A framework for evaluating the dynamic impacts of a congestion pricing policy for a transportation socioeconomic system

This paper provides a modeling framework based on the system dynamics approach by which policy makers can understand the dynamic and complex nature of traffic congestion within a transportation socioeconomic system representation of a metropolitan area. This framework offers policy makers an assessment platform that focuses on the short- and long-term system behaviors arising from an area-wide congestion pricing policy along with other congestion mitigation policies. Since only a few cities in the world have implemented congestion pricing and several are about to do so, a framework that helps policy makers to understand the impacts of congestion pricing is currently quite relevant. Within this framework, improved bus and metro capacities contribute to the supply dynamics which in turn affect the travel demand of individuals and their choice of different transportation modes. Work travel and social networking activities are assumed to generate additional travel demand dynamics that are affected by travelers’ perception of the level of service of the different transportation modes, their perception of the congestion level, and the associated traveling costs. It is assumed that the, population, tourism and employment growth are exogenous factors that affect demand. Furthermore, this paper builds on a previously formulated approach where fuzzy logic concepts are used to represent linguistic variables assumed to describe consumer perceptions about transportation conditions.     

Analysis of activity participation and time use decisions of partners: the context of low-and high-income households

Transportation - This paper investigates the non-work activity participation and time allocation decisions of couples of low- and high-income households by utilizing primary activity-travel...     

A note on the solution of water wave scattering problem involving small deformation on a porous channel-bed

The solution of water wave scattering problem involving small deformation on a porous bed in a channel, where the upper surface is bounded above by an infinitely extent rigid horizontal surface, is studied here within the framework of linearized water wave theory. In such a situation, there exists only one mode of waves propagating on the porous surface. A simplified perturbation analysis, involving a small parameter ε ( ? 1), which measures the smallness of the deformation, is employed to reduce the governing Boundary Value Problem (BVP) to a simpler BVP for the first-order correction of the potential function. The first-order potential function and, hence, the first-order reflection and transmission coefficients are obtained by the method based on Fourier transform technique as well as Green’s integral theorem with the introduction of appropriate Green’s function. Two special examples of bottom deformation: the exponentially damped deformation and the sinusoidal ripple bed, are considered to validate the results. For the particular example of a patch of sinusoidal ripples, the resonant interaction between the bed and the upper surface of the fluid is attained in the neighborhood of a singularity, when the ripples wavenumbers of the bottom deformation become approximately twice the components of the incident field wavenumber along the positive x-direction. Also, the main advantage of the present study is that the results for the values of reflection and transmission coefficients are found to satisfy the energy-balance relation almost accurately.