Understanding members' carsharing (activity) persistency by using econometric model

Carsharing is an innovative travel alternative that has recently experienced considerable growth and become part of sustainable transportation initiatives. Although carsharing is becoming increasingly a popular alternative transportation mode in North America, it is still an under‐researched area. Current research is aimed at better understanding of the behavior of carsharing users. For every member, a two‐stage approach microsimulates the probability of being active in any month using a binary probit model and given that a particular member is active during a month, the probability of that member using the service multiple times using a random utility‐based model. The model is estimated using empirical data from one of the largest carsharing companies in North America. The model estimates reveal that the activity persistency of members is positively linked to previous behaviors for up to 4 months, and that the influence of previous months weakens over time. It also shows that some attributes of the traveler (gender, age, and language spoken at home) impact his or her behaviors. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The determinants of long distance travel in Great Britain

This study analyses of the determinants of long distance travel in Great Britain using data from the 1995-2006 National Travel Surveys (NTSs). The main objective is to determine the effects of socio-economic, demographic and geographic factors on long distance travel. The estimated models express the distance travelled for long distance journeys as a function of income, gender, age, employment status, household characteristics, area of residence, size of municipality, type of residence and length of time living in the area. A time trend is also included to capture common changes in long distance travel over time not included in the explanatory variables. Separate models are estimated for total travel, travel by each of four modes (car, rail, coach and air), travel by five purposes (business, commuting, leisure, holiday and visiting friends and relatives (VFRs)) and two journey lengths (<150 miles and 150+ miles one way), as well as the 35 mode-purpose-distance combinations.The results show that long distance travel is strongly related to income: air is most income-elastic, followed by rail, car and finally coach. This is the case for most journey purposes and distance bands. Notable is the substantial difference in income elasticities for rail for business/commuting as opposed to holiday/leisure/VFR. In addition, the income elasticity for coach travel is very low, and zero for the majority of purpose-distance bands, suggesting coach travel to be an inferior mode in comparison to car, rail and air. Regarding journey distance, we find that longer distance journeys are more income elastic than shorter journeys.For total long distance travel, the study indicates that women travel less than men, the elderly less than younger people, the employed and students more than others, those in one adult households more than those in larger households and those in households with children less than those without. Long distance travel is also lowest for individuals living in London and greatest for those in the South West, and increases as the size of the municipality declines.     

大型自航绞吸挖泥船的发展与新的技术要求

论文介绍了国内外自航绞吸挖泥船的发展现状,对比了国内外大型自航绞吸挖泥船技术特点,提出了大型自航绞吸挖泥船新的技术要求;探讨了自航绞吸挖泥船装机功率科学合理增加的可行性;文中表述了绞吸式挖泥船关键技术的研究和应用。     

Transit network design with allocation of green vehicles: A genetic algorithm approach

The use of fossil fuels in transportation generates harmful emissions that accounts for nearly half of the total pollutants in urban areas. Dealing with this issue, local authorities are dedicating specific efforts to seize the opportunity offered by new fuels and technological innovations in achieving a cleaner urban mobility. In fact, authorities are improving environmental performances of their public transport fleet by procuring cleaner vehicles, usually called low and zero emission vehicles (LEV and ZEV, respectively). Nevertheless there seems to be a lack of methodologies for supporting stakeholders in decisions related to the introduction of green vehicles, whose allocation should be performed since the network design process in order to optimize their available green capacity.In this paper, the problem of clean vehicle allocation in an existing public fleet is faced by introducing a method for solving the transit network design problem in a multimodal, demand elastic urban context dealing with the impacts deriving from transportation emissions.The solving procedure consists of a set of heuristics which includes a routine for route generation and a genetic algorithm for finding a sub-optimal set of routes with the associated frequencies.     

Sensitivity-based uncertainty analysis of a combined travel demand model

Travel demand forecasting is subject to great uncertainties. A systematic uncertainty analysis can provide insights into the level of confidence on the model outputs, and also identify critical sources of uncertainty for enhancing the robustness of the travel demand model. In this paper, we develop a systematic framework for quantitative uncertainty analysis of a combined travel demand model (CTDM) using the analytical sensitivity-based method. The CTDM overcomes limitations of the sequential four-step procedure since it is based on a single unifying rationale. The analytical sensitivity-based method requires less computational effort than the sampling-based method. Meanwhile, the uncertainties stemming from inputs and parameters can be treated separately so that the individual and collective effects of uncertainty on the outputs can be clearly assessed and quantified. Numerical examples are finally used to demonstrate the proposed sensitivity-based uncertainty analysis method for the CTDM.     

面向移动终端的实时交通信息服务分析

为了进一步提高我国交通信息服务水平,缓解拥堵,对比研究了现有服务终端的特点,并对用户交通信息需求展开调查.结合服务终端特点及调查结果,构建了面向移动终端的实时交通信息服务系统.系统可向移动终端提供信息查询、信息发布、服务下载等功能,为用户提供出行全程的交通信息服务.     

On the degradation of performance for traffic networks with oblivious users

We consider the problem of characterizing user equilibria and optimal solutions for routing in a given network. We extend the known models by considering users oblivious to congestion in the following sense: While in the typical user equilibrium setting the users follow a strategy that minimizes their individual cost by taking into account the (dynamic) congestion due to the current routing pattern, an oblivious user ignores congestion altogether; instead, he or she decides his routing on the basis of cheapest routes on a network without any flow whatsoever. These cheapest routes can be, for example, the shortest paths in the network without any flow. This model tries to capture the fact that a certain percentage of travelers base their route simply on the distances they observe on a map, without thinking (or knowing, or caring) about the delays experienced on this route due to their fellow travelers. In this work we study the effect of such users using as the measure of network performance its price of anarchy, i.e., the ratio of the total latency experienced by the users (oblivious or not) at equilibrium over the social optimum.     

大型机场地面集疏运需求预测方法研究

机场地面集疏运系统是机场发展的重要支撑，交通需求预测是进行机场集疏运交通规划的前提。笔者以四阶段预测的基本原理为基础，结合机场集疏运需求特点，对预测的整体思路、方法、步骤和内容等进行详细分析，优化调整出行分布、方式划分预测模型，并以南京禄口国际机场为实例进行了预测。研究成果对国内同类大型机场的集疏运需求预测具有借鉴和参考价值。     

Evolving competition between Hong Kong and Shenzhen ports

Shenzhen Port (SZP), once a negligible local port, has risen dramatically to a world-leading container port and an “equal” player with Hong Kong Port (HKP). Will this market share reallocation continue, or will equilibrium be eventually realized for HKP to prosper continuously? We examine the relationship between these two ports to answer this question. We propose a new transformation method to describe the growth of container cargo transport demand, define the quantitative measures of the competition relationship and port competitiveness, and present a rigorous analytical framework with econometric tests and models to understand the true relationship between HKP and SZP. Direct empirical tests suggest that SZP complements HKP; however, the two ports exhibit strong competition when the effect of demand growth is excluded. Considering transshipment separately, we find that the impact of SZP on HKP is negative in transshipment but complementary in direct shipment. We may conclude that HKP does not affect SZP, whereas SZP has competitive power over HKP. These results are consistent with the findings of some previous theoretical studies.