The design of a terminal for dangerous goods

This paper aims at examining the possibility of setting up a model terminal for the transportation of dangerous goods. It should be designed in such a manner that its use would be possible for any kind of transportation.

This consideration has been prompted by the interface between transportation planning and technology, as well as by the tendency for harmonizing international recommendations pertaining to the transportation and handling of dangerous goods, especially during the last decades where unified transport has gained ground due to the advantages provided for the safe consignment of dangerous cargoes.

Since the large increase in terminal productivity is due to the heavy investments that were effected in terminal installations and to the modernization of the administration‐management of terminals, a mathematical simulation has been adopted to assist the determination of the capacity of a terminal for dangerous goods.

It is evident that different criteria and various assumptions have been taken into account in order to facilitate a deeper analysis, without ignoring the contribution of dangerous goods to the socio‐economic development.

From the outset of the study, it was already clear that the said process will make it possible to present—as a model—a simple but well defined situation for the purpose of drawing useful conclusions.     

Using Focus and NomiNal Group Techniques for a Better Understanding of the Transit Disadvantaged Needs

The research presented in this paper explores the context, method, and value of focus group research in transit needs assessments. Group participatory research can generate data that are not easily obtained by other methods. The paper focuses on lessons from three Nebraska communities whose transit disadvantaged rely on community-based paratransit services. Because of the size of the paratransit population and the inability to control who showed up to the focus group sessions, a modified group research protocol was adopted in order to garner information from whomever attended the session. The population parameters and the number of people at the meetings were anticipated by the researchers and mitigated by incorporating nominal group techniques. Research findings from the focus group sessions are discussed paying particular attention to the candid and policy-specific comments made by the focus group participants. The paper concludes with an application of focus group research in transit planning.     

城市土地利用对交通需求特性影响研究

针对长期以来关于城市土地利用对交通需求特性影响研究中存在的争论,系统分析了土地利用、社会经济属性和交通需求三者之间的关系。建立多元线性回归模型,分别考察人口密度、土地混合程度、家庭收入和家庭大小对于交通出行次数、交通方式、出行距离和出行时长的影响。通过对回归模型显著性水平的检验,找出真正具有内在联系的因素。最后阐述了土地利用与交通相关研究的意义,指出未来研究方向。     

仿真求解快速路交织区通行能力

由于交织区通行能力的影响因素众多,没有所谓理想的道路条件,而现阶段在我国由于资金、技术等各方面的限制,不能够获得大量的实测数据,因此,用统计分析的方法确定其通行能力有很大的困难。用一个实例详细地介绍了用标定过的仿真软件CORSIM模型求解交织区通行能力的方法、步骤,其中,重点完成了模型freesim-setup中对通行能力有重要影响的8个参数的灵敏度分析,据此标定了仿真模型,然后通过实验方案设计,改变输入条件,得到了不同条件组合下的通行能力值。通过仿真结果与实测数据的对比,认为该方法是非常可行的,并且有一定的应用价值。     

城市轨道交通中个人导向方法研究

文章运用层次分析的方法来阐述个人导向功能的实现原理,提出了利用现阶段飞速发展的移动通信体技术,设计一种应用在城市轨道交通中具有个人导向功能的移动通信体,以改善城市轨道交通中个人导向功能薄弱的现状。     

Effects of the Los Angeles transit strike on highway congestion

In this paper we investigate the effect of the Los Angeles transit strike on highway congestion through analysis of highway sensor data, using both a before-and-after comparison, and a control group comparison. We found that average 5:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. traffic speeds declined by as much as 20% during the strike, and the average length of the rush period increased by as much as 200%, even though increases in traffic were small, despite the fact that transit riders constitute a small fraction of the traveling population. Speeds declined the most at locations upstream from the places where queues normally end. We believe that highways are especially susceptible to congestion during strikes because travelers have little opportunity to adjust and equilibrate their travel patterns, as is possible during ordinary periods of traffic growth.     

Implementation of interactive transit information kiosks at New York City transit facilities: Analysis of user utilization and lessons learned

Transit Traveler Information Systems (TTIS) comprise a wide range of technologies that transit agencies use to provide reliable and timely transit-related information to customers. The touch-screen interactive information kiosk is an example of these emerging TTIS technologies. This paper examines the implementation of interactive touch-screen information kiosks, known as “On the Go!” Touch-Screen Travel Stations, at Metropolitan Transportation Authority-New York City Transit (MTA-NYCT) facilities in 2011. It analyzes data from passenger intercept surveys, from the kiosks’ built-in application usage logs and from field observations to understand actual passenger utilization of the kiosks and to assess the implications for transit agencies. The field observations also made it possible to obtain a profile of kiosk users, which sheds light on the concept of the “digital divide.” The findings, presented as lessons learned, can help agencies elsewhere develop guidelines and effective strategies for implementing similar interactive transit information systems.     

Using the built environment to oversample walk,transit, and bicycle travel

Characteristics of the built environment (BE) have been associated with walk, transit, and bicycle travel. These BE characteristics can be used by transportation researchers to oversample households from areas where walk, transit, or bicycle travel is more likely, resulting in more observations of these uncommon travel behaviors. Little guidance, however, is available on the effectiveness of such built environment oversampling strategies. This article presents measures that can be used to assess the effectiveness of BE oversampling strategies and inform future efforts to oversample households with uncommon travel behaviors. The measures are sensitivity and specificity, positive likelihood ratio (LR+), and positive predictive value (PPV). To illustrate these measures, they were calculated for 10 BE-defined oversampling strata applied post-hoc to a Seattle area household travel survey. Strata with an average block size of <10 acres within a ¼ mile of household residences held the single greatest potential for oversampling households that walk, use transit, and/or bicycle.     

Real-time traffic state estimation in urban corridors from heterogeneous data

In recent years, rapid advances in information technology have led to various data collection systems which are enriching the sources of empirical data for use in transport systems. Currently, traffic data are collected through various sensors including loop detectors, probe vehicles, cell-phones, Bluetooth, video cameras, remote sensing and public transport smart cards. It has been argued that combining the complementary information from multiple sources will generally result in better accuracy, increased robustness and reduced ambiguity. Despite the fact that there have been substantial advances in data assimilation techniques to reconstruct and predict the traffic state from multiple data sources, such methods are generally data-driven and do not fully utilize the power of traffic models. Furthermore, the existing methods are still limited to freeway networks and are not yet applicable in the urban context due to the enhanced complexity of the flow behavior. The main traffic phenomena on urban links are generally caused by the boundary conditions at intersections, un-signalized or signalized, at which the switching of the traffic lights and the turning maneuvers of the road users lead to shock-wave phenomena that propagate upstream of the intersections. This paper develops a new model-based methodology to build up a real-time traffic prediction model for arterial corridors using data from multiple sources, particularly from loop detectors and partial observations from Bluetooth and GPS devices.     

The perception of Bus Rapid Transit: a passenger survey from Beijing Southern Axis BRT Line 1

Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) has emerged as a cost-effective transport system for urban mobility. As a relatively new form of Mass Transit, its ability to provide a high-quality transport service and potential to stimulate land development remain largely unexplored. This study intends to investigate the public attitude towards BRT services, as well as respondents’ perception of living near BRT stations, using the Beijing Southern Axis BRT system as a case study. A data-set of responses to 525 questionnaires were assembled and analysed using a combination of statistical techniques. The results show that BRT has gained great popularity among passengers, and brought about a positive impact on the attractiveness of residential property. The data identify that the majority of passengers are work-related commuters and use BRT more than once a day. The captive users have a higher satisfaction than choice users with respect to reliability, comfort & cleanliness and overall satisfaction with the BRT service. It is argued that the BRT has significantly improved the attractiveness of residential property along the BRT corridor.