The economics of railway safety

This paper reviews the statistics and economics of railway safety in Great Britain, the European Union and the United States, together with some results for Finland and Japan. In these countries railway safety has improved over recent decades. That finding applies both to train accidents and to personal accidents such as persons struck by trains. Fatal train collisions and derailments command most attention even though they are infrequent and account for only a small minority of railway fatalities. Great Britain, the EU and the USA formally espouse conventional cost benefit analysis for the appraisal of railway safety measures, using the same valuations for the prevention of casualties as are used in road safety appraisal. However there are often strong institutional, legal and political pressures towards adopting railway safety measures with safety benefit: cost ratios well below 1. The best-documented examples of this are automatic train protection systems, which are discussed in the paper. Apart from trespassers, the largest group of railway fatalities occur at level crossings, which the paper also discusses. Level crossing safety measures would seem to be an appropriate subject for cost benefit analysis, but there are few case-studies in the literature. Over the last few decades, the railways in many countries have been privatised or deregulated with the aim of improving their economic performance. Such changes have the potential to affect safety. The paper reviews evidence of the effects on safety of railway restructuring in Great Britain, Japan and the United State, and finds no evidence that safety deteriorated.     

Measuring the Cost Effectiveness of Multimode Bus Transit in the Presence of Accident Risks

Abstract

This study employs the directional graph distance function and the multiactivity data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach, which incorporates both desirable and undesirable outputs, in order to provide a more complete representation of the multimode bus production technology from which environmentally and risk-sensitive cost effectiveness measures can be generated. We treat accident cost as the risky output in the sense that we wish to increase desirable outputs and decrease risky output and inputs. The approach is applied to the problem of measuring the cost effectiveness of 24 bus companies in Taiwan. An empirical illustration suggests that the overall cost effectiveness rankings turn out to be very sensitive to whether or not the graph multiactivity DEA approach is adopted. This implies that the conventional DEA cost effectiveness measure may be seriously misleading if it ignores the cost effectiveness of organizations that carry out various activities whilst sharing common resources.     

浅谈做好建设施工项目的成本控制的分析

从建筑工程项目成本控制涉及工程项目的各个环节入手,通过对成本计划和影响项目成本的主要因素的分析,重点阐述了成本控制应遵循的主要原则和措施,从而提高企业的成本管理水平。     

施工企业高速公路项目成本支出体系研究

分析了当前高速公路工程项目管理体系中存在的显性、隐生两大类成本,提出了显性成本的形成原因和控制方法,对隐生成本中机制成本、素质成本、风险成本做了详细分析,找出了项目管理机制、人员素质、项目风险等对项目成本增减量产生巨大影响的原因。通过成本分析成果及时地调整管理措施,有效地控制项目成本,节约支出,求得最佳项目效益。     

Traffic flow consideration in design of freight distribution system

This study is part of a series of research projects on a distribution system we developed to deal with cases in a state-owned company. It concerns the design of the Public Service Obligation State-owned Company (PSO-SOC) distribution system. The intrinsic features of PSO-SOC are distributing strategic commodities and having subsidies within the cost function. Hence their distribution flow has to be secured under consideration of moving the commodities within road networks that have traffic flow dependency. This paper focuses on the solution of the proposed model which represents traffic flow dependency within a freight distribution network.The mathematical formulation takes the form of a Minimum Cost Multicommodity Flow (MCMF) problem. Traffic flow dependency is incorporated into the model by introducing a coefficient of speed, which is derived from the traffic assignment of ordinary traffic associated with the transportation of the type of freight under consideration The solution of the proposed model is formulated by Network Representation (NR), in which all of the components of the mathematical model are represented in the form of dummy links and nodes added to the original (physical) network. It is to be noted then, that the traffic flow on each road or link is represented by a link performance function (LPF), depicting traffic flow dependent travel time and consequent cost. The MCMF problem of NR is further solved by a Primal-Dual Algorithm.Finally, an illustrative example is exercised to show how the proposed step-wise solution works.     

浅析公路施工成本管理

分析了影响公路工程成本的主要因素,对公路工程项目全过程的成本管理进行了详细介绍.     

浅析高速综合检测列车高级修费用与摊销

高速铁路使用的综合检测列车是以高速动车组为载体,装备专用检测系统,对线路和轨道、牵引供电、通信信号等基础设施,轮轨和弓网接触状态及列车有关指标等进行高速动态检测.具有检测列车精确定位、在线数据集成、综合处理和分级评价等功能,是保证高速铁路基础设施正常运营的重要技术装备.此文根据高速综合检测列车的使用现状,对综合检测列车高级修费用进行分析.通过分析,提出在铁路工程建设期间摊销的高级修费用标准.     

Costs and benefits of US aviation noise land-use policies

Aircraft noise affects human health and welfare. One method US airports use to mitigate the impact of noise on nearby residents is through sound insulation and residential land acquisition projects. Costs of residential insulation and acquisition projects are taken from federal grant summaries while the benefits of noise reduction are calculated as the combined willingness-to-pay for abatement and direct and indirect costs of illness from hypertension, myocardial infarction, and stroke. We show that the average cost of sound insulation projects is $15,600 per person affected while that of land acquisition is $48,900 per person affected. We find that for only in 15% of projects do the benefits to residents from willingness-to-pay for reduction and reduced risk of mortality and morbidity exceed the costs of sound insulation for residences exposed to 65 dB Day Night Level (DNL) of noise. Our estimates suggest that noise insulation projects are more cost-effective than fleet wide mandatory aircraft retirement.     

An autonomous system for maintenance scheduling data-rich complex infrastructure: Fusing the railways’ condition,planning and cost

National railways are typically large and complex systems. Their network infrastructure usually includes extended track sections, bridges, stations and other supporting assets. In recent years, railways have also become a data-rich environment.Railway infrastructure assets have a very long life, but inherently degrade. Interventions are necessary but they can cause lateness, damage and hazards. Every day, thousands of discrete maintenance jobs are scheduled according to time and urgency. Service disruption has a direct economic impact. Planning for maintenance can be complex, expensive and uncertain.Autonomous scheduling of maintenance jobs is essential. The design strategy of a novel integrated system for automatic job scheduling is presented; from concept formulation to the examination of the data to information transitional level interface, and at the decision making level. The underlying architecture configures high-level fusion of technical and business drivers; scheduling optimized intervention plans that factor-in cost impact and added value.A proof of concept demonstrator was developed to validate the system principle and to test algorithm functionality. It employs a dashboard for visualization of the system response and to present key information. Real track incident and inspection datasets were analyzed to raise degradation alarms that initiate the automatic scheduling of maintenance tasks. Optimum scheduling was realized through data analytics and job sequencing heuristic and genetic algorithms, taking into account specific cost & value inputs from comprehensive task cost modelling. Formal face validation was conducted with railway infrastructure specialists and stakeholders. The demonstrator structure was found fit for purpose with logical component relationships, offering further scope for research and commercial exploitation.     

从2013版《建筑安装工程费用项目组成》看工程造价管理改革思路简

为适应经济社会的发展和建筑市场的变化,建标[2013]44号文发布了修订的《建筑安装工程费用项目组成》,为便于建标[2013]44号文的贯彻执行,将其与建标[2003]206号文发布的《建筑安装工程费用项目组成》进行对比分析,并进一步介绍新版《建筑安装工程费用项目组成》在计价方式和计价程序上发生的变化,及所明确的工程造价管理机构的职能。在更适合工程量清单计价模式下,推动新版《建筑安装工程费用项目组成》在建设工程中的应用。