Critical review of handling diagram and understeer gradient for vehicles with locked differential

The steady-state cornering behaviour of rear-wheel drive vehicles fitted with locked differential is critically analysed by means of simple, albeit carefully formulated, vehicle models, which allow for a rigorous theoretical analysis. Results obtained for some classical manoeuvres, with either constant forward speed, steer angle or turning radius, clearly show that, in the case of locked differential, the vehicle cornering behaviour is strongly affected by the manoeuvre. As an important consequence, the handling diagram is not unique and the understeer gradient is no longer dependent only upon the lateral acceleration, as in vehicles equipped with an open differential. Accordingly, this study shows that some typical tools and concepts of vehicle dynamics are indeed inadequate in the case of locked differential.     

Driver requirements and road traffic informatics

Initially the driver's role as a link in the driver-vehicle-road-traffic control-chain is discussed in a historical perspective. The gradual changes and the advantages and problems arising from these changes are discussed from behavioural point of view.Then the driver tasks are analyzed. A separation is made between trip planning, navigation, road following, traffic interaction, rule compliance, other than traffic tasks, car handling and speed choice. The relations between and the weights of these subtasks are discussed. Some existing driver behaviour models are reviewed in relation to the above mentioned tasks.Finally an effort is made based on the analyses of driver tasks and driver models to specify some general and some more specific potential advantages and problems with expected future RTI-systems.     

Ramp meters on trial: Evidence from the Twin Cities metering holiday

Ramp meters in the Twin Cities have been the subject of a recent test of their effectiveness, involving turning them off for eight weeks. This paper analyzes the results with and without ramp metering for several representative freeways during the afternoon peak period. Seven performance measures: mobility, equity, productivity, consumers’ surplus, accessibility, travel time variation and travel demand responses are compared. It is found that ramp meters are particularly helpful for long trips relative to short trips. Ramp metering, while generally beneficial to freeway segments, may not improve trip travel times (including ramp delays). The reduction in travel time variation comprises another benefit from ramp meters. Non-work trips and work trips respond differently to ramp meters. The results are mixed, suggesting a more refined ramp control algorithm, which explicitly considers ramp delay, is in order.     

Teleworking in the Netherlands: an evaluation of changes in travel behaviour

This article describes the first experiment on teleworking in the Netherlands, and presents the results of an analysis of the impact of teleworking on the travel behaviour of the participants in the experiment and their household members. It was concluded that teleworking has resulted in a significant decrease in the total number of trips by teleworkers (–17%). Peak-hour traffic by car has been reduced even more (–26%). An unexpected result was that the household members of the teleworkers also appeared to travel less than before the experiment.     

Habitual travel behaviour: Evidence from a six-week travel diary

This paper introduces different methods to measure similarity of travel behaviour addressing the question of how repetitious travel behaviour actually is. It compares empirical results of the different methods based on the data from a six-week travel diary. In general, the results show that the day-to-day behaviour is more variable if measured with trip-based methods instead of methods based on time budgets. Furthermore, it is confirmed that the similarity declines if the method captures more of the complexity of the travel pattern. It is also shown that travel behaviour is neither totally repetitious nor totally variable. Even for the whole observation period, it is demonstrated that two days always have some common elements. Additionally, it is found that the different methods yield the same pattern of variability for different types of day. Travel behaviour is clearly more stable on work days. Similar results for all methods are also obtained concerning the question of how long the minimum period of observation should be. All measures show that the period should not be less than two weeks if one aims at measuring variability.     

公共交通系统营运可靠性研究

优先发展公共交通是大城市解决交通拥堵,实现城市交通可持续发展的一项重要措施,然而,公交营运水平的低下制约着公交的发展。本文借鉴可靠性理论对公共交通营运可靠性进行定义,并对公交营运时间和乘客服务可靠性分别进行了描述,据此建立起公交系统营运可靠性模型,然后采用随机模拟技术(即Monte Carlo模拟)进行求解,通过算例说明模型的可行性,最后通过分析可靠性模型得出大型活动期间改善公交营运的途径。     

Travel time estimation from sparse floating car data with consistent path inference: A fixed point approach

Estimation of urban network link travel times from sparse floating car data (FCD) usually needs pre-processing, mainly map-matching and path inference for finding the most likely vehicle paths that are consistent with reported locations. Path inference requires a priori assumptions about link travel times; using unrealistic initial link travel times can bias the travel time estimation and subsequent identification of shortest paths. Thus, the combination of path inference and travel time estimation is a joint problem. This paper investigates the sensitivity of estimated travel times, and proposes a fixed point formulation of the simultaneous path inference and travel time estimation problem. The methodology is applied in a case study to estimate travel times from taxi FCD in Stockholm, Sweden. The results show that standard fixed point iterations converge quickly to a solution where input and output travel times are consistent. The solution is robust under different initial travel times assumptions and data sizes. Validation against actual path travel time measurements from the Google API and an instrumented vehicle deployed for this purpose shows that the fixed point algorithm improves shortest path finding. The results highlight the importance of the joint solution of the path inference and travel time estimation problem, in particular for accurate path finding and route optimization.     

Vehicle kilometers traveled reduction impacts of Transit-Oriented Development: Evidence from Shanghai City

The role of residential self-selection has become a major subject in the debate over the relationships between the built environment and travel behavior. Numerous previous empirical studies on this subject have provided valuable insights into the associations between the built environment and travel behavior. However, the vast majority of the studies were conducted in North American and European cities; yet this research is still in its infancy in most developing countries, including China, where residential and transport choices are likely to be more constrained and travel-related attitudes quite different from those in the developed world. Using the data collected from 2038 residents currently living in TOD neighborhoods and non-TOD neighborhoods in Shanghai City, this paper aims to partly fill the gaps by investigating the causal relationship between the built environment and travel behavior in the Chinese context. More specifically, this paper employs Heckman’s sample selection model to examine the reduction impacts of TOD on personal vehicle kilometers traveled (VKT), controlling for self-selection. The results show that whilst the effects of residential self-selection are apparent; the built environment exhibits the most significant impacts on travel behavior, playing the dominant role. These findings produce a sound basis for local policymakers to better understand the nature and magnitude toward the impacts of the built environment on travel behavior. Providing the government department with reassurance that effective interventions and policies on land use aimed toward altering the built environment would actually lead to meaningful changes in travel behavior.     

Potentials of using social media to infer the longitudinal travel behavior: A sequential model-based clustering method

This study explores the possibility of employing social media data to infer the longitudinal travel behavior. The geo-tagged social media data show some unique features including location-aggregated features, distance-separated features, and Gaussian distributed features. Compared to conventional household travel survey, social media data is less expensive, easier to obtain and the most importantly can monitor the individual’s longitudinal travel behavior features over a much longer observation period. This paper proposes a sequential model-based clustering method to group the high-resolution Twitter locations and extract the Twitter displacements. Further, this study details the unique features of displacements extracted from Twitter including the demographics of Twitter user, as well as the advantages and limitations. The results are even compared with those from traditional household travel survey, showing promises in using displacement distribution, length, duration and start time to infer individual’s travel behavior. On this basis, one can also see the potential of employing social media to infer longitudinal travel behavior, as well as a large quantity of short-distance Twitter displacements. The results will supplement the traditional travel survey and support travel behavior modeling in a metropolitan area.