New highways and land use change: Results from a quasi-experimental research design

Understanding links from new highway construction or capacity expansion to regional growth patterns is crucial for transportation planners and policy makers. In this paper, we incorporate a lagged adjustment regional growth model into a quasi-experimental research design to examine the association between new highway investments and land use change in three California counties. Our study areas provide a mix of urban, small town, and exurban highway projects in order to explore the different effects across project types and geographic contexts. The central finding of this research is that while improvements in surface transportation infrastructure can have large impacts on growth patterns, the nature of the effect depends on the context of the highway investment.     

How do local actions affect VMT? A critical review of the empirical evidence

In this paper, we present a discussion of the challenges for research on the topic of vehicle miles traveled. We then summarize and critique evidence from the US on the association between 14 distinct factors and vehicle miles traveled. Our results quantify how much vehicle miles traveled can be expected to change in response to changes in policy or land use factors, including residential density and land use mix, as well as specific transport policies and programs such as transit improvements, road pricing, and programs aimed at changing people’s travel choices. Overall, though individual studies differ as to exact effect sizes, it is clear that local-level policymakers can take actions that are likely to affect vehicle miles traveled. However, we highlight gaps in the knowledge base at a time when decision makers at the local level are being increasingly called upon to take action to reduce vehicle miles traveled. Variation in effect size based on local context or interaction with related policies and programs has been left largely unexplored. In addition, experimental research designs that can identify causal direction are rare, and appropriate data that quantifies vehicle miles traveled are often lacking.     

Air holding problem solving with reinforcement learning to reduce airspace congestion

The Air Holding Problem Module is proposed as a decision support system to help air traffic controllers in their daily air traffic flow management. This system is developed using an Artificial Intelligence technique known as multiagent systems to organize and optimize the solutions for controllers to handle traffic flow in Brazilian airspace. In this research, the air holding problem is modeled with reinforcement learning, and a solution is proposed and applied in two case studies of the Brazilian airspace. The system can suggest more precise and realistic actions based upon past situations and knowledge of the professionals and forecast the impact of restrictive measures at the local and/or overall level. The first case study shows performance improvements in traffic flows between 8 and 47% at the local level up to 49% at the overall level. In the second case study, performance improvements were between 15 and 57% at the local level and between 41 and 48% at the overall level. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Coastal Erosion in Ghana: Causes,Policies, and Management

Coastal erosion is a serious problem that affects the safety and livelihoods of many coastal dwellers along Ghana's coast. Despite the fact that coastal erosion is a natural phenomenon, erosion trends have been largely aggravated by human-induced factors. This study analyzed shoreline change rates for three neighbouring coastal communities in the Central region of Ghana; Elmina, Cape Coast and Moree. Two epochs were analyzed, 1974–2012 (medium-term) and 2005–2012 (short-term), using ArcGIS and Digital Shoreline Analysis System. Overall, the entire study area recorded average shoreline change rates of ?1.24 myear^?1 and ?0.85 myear^?1 in the medium-term and short-term period respectively. Less consolidated shoreline segments recorded higher erosion rates in both periods while cliffs and rocky segments experienced very little erosion or high stability. Because shorelines undergoing chronic erosion do not fully recover after short-term erosion events such as storms, facilities located close to such shorelines are threatened. Taking a proactive approach to coastal erosion management, such as coastal sand mining prevention, inter-sectoral land use management and adopting a construction setback approach may be prudent for the long-term management of the coast since this recognizes future shoreline changes and safeguards coastal landscape for other uses.