Visibility mapping in New York's coastal zone: A case study of alternative methods

Abstract

Most scenery evaluation methodologies incorporate visibility extent. In New York's coastal zone, visibility mapping for planning and project studies is complicated by low topographic relief, and diverse configurations of water edge and upland surface character. A generalized visibility model has been developed, including macrolandscape, observer, and sight‐line recording. Based on a prior shorescape study of New York's coast, the Lake Ontario Port Bay site was selected to test alternative visibility methods. Within the study site, four “landscape control points”; were chosen which provided extensive views of representative land and water forms, and surface types. For each control point, four families of visibility mapping approaches were applied: primary (field observation); secondary (topographic maps and vertical air photo analysis); tertiary (physical topographic model); and quaternary (digital terrain computer model). Major study conclusions are: the methods require different resources; all methods readily produced visibility maps; all methods, except secondary, could be used to produce perspective scenes for subsequent content evaluation; all methods except primary omitted one or more elements of the general visibility model; all methods should incorporate field work due to critical viewer environment conditions; sensitivity analysis in each method produced ambiguous zones; each view map was different, particularly in the background. An integrated, multi‐approach strategy would appear desirable for most planning and project applications.     

基于PTC材料加热的柴油喷油器模拟

文章选用居里温度为60℃的陶瓷基PTC材料作为加热元件,利用流体力学计算软件Fluent模拟了两种不同燃油流量下用PTC材料加热柴油的温度场变化。仿真结果表明,利用PTC材料加热可有效提高燃油温度,改善冷启动性能,且随着燃油流量的增加,喷油器出口温度呈下降趋势。     

铁路客运站应对高峰客流的对策研究

通过分析铁路客运站应对客流高峰存在的问题,认为应从人流引导和客运站规划方面进行解决.在人流引导方面,客运站应该做好提前客流预测、加强员工培训、协调其他运输部门以及加大先进设施的运用；在客运站规划方面,通过分析国外先进客运站实例,总结相应经验,为铁路客运站应对高峰客流提供参考.     

铁路路堑挡雪墙设计参数优化数值模拟

风吹雪往往在铁路路堑地段形成较厚的积雪,掩埋线路,影响行车速度,危及行车安全,研究其具有重要的现实意义。基于FLUENT软件,模拟研究不同挡雪墙高度、不同风速下,挡雪墙背风侧风雪两相流的运动特性及挡雪墙参数优化设计。研究表明,风雪流初始速度一定时,挡雪墙背风侧积雪宽度随挡雪墙高度增大而变大,沉积在床面上的雪粒更多,阻雪效果越好;挡雪墙高度一定时,背风侧积雪宽度随风雪流速度的增加逐渐增大,挡雪墙距线路的距离也应越大。在综合考虑工程造价和挡雪效果的基础上,挡雪墙设计时,高度宜在2.5~3.5m,高度越高,风速越大,挡雪墙距线路的距离应越大,一般在20~35m即可。     

Using survival models to estimate bus travel times and associated uncertainties

Transit agencies often provide travelers with point estimates of bus travel times to downstream stops to improve the perceived reliability of bus transit systems. Prediction models that can estimate both point estimates and the level of uncertainty associated with these estimates (e.g., travel time variance) might help to further improve reliability by tempering user expectations. In this paper, accelerated failure time survival models are proposed to provide such simultaneous predictions. Data from a headway-based bus route serving the Pennsylvania State University-University Park campus were used to estimate bus travel times using the proposed survival model and traditional linear regression frameworks for comparison. Overall, the accuracy of point estimates from the two approaches, measured using the root-mean-squared errors (RMSEs) and mean absolute errors (MAEs), was similar. This suggests that both methods predict travel times equally well. However, the survival models were found to more accurately describe the uncertainty associated with the predictions. Furthermore, survival model estimates were found to have smaller uncertainties on average, especially when predicted travel times were small. Tests for transferability over time suggested that the models did not over-fit the dataset and validated the predictive ability of models established with historical data. Overall, the survival model approach appears to be a promising method to predict both expected bus travel times and the uncertainty associated with these travel times.     

机场陆侧交通设施竖向布局模式研究

轨道交通设施引入机场后使机场陆测交通设施竖向布局设计更加复杂多样。分析了大型机场轨道交通线路走向与航站楼平面布局的关系,在剖析国内外各种实例的基础上,提出机场陆侧交通设施竖向布局模式;对各种模式的优缺点、换乘设施布局、旅客流程组织进行比较分析。     

基于HCSR的热点应力插值方法研究

针对《散货船、油船协调共同规范》（HCSR）中的疲劳热点应力插值方法,总结7种不同的插值方式,通过对简化的实体单元和壳体单元模型的分析以及实船模型新旧规范的对比,验证了HCSR中插值方法的合理性,并对两个版本的HCSR方法进行比较.     

Experienced travel time prediction for congested freeways

Travel time is an important performance measure for transportation systems, and dissemination of travel time information can help travelers make reliable travel decisions such as route choice or departure time. Since the traffic data collected in real time reflects the past or current conditions on the roadway, a predictive travel time methodology should be used to obtain the information to be disseminated. However, an important part of the literature either uses instantaneous travel time assumption, and sums the travel time of roadway segments at the starting time of the trip, or uses statistical forecasting algorithms to predict the future travel time. This study benefits from the available traffic flow fundamentals (e.g. shockwave analysis and bottleneck identification), and makes use of both historical and real time traffic information to provide travel time prediction. The methodological framework of this approach sequentially includes a bottleneck identification algorithm, clustering of traffic data in traffic regimes with similar characteristics, development of stochastic congestion maps for clustered data and an online congestion search algorithm, which combines historical data analysis and real-time data to predict experienced travel times at the starting time of the trip. The experimental results based on the loop detector data on Californian freeways indicate that the proposed method provides promising travel time predictions under varying traffic conditions.     

Brake light cellular automaton model with advanced randomization for traffic breakdown

Traffic breakdown is one of the most important empirical phenomena in traffic flow theory. Unfortunately, it cannot be simulated by many traffic flow models. In order to clarify its mechanism, the new brake light cellular automaton model has been proposed. Comparing with previous brake light models, three different aspects have been considered: (i) drivers tend to take large decelerations if the time gap is smaller than the safe time gap and the leading vehicle’s brake light is on; (ii) the brake light rule is set according to the reality; (iii) the randomization rule is put forward before the acceleration rule to weaken the impact of brake light on driving behaviors. Analyses show that the new model can explain the mechanism of traffic breakdown and the failures of other brake light models. Simulations confirm that all empirical features of traffic breakdown are successfully reproduced. At last, brake light models are calibrated and validated by the I-80 empirical data provided by NGSIM. Results show that the performance of the new model is the best and models in the three-phase theory are not necessarily better than models in the fundamental diagram approach and vice versa, at least for the brake light models.