Walking short distances. The socioeconomic drivers for the use of proximity in everyday mobility in Barcelona

Many studies have found that cities, with residents that are co-located with jobs and services in compact and diverse urban environments, generate positive outputs for a number of areas of social policy, with issues ranging from environmental to social and including public health. This evidence supports promoting rich and thriving neighbourhoods in order to encourage short distance mobility. In this context, we use a wide travel survey (EMQ06), undertaken in Spain, to measure short-distance travelling within Barcelona and to assess how distinct social groups make use of the local scale for their everyday mobility. The effects of socioeconomics and access to transport are discussed, prior to applying a Chi-squared Automatic Interaction Detection (CHAID) method, in order to explore heterogeneity among the different social groups, in terms of local travelling. We found that nearly a quarter of all daily mobility in Barcelona is performed with a local trip, and that short trips are more frequently undertaken for personal purposes. Also, age, gender and access to private transport appear as significant factors. Overall, our results suggest that a proximity scale is being used by those groups with greater time–space constraints, such as working women or low income people without access to private vehicles, opening important implications on transport policy regarding the design of proximity-prone environments.     

地方海事行政执法难点探析

地方海事行政执法是法律法规授权的具有独立主体的行政执法,也是地方海事机构的主要社会功能和赖以存在的价值所在。本文根据笔者多年来海事执法实践,对地方海事行政执法过程中存在的外在执法难问题进行了综合分析,并提出了相应对策。     

铁路客车空调新风量和制冷量的自动调节

提出了通过采用新风量和制冷量综合自动调节办法,控制车内CO2浓度和温度,提高车内空气品质,满足乘客热舒适要求。     

轨道不平顺导致的车桥耦合振动分析

研究目的：轨道不平顺常常是激起车桥系统耦合振动的主要因素之一，通过研究轨道不平顺导致的车桥耦合振动规律，为铁路桥梁精确设计提供理论依据。 研究方法：以H．Hamid等人提出的轨道不平顺功率谱密度为例，构造了时域内的轨道随机不平顺函数。以轨道不平顺样本函数为激振源，通过求解车桥系统耦合振动微分方程，分析铁路桥梁在列车荷载作用下的动力响应规律。 研究结果：计算了广西红水河铁路斜拉桥在列车通过时的动力响应，给出了不同车速及不同不平顺样本函数情况下桥梁主跨中点横向位移时程曲线。 研究结论：桥梁结构动力响应主要随车速及不平顺样本函数的不同而变化，且有较大的随机性。对于广西红水河铁路斜拉桥，桥梁主跨中点的最大横向位移一般在车速为75～95km／h时达到最大。     

China’s electric car frustrations

By 2020, the vehicle population in China will likely exceed 280 million—exacerbating national energy security, urban air pollution, and traffic congestion. In response, many local and regional governments in China are pursuing an expanding array of measures to restrain growth in personal vehicle ownership and, along with the central government, reducing emissions and energy use of vehicles. One prominent strategy is the promotion of new energy vehicles, especially plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs). Large subsidies were offered—up to $27,600 (171,000 RMB) per vehicle in some regions, including almost $9200 (57,000 RMB) from the central government—which suggests that China is making a major commitment to PEVs. But sales have been meager. In 2013, only 17,600 PEVs, mostly buses and utility trucks, were sold, less than 0.1% of total civilian vehicle sales. Several factors explain the failure of PEV sales to take off: (1) protectionism by local governments; (2) uncertainty over which electric-drive vehicle technologies to promote and what consumers are willing to pay, (3) lagging investments in charging infrastructure, and (4) conservative investment behavior by automakers and battery manufacturers. The central government issued directives to local governments in late 2013 to reduce barriers to out-of-town companies, resulting in modest sales increases in early 2014, but a more coherent, broader, and effective set of policies, incentives, and strategies are needed to overcome consumer and industry resistance and the lack of charging infrastructure.     

The effect of railway local irregularities on ground vibration

The environmental effects of ground-borne vibrations generated due to localised railway defects is a growing concern in urban areas. Frequency domain modelling approaches are well suited for predicting vibration levels on standard railway lines due to track periodicity. However, when considering individual, non-periodic, localised defects (e.g. a rail joint), frequency domain modelling becomes challenging. Therefore in this study, a previously validated, time domain, three-dimensional ground vibration prediction model is modified to analyse such defects. A range of different local (discontinuous) rail and wheel irregularity are mathematically modelled, including: rail joints, switches, crossings and wheel flats. Each is investigated using a sensitivity analysis, where defect size and vehicle speed is varied. To quantify the effect on railroad ground-borne vibration levels, a variety of exposure–response relationships are analysed, including: peak particle velocity, maximum weighted time-averaged velocity and weighted decibel velocity. It is shown that local irregularities cause a significant increase in vibration in comparison to a smooth track, and that the vibrations can propagate to greater distances from the line. Furthermore, the results show that step-down joints generate the highest levels of vibration, whereas wheel flats generate much lower levels. It is also found that defect size influences vibration levels, and larger defects cause greater vibration. Lastly, it is shown that for different defect types, train speed effects are complex, and may cause either an increase or decrease in vibration levels.     

准兴重载高速A0合同段风积砂路基最大干密度实验研究

通过室内振动、重型击实实验,结合现场实际施工情况,对确定风积砂最大干密度的各种实验方法进行了对比,分析振动与重型击实各自的特点,得出在该项目段确定风积砂最大干密度和最佳含水率的方法。     

Economies of density and factor substitution in Dublin city bus services — a translog approach

The primary aim of the paper is to determine a short‐run cost function for Dublin City Bus Services (DCS), using a translog approach. The results show that there are significant economies of density in the transit operation. The results also indicate that the structure of DCS is characterised by a homothetic production function and that partial elasticities of substitution are non‐unitary.     

Spectral and time‐frequency analyses of freeway traffic flow

This paper uses spectral and time‐frequency analyses to treat three macroscopic traffic characteristics, namely, time mean speed, volume and occupancy as stochastic processes. Spectral and time‐frequency analyses are performed to characterize power spectral density (PSD), cross‐PSD, autocorrelation and cross‐correlation of these characteristics using TransGuide traffic data collected from four different freeways. It is found that low‐frequency components dominate the PSDs of speed, volume and occupancy at all times. The magnitude of PSDs decreases dramatically as frequency increases and remains almost at a constant level in high‐frequency regimes. A power law is found to exist, which describes the relationship between the frequency and the PSD of traffic characteristics. It is also found that speed can be properly modeled by a narrowband low‐pass stochastic process in a low‐frequency regime and by a nonzero mean white noise in a high‐frequency regime. Strong periodicities and synchronization are both shown in traffic flow. A variety of frequencies can be excited by congestion, and there is no dominant frequency found in stop‐and‐go traffic. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

淤泥质港口航道适航密度确定方法的改进

根据浮泥层中船舶航行时船体边壁带动附近浮泥作剪切流动的物理过程与浮泥在缓坡上的重力流之间的相似性,提出以船体边壁附近浮泥层流态转换条件来定义适航密度,以避免现行方法的不确定性,并提出了相应的计算方法。计算表明,适航密度与航行速度和浮泥层厚度有关。在通常航速和0.5~1.5 m浮泥层厚度条件下连云港航道的适航密度约为1.25~1.35g/cm~3。