On the use of mathematical programming in the evaluation of transport policies

This paper focuses on the evaluation processes by which decisions regarding transportation alternatives can be assisted. A multidimensional approach usually called multiple criteria decision making is required to represent the complexity of transportation policy and systems.

The multiple criteria decision making techniques can be divided into two groups. The first is based on a ranking scheme approach and the second on a mathematical programming approach.

A multiple objective mathematical programming procedure known as Goal Programming is presented. The authors examined the use of that procedure in real transportation problems.

The results suggest that multiple objective mathematical programming techniques in general do not appear to be appropriate in transportation policy analysis involving mutually exclusive alternatives. Their use can be limited to special cases in the private sector.     

Trip distribution for limited destinations: a case study for grocery shopping trips in the Netherlands

In this paper, we introduce a new trip distribution model for destinations that are not homogeneously distributed. The model is a gravity model in which the spatial configuration of destinations is incorporated in the modeling process. The performance was tested on a survey with reported grocery shopping trips in the Dutch city of Almelo. The results show that the new model outperforms the traditional gravity model. It is also superior to the intervening opportunities model, because the distribution can be described as a function of travel costs, without increasing the computational time. In this study, the distribution was described by a simple function of Euclidean distance, which provides a good fit to the survey data. The slope of the distribution is quite steep. This shows that most trips are made to nearby supermarkets. However, a significant fraction of trips, mainly made by car, still goes to supermarkets further away. We argue that modeling of these trips by the new method will improve traffic flow predictions.     

Changing ownership structures in the Dutch fleet

The new Dutch shipping policy has given rise to high expectation and curiosity in the world of shipping. This, together with the obvious difficulties of an ex-post study of the effectiveness of such innovative policy, has prompted the authors to take an interest in attempting to investigate changes in ownership of the Dutch fleet 2 years after the new policy has been introduced. To do this, a rather new concept of ‘flagging out’ has been adopted, which is interpreted as a process leading to different degrees of ‘foreignness’ in a shipping operation. In this paper, a method to structure is presented, and ownership information, and changes in it are presented, that are essentially based on the theory of stochastic processes. The data used is the Dutch fleet data, which includes information on the nationality of the flag, parent ownership and management over the period 1994–1998. The results yield interesting insights in the shifts in the ownership and operational structure of shipping companies induced by the new policy. In particular, they allow one to establish the origin of new vessels, in which stage of ownership/operation it is most likely that shifts occur, and to determine the relationship between the different stages of the ‘flagging out’ process. These results, thus, enable an evaluation of the areas in which the policy can be expected to yield results.     

Real-time freeway traffic state estimation based on extended Kalman filter: Adaptive capabilities and real data testing

This paper reports on real data testing of a real-time freeway traffic state estimator, with a particular focus on its adaptive capabilities. The pursued general approach to the real-time adaptive estimation of complete traffic state in freeway stretches or networks is based on stochastic macroscopic traffic flow modeling and extended Kalman filtering. One major innovative feature of the traffic state estimator is the online joint estimation of important model parameters (free speed, critical density, and capacity) and traffic flow variables (flows, mean speeds, and densities), which leads to three significant advantages of the estimator: (1) avoidance of prior model calibration; (2) automatic adaptation to changing external conditions (e.g. weather and lighting conditions, traffic composition, control measures); (3) enabling of incident alarms. These three advantages are demonstrated via suitable real data testing. The achieved testing results are satisfactory and promising for subsequent applications.     

Finding time‐robust fuel‐efficient paths for a call‐taxi in a stochastic city road network

Intra‐city commuting is being revolutionized by call‐taxi services in many developing countries such as India. A customer requests a taxi via phone, and it arrives at the right time and at the right location for the pick‐up. This mode of intra‐city travel has become one of the most reliable and convenient modes of transportation for customers traveling for business and non‐business purposes. The increased number of vehicles on city roads and raising fuel costs has prompted a new type of transportation logistics problem of finding a fuel‐efficient and quickest path for a call‐taxi through a city road network, where the travel times are stochastic. The stochastic travel time of the road network is induced by obstacles such as the traffic signals and intersections. The delay and additional fuel consumption at each of these obstacles are calculated that are later imputed to the total travel time and fuel consumption of a path. A Monte‐Carlo simulation‐based approach is proposed to identify unique fuel‐efficient paths between two locations in a city road network where each obstacle has a delay distribution. A multi‐criteria score is then assigned to each unique path based on the probability that the path is fuel efficient, the average travel time of the path and the coefficient of variation of the travel times of the path. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

公务车税收政策对出行行为的影响

通过对以色列的案例研究,探讨了公务车税收政策对出行行为的影响.以色列的公务车经历了大规模的增长,对公务车的税收政策也进行了一系列调整.调查400名拥有公务车的员工和230名只有一辆私人汽车的员工,结果显示,公务车对出行行为产生了显著影响,不利于交通的可持续发展.公务车税收政策及其实践带来了相当多的额外行驶里程,并刺激员工整个家庭使用公务车出行.公务车税收政策的调整及公司政策的变化,可能会显著影响员工拥有公务车的意愿,并改变其出行行为.     

CRTSⅢ型板式无砟轨道底座合理纵连长度计算

根据路基上CRTSⅢ型板式无砟轨道设计方案, 考虑了轨道多层结构间非线性相互作用关系, 基于有限元方法建立了不同底座板纵连长度的轨道结构空间耦合模型, 计算了轨道结构横向稳定性与整体升降温作用下轨道板、自密实混凝土和底座板的受力与变形, 分析了底座板的合理纵连长度。分析结果表明: 底座板纵连长度为2块及以上轨道板长度时, 可满足结构横向稳定性的要求; 在升温45℃荷载作用下, 随着底座板长度的增大, 轨道板纵向位移线性增大, 最大增幅约为58%, 但是应力与弯矩变化不明显; 自密实混凝土受力与变形的变化幅度较轨道板稍大, 最大拉应力为0.949MPa; 在降温40℃荷载作用下, 底座板应力受纵连长度的影响显著, 当长度达到5块轨道板长度时, 其纵向拉应力达到2.67 MPa, 接近混凝土容许拉应力。综合考虑横向稳定性与结构强度因素, 底座板合理纵连长度应控制在2~5块轨道板长度范围内。     

Waiting profiles: An efficient protocol for enabling distributed planning of container barge rotations along terminals in the port of Rotterdam

We consider the problem of aligning barge rotations with quay schedules of terminals in the port of Rotterdam. Every time a barge visits the port, it has to make a rotation along, on average, eight terminals to load and unload containers. A central solution, e.g., a trusted party that coordinates the activities of all barges and terminals, is not feasible for several reasons. We propose a multi-agent based approach of the problem, since a multi-agent system can mirror to a large extent the way the business network is currently organized and can provide a solution that is acceptable to each of the parties involved. We examine the value of exchanging different levels of information and evaluate the performance by means of simulation. We compare the results with an off-line scheduling algorithm. The results indicate that, in spite of the limited information available, our distributed approach performs quite well when compared to the central approach. In addition, our experiments indicate that an information exchange based on waiting profiles reduces the average tardiness per barge with almost 80% when compared to the situation with no information exchange. We therefore think that waiting profiles provide a promising protocol to tackle this problem.