Why are work travel plans effective? Comparing conclusions from narrative and meta-analytical research synthesis

Reliable research synthesis is of high significance for a transport policy which tries to base its decisions on available empirical evidence. There is growing doubt whether the frequently used narrative approach provides a scientifically defensible way of synthesising a body of quantitative research results. The present paper demonstrates meta-analysis as a more objective and powerful alternative for this task. For this purpose evaluation data synthesised in two earlier narrative reviews on the effectiveness of work travel plans [Cairns et al. Making travel plans work: research report (former), Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions (DTLR), London, 2002; Smarter choices—changing the way we travel. (Final report of the research project: The influence of soft factor interventions on travel demand. Research report for the Department for Transport.) London. Retrieved 1 December 2005, from , 2004] are meta-analytically re-analysed and compared with the conclusions drawn from the narrative synthesis of these data. Our meta-analyis provides only limited support for the conclusion that addressing parking is the hallmark of successful work travel plans. Our meta-analysis indicates that site and organisational factors as well as characteristics of the monitoring process are significant predictors of effective work travel plans, whereas Cairns et al. view little evidence for the impact of these factors.     

赤峰站改进货物运输服务的探讨

从分析赤峰站货运服务存在的主要问题入手,对货物运输服务的改进问题进行深入探讨,提出树立货运服务精品理念、改进服务制度、建立货运服务管理网络、落实安全长效机制等改进货运服务的主要思路和实施内容。     

The applicability of non-cooperative game theory in transport analysis

Various models that incorporate concepts from Non-Cooperative Game Theory (NCGT) are described in the transport literature. Game Theory provides powerful tools for analysing transport systems, but these tools have some drawbacks that should be recognised. In the current paper we review games that describe transport problems and discuss them within a uniform context. Although the paper does not introduce new tools, it presents insights concerning the relations between transport models and games. We divide existing games into groups and show that some common features characterise multiple games. We distinguish between games that make a conceptual contribution and games that are suitable for application. Compact or symmetric game structures make remarkable observations but often do not support actual decision-making. Less aesthetic formats, most of which are Stackelberg games between authorities and travellers, are stronger as instruments that assist in determining real-life policies; these formulations can be treated by practitioners as mathematical programs with equilibrium constraints and not as games. Yaron Hollander is currently conducting economic research of bus reliability at the Institute for Transport Studies at the University of Leeds. He previously worked for the Technion—Israel Institute of Technology; for the Israel Institute for Transportation Planning and Research; and for the public transport department at Ayalon Highways Co. Joseph N. Prashker is a professor at the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Technion—Israel Institute of Technology. Till recently he served as head of the Transportation Research Institute at the Technion. His interests are behavioural demand models, network analysis, and Game Theory applications in transportation.     

Definition of a merging assistant strategy using intelligent vehicles

In the area of active traffic management, new technologies provide opportunities to improve the use of current infrastructure. Vehicles equipped with in-car communication systems are capable of exchanging messages with the infrastructure and other vehicles. This new capability offers many opportunities for traffic management. This paper presents a novel merging assistant strategy that exploits the communication capabilities of intelligent vehicles. The proposed control requires the cooperation of equipped vehicles on the main carriageway in order to create merging gaps for on-ramp vehicles released by a traffic light. The aim is to reduce disruptions to the traffic flow created by the merging vehicles. This paper focuses on the analytical formulation of the control algorithm, and the traffic flow theories used to define the strategy. The dynamics of the gap formation derived from theoretical considerations are validated using a microscopic simulation. The validation indicates that the control strategy mostly developed from macroscopic theory well approximates microscopic traffic behaviour. The results present encouraging capabilities of the system. The size and frequency of the gaps created on the main carriageway, and the space and time required for their creation are compatible with a real deployment of the system. Finally, we summarise the results of a previous study showing that the proposed merging strategy reduces the occurrence of congestion and the number of late-merging vehicles. This innovative control strategy shows the potential of using intelligent vehicles for facilitating the merging manoeuvre through use of emerging communications technologies.     

Road traffic conditions in Kenya: Exploring the policies and traffic cultures from unstructured user-generated data using NLP

Road traffic accidents (RTA) are a prevalent cause of fatality with African countries having the highest fatality index (25–34 per quota). The World Health Organization estimates Kenya's fatality rate due to RTA at 28 per quota. From literature, the country's fatality and injuries have increased by 26% and 46.5%, respectively, since the year 2015. The country is faced with incomplete RTA data capturing, hindering effective planning and policy adjustments to curb the menace. In this paper, we scrapped user-generated data (Twitter) and national transport and safety authority's (NTSA) reports to shed light on traffic safety, practices, and cultures in the country. To this end, we gathered 1,000,000 tweets and 8000 speeding entries between 2015 and 2021 and performed natural language processing (NLP) and quantitative study of the data. We applied NLP and n-gram search of keywords to categorize data into 8 topics: traffic, public service vehicle (PSVs), policing, accident, infrastructure, recklessness, robbery, and corruption. From the data, policing, which touches on all police and law-enforcement-related activity was found to be highly correlated with PSVs, recklessness, accidents, traffic congestion, robbery, infrastructure, and corruption with indices of r(76) = 0.92, 0. 91, 0.87, 0.82, 0.81, 0.76, and 0.70, respectively with p < 0.001. The topic modeling confirmed the identified topics to be the latent discussion issues affecting the public. From the study, PSVs, policing and traffic flow were isolated as key issues that ought to be addressed immediately. The research recommended the integration of driver monitoring systems to strengthen policing. The research, which utilized unstructured data, points to the utility of data mining which would greatly benefit traffic research, particularly African-based studies, that suffer from data inadequacy.     

Formal characterization of an efficient driving evaluation process for companies of the transport sector

Public institutions and private companies all around the world agree that road transport is one of the main sectors responsible for global warming. With this in mind, all of them have designed actions to increase efficiency and reduce fuel consumption and emissions. A favorite for the companies is eco-driving because it can improve the fleet performance without a great investment. However, although these programs have achieved promising results in the majority of the experiences, the figures are not so encouraging in the long term. In many cases this decrease is produced by fuzzy reward programs or the total lack of them. Nevertheless, any coherent reward program, in order to be effective, must be associated with a complete and fair evaluation process which takes into account all the different aspects and complexities related with driving. In this paper, we propose a formal characterization of an efficient driving evaluation process which starts with a review of many different driving recommendation systems. These recommendations are used as seeds to build a set of formal competences that any eco driver must have, as well as the learning outcomes associated with each competence. A set of patterns of driving behaviors are defined, that allow confirming any of the learning outcomes. The definition also comprises a set of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for each learning outcome. These KPIs allow measuring the progress associated with each competence. Finally, we also propose some relevant differences that must be taken into account for the goals associated with each KPI, depending on the domain of application: type and road geometry, vehicle type (automatic or manual, passengers, cargo or not, public or private), amount of traffic, weather. Some examples of this driver characterization have been included to demonstrate the process.     

关于培育多式联运经营人的探讨

随着多式联运市场需求日趋旺盛,培育一批实力较强的多式联运经营人,可以增强多式联运整体服务能力,满足客户一体化服务需求。在对多式联运经营人的现状及其当前存在短板进行分析的基础上,阐述多式联运经营人特质。结合国外多式联运经营人培育分析,从争取政府政策支持、建立多式联运联盟、提高市场信用度等方面,提出我国多式联运经营人培育对策,以及铁路应依托在专业场站、专业团队、经营网络、国际品牌等方面的优势,培育铁路运输企业成为多式联运经营人。     

Determinants of airports’ environmental effects

Aviation is a fast growing sector with increasing environmental concerns linked to aircraft emissions at airports and noise nuisance. This paper investigates the factors affecting the annual environmental effects produced by a national aviation system. The environmental effects are computed using certification data for each aircraft-engine combination. Moreover, we also take into account for the amount of environmental effects that is internalized at the airport, mainly through noise regulation. We study a dataset covering information on Italian airports during the period 1999–2008. We show that a 1% increase in airport’s yearly movements yields a 1.05% increase in environmental effects, a 1% in aircraft size (measured in MTOW) gives rise to a 1.8% increase and a 1% increase in aircraft age generates a 0.69% increase in environmental effects. Similar results but with smaller magnitudes are observed if airport internalization is considered. Our policy implications are that the tariff internalizing the total amount of externality is about euro 180 per flight, while the tariff limiting only pollution is about euro 60 and the one reducing noise is about euro 110. Moreover, our airport examples show that managers should prefer to address additional capacity by increasing frequency rather than aircraft size, since the former strategy is more environmental friendly.     

海船重大改装的判别与规范指引

为对船舶改装是否属于"重大改装"进行有效判别,对中国船级社(CCS)《船舶重大改装实施指南》(2016)和有关部委、主管机关的有关规定进行研究分析。厘清这些规定中蕴含的船舶重大改装的判别原则和思路,为业界普遍性存在的及将来可能出现的各类海船改装提供"是否属于重大改装"的定性判断依据。