrid approach combining ensemble empirical mode decomposition and gray support vector machine with real-world applications in China

Short-term forecasting of high-speed rail (HSR) passenger flow provides daily ridership estimates that account for day-to-day demand variations in the near future (e.g., next week, next month). It is one of the most critical tasks in high-speed passenger rail planning, operational decision-making and dynamic operation adjustment. An accurate short-term HSR demand prediction provides a basis for effective rail revenue management. In this paper, a hybrid short-term demand forecasting approach is developed by combining the ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) and grey support vector machine (GSVM) models. There are three steps in this hybrid forecasting approach: (i) decompose short-term passenger flow data with noises into a number of intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) and a trend term; (ii) predict each IMF using GSVM calibrated by the particle swarm optimization (PSO); (iii) reconstruct the refined IMF components to produce the final predicted daily HSR passenger flow, where the PSO is also applied to achieve the optimal refactoring combination. This innovative hybrid approach is demonstrated with three typical origin–destination pairs along the Wuhan-Guangzhou HSR in China. Mean absolute percentage errors of the EEMD-GSVM predictions using testing sets are 6.7%, 5.1% and 6.5%, respectively, which are much lower than those of two existing forecasting approaches (support vector machine and autoregressive integrated moving average). Application results indicate that the proposed hybrid forecasting approach performs well in terms of prediction accuracy and is especially suitable for short-term HSR passenger flow forecasting.     

波浪模型试验应当注意的一些问题

根据实践经验,按照波浪物理模型试验要求、工作大纲、试验条件、制作模型、试验过程和报告编写等环节,总结了容易疏忽的问题,并给出了解决这些问题的方法和建议,以促进模型试验成果的科学性和可靠性,提高工作效率,避免不必要地失误。可供从事此项工作人员特别是经验不多的年轻人借鉴和参考。     

基于元胞理论的船厂码头移泊作业问题算法

为了解决大规模船厂的码头移泊作业问题，基于船舶移动路径具有过程演进的特性，建立了码头移泊作业问题的元胞数学模型。按照问题元胞模型的演进特性和演变规则，采用蚁群智能算法来对模型进行求解，并论证了该算法的收敛性。通过实例计算，其结果与船厂实际操作安排进行比较和分析，验证了该算法的有效性和优越性。     

Evolving competition between Hong Kong and Shenzhen ports

Shenzhen Port (SZP), once a negligible local port, has risen dramatically to a world-leading container port and an “equal” player with Hong Kong Port (HKP). Will this market share reallocation continue, or will equilibrium be eventually realized for HKP to prosper continuously? We examine the relationship between these two ports to answer this question. We propose a new transformation method to describe the growth of container cargo transport demand, define the quantitative measures of the competition relationship and port competitiveness, and present a rigorous analytical framework with econometric tests and models to understand the true relationship between HKP and SZP. Direct empirical tests suggest that SZP complements HKP; however, the two ports exhibit strong competition when the effect of demand growth is excluded. Considering transshipment separately, we find that the impact of SZP on HKP is negative in transshipment but complementary in direct shipment. We may conclude that HKP does not affect SZP, whereas SZP has competitive power over HKP. These results are consistent with the findings of some previous theoretical studies.     

基于GRNN的GSM-R场强覆盖预测算法

在比较Hata模型修正方法和GRNN算法场强覆盖预测效果的基础上,仿真分析了训练集构成和平滑因子选择对GRNN算法预测效果的影响,给出了训练集构成和平滑因子选择的方法;提出了电波传播环境相似系数来表征GRNN模型在不同环境下的适用性。仿真结果表明,两种传播环境的相似系数越大,由一种环境下测试数据确定的GRNN在另一环境下的预测精度越高。     

Asymmetric response model for evaluating airline service quality: An empirical study in cross-strait direct flights

In this paper we propose a framework to investigate service quality asymmetrically. An asymmetric response model within structural equation framework is developed to study the relationship between service quality and the passenger’s behavioral intention in the cross-strait direct flight (Taiwan–Shanghai). The results reveal that service quality in the loss region has more impact on behavioral intention than service quality in the gain region. Hence, attention should be paid to the service quality of important attributes in the loss region and strategies should ensure service quality of those important attributes that meet passenger’s expectations.     

拉压杆模型在预应力连续梁桥局部分析中的应用

在预应力深梁拉压杆模型的基础上,根据结构局部分析原理,研究提出了预应力连续梁局部等效转化成预应力深梁的局部拉压杆模型分析方法。利用此方法对某预应力连续梁桥局部梁段建立拉压杆模型,验算配筋和强度。结果表明:利用文中提出的方法建立拉压杆模型用于预应力连续梁桥局部分析是合理有效的。