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Urban taxi services have been developing year on year, playing an increasingly important role in the economy and the transportation markets of each city. This increases interest in measuring their performance. This paper analysed the relationship among the four stakeholders (including administrative department, operational companies, taxi drivers and customers) for urban taxi passenger transport system in China, and applied System Dynamics (SD) model to explore the dynamic characteristics of urban taxi price system. The main achievements of this paper are as follows, firstly, this paper adopted stakeholder mapping to describe the relationships among the four stakeholders. Then analysed the causal flow diagrams and the different variables of urban taxi passenger transport system operation, and presented the SD model, which considers factors that affect the taxi operation. With the combination of taxi operation data of Harbin city, we simulated eleven urban taxi operation scenarios and proposed kinds of suggestions to improve urban taxi passenger transport system operation, which can provide a good basis for recommending policy decisions for urban taxi market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we formulate a cost and safety oriented approach to optimize the motorail transport car loading layout optimization problem. The model has 2 objective functions, one maximizes the wagon loading weight utilization rate, and another minimizes the gravitational center height after loading the cars on the wagons. The calculation results show that: the heaviest cars should be loaded in the middle of the decks, the cars weight loaded on both sides should be gradually reduced; the total weight of cars loaded on lower deck should be larger than the total weight of cars loaded on the upper deck. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the phase of 13-th five-year plan in China, natural gas will play an important role in energy revolution. With the growth of consumption, natural gas infrastructures will become hot spots of future investment and pipeline network construction will also usher in a period of rapid development. Therefore, it is of great theoretical and practical significance to study layout methods of transport pipeline network. This paper takes natural gas transport pipeline network as a research object, introduces dominance degree to analyse benefits of pipeline projects. Then, this paper proposes Dominance Degree Model (DDM) of transport pipeline projects based on Potential Model (PM) and Economic Potential Theory (EPT). According to DDM of gas transport pipeline projects, layout methods of pipeline network are put forward, which is simple and easy to obtain the overall optimal solution and ensure maximum comprehensive benefits. What's more, construction sequences of gas transport pipeline projects can be also determined. Finally, the model is applied to a real case of natural gas transport pipeline projects in Zhejiang Province, China. The calculation results suggest that the model should deal with the transport pipeline network layout problem well, which have important implications for other potential pipeline networks not only in the Zhejiang Province but also throughout China and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to analysing the oil and Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) import and consumption changing trends, the Occurrence Period (OP), Growth Period (GP) and Maturation Period (MP) of oil and LNG import and consumption in China, and studying how the oil and LNG import and consumption changing trends influence the development of China-Pakistan oil and LNG transportation corridor (CPOLTC), in this paper we apply a Growth Curve Model (GCM) based approach to solve the problems mentioned above. First, the Chinese oil and LNG import and consumption changing trends are analysed by applying the GCM. The results show that oil and LNG consumption and import belong to the GP because of the fast industrialization and urbanization development, so the oil and LNG import and consumption demand will increase fast; Then, the External Dependence (ED) is applied to describe the oil and LNG consumption dependence degree in China, the results show that import will remain high ED value, especially for the oil import (over 70%), which means the security of the energy supply chain still remains the central idea of Chin's energy policies. Finally, the challenges and key issues of CPOLTC is analysed. Challenges are: domestic political struggles and institutional defects in Pakistan make the CPOLTC projects lacking of implementation, security along the corridor, influence and competition from external forces, impacts of western project culture, the comprehensive projects establishment ability in Pakistan, etc. The key issues are: Value Engineering (VE) researches for projects, Chinese element such as project construction, management, standards and specifications, assessment of the projects' life cycle and so on. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At an isolated signalized intersection, short left-turn lanes may be provided to enhance intersection capacity and level of service. The capacity of an entire intersection depends not only on the effective green time per phase and the length of each short left-turn lane but also on the selected signal phase plan. This paper enumerates 16 typical signal phase plans for a four-leg intersection with protected left-turn phases. Given the existence of short left-turn lanes and the freedom to select signal phase plans, two optimization models are formulated. Numerical examples are carried out to illustrate the application of these models and show the sensitivity of the outcomes to impact factors. The orthogonal experiments show that the primary factor is whether a short left-turn lane is added on an approach and the demand distribution is the secondary factor in determining an optimal allocation of the time-space resources of an intersection. To analyse traffic flow operations under different signal phase sequences, the simulation tests are fulfilled using VISSIM under the assumption that the components of a signal phase plan and green splits are all identical. The simulated results indicate that the signal phase sequence for a specified approach may greatly affect traffic movements at an approach, and the leading green phasing is better than the lagging one for a specified approach when the left-turn bay length is short at the approach. Finally, two variations of the developed models are recommended for use and the procedure for the model application is provided in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The primary objective of this paper is to develop models to predict bus arrival time at a target stop using actual multi-route bus arrival time data from previous stop as inputs. In order to mix and fully utilize the multiple routes bus arrival time data, the weighted average travel time and three Forgetting Factor Functions (FFFs) - F1, F2 and F3 - are introduced. Based on different combinations of input variables, five prediction models are proposed. Three widely used algorithms, i.e. Support Vector Machine (SVM), Artificial Neutral Network (ANN) and Linear Regression (LR), are tested to find the best for arrival time prediction. Bus location data of 11 road segments from Yichun (China), covering 12 bus stops and 16 routes, are collected to evaluate the performance of the proposed approaches. The results show that the newly introduced parameters, the weighted average travel time, can significantly improve the prediction accuracy: the prediction errors reduce by around 20%. The algorithm comparison demonstrates that the SVM and ANN outperform the LR. The FFFs can also affect the performance errors: F1 is more suitable for ANN algorithm, while F3 is better for SVM and LR algorithms. Besides, the virtual road concept in this paper can slightly improve the prediction accuracy and halve the time cost of predicted arrival time calculation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Overloading of road freight vehicles accelerates road damage, creates unfair competition in the transport market, and increases safety risk. There is a dearth of research on the mining of data of highway Freight Weight (FW), and this paper therefore aims to discover factors affecting road freight overloading based on highway FW data, with a view of developing strategies to mitigate such occurrences. A comprehensive sampling survey of road freight transportation was conducted in Anhui Province (China). Vehicle Characteristics (VC), Operation Mode (OM), and transportation information from a total of 3248 trucks were collected. In order to take advantage of the strengths associated with both statistical modelling techniques and non-parametric methods, a Classification And Regression Tree (CART) technique was integrated with Binary Logistic Regression (BLR) to reveal the factors affecting road freight overloading. The classification efficacy test shows that the BLR-CART method outperformed the BLR method in term of accuracy. It is also revealed that the factors affecting overloading of freight vehicles are the Type of Transportation (ToT), Rated Load (RL), OM, FW during the investigation period, interaction between RL and FW, and interaction among RL, FW, and Average Haul Distance (AHD). Road transport authorities should pay greater attention to these factors in order to improve efficiency and effectiveness of overloading inspection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the Technical Efficiencies (TEs) of a group of airports in East China by applying a threestage Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method. The merit of this method allows us to consider the impact of the environmental factors on measuring airport efficiencies. Three variables, i.e. per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the proportion of the tertiary industry, and the number of tourists, are used to represent the environmental factors. The results show that the environmental factors have airport-specific impacts on the value of the efficiencies. Additionally, airport TE are dominated by both Pure Technical Efficiency (PTE) and Scale Efficiency (SE). Based on empirical results, airport specific strategies can be provided to enhance airport efficiency, such as taking the effects of environmental variables and the statistical noise into consideration when analysing the airport efficiency, improving airport efficiencies according to their own conditions and improving the PTE or SE according to their categorizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ridesourcing services market in China has recently experienced significant changes, which stem from its legalization and management policy. These changes impact multiple stakeholders of this market (e.g., drivers, passengers, government, competing services) and present them with new opportunities and challenges. This paper develops an evolutionary game model to analyse the Evolutionary Stable Strategy (ESS) between the Transportation Network Companies (TNCs) and drivers. The new model is explored and analysed with simulation experiments to observe the dynamic route of multiple stakeholders. The theoretical research and simulation results indicate that under the authorities' control over the TNCs, when the net income under strict management is higher than that of the loose management for the TNCs, the final ESS is "Legal Operation, Strict Management". When the net income under strict management is less than that of the loose management for the THCs, the strategy of "Illegal Operation, Loose Management" may gain popularity and continue to grow; in this case, the ESS may also not exist. The model indicates the strength of the government's control plays a significant role in leading the achievement of "Legal Operation, Strict Management". As a consequence, to achieve the perfect evolution of "Legal Operation, Strict Management", it is necessary for the government to impose a greater penalty on illegal drivers and ensure appropriate compensation measures. The results of the study provide a useful reference for the sustainable development of the ridesourcing services market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the last decades, fully erected container cranes have been delivered to a customer site by ships. On one hand, using this method of transportation is very attractive due to its cost and time savings. However, on the other hand, being exposed to cycling loads from the ship motions during the sea voyage, the crane structure accumulates fatigue damage. Using the accumulated fatigue damage parameter, the crane transportation could be associated with the amount of the working cycles the crane could have worked out during its normal operating at the customer site. In the presenting paper the research for the real case of a new crane voyage from China to Ukraine has been done. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents an improved iterative prediction method for bus arrival time at multiple downstream stops. A multiple-stop prediction model includes two stages. At the first stage, an iterative prediction model is developed, which includes a single stop prediction model for arrival time at the immediate downstream stop and an average bus speed prediction model on further segments. The two prediction models are constructed with a support vector machine (SVM). At the second stage, a dynamic algorithm based on the Kalman filter is developed to enhance prediction accuracy. The proposed model is assessed with reference to data collected on transit route No 23 in Dalian city, China. The obtained results show that the improved iterative prediction model seems to be a powerful tool for predicting multiple stop arrival time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While facing the needs for Vehicle Infrastructure Integration (VII) applications in traffic management, the paper deals with the problem of locating Road Side Units (RSU) for VII deployment. After analyzing the difference between traditional problems of locating traffic information detector and the problem of RSU location, a significance ranking model for RSU localization and three kinds of Significance Degree (SD) computing strategies are put forward. A VII simulation environment for the purpose of RSU localization optimization within VISSIM microscopic traffic simulation software is established developing add-on functions using VISSIM's Component Object Model (COM). A VII test bed of the Olympic Park network in Beijing is taken as an example to evaluate the performance of RSU localization model. The results of simulation experiments indicate that the mixed SD strategy considering both speed and route monitoring is superior to the other two SD strategies. Then, the impact of RSU number and OBE market penetration rate on the evaluation measures of traffic monitoring are studied with reference to the proposed mixed SD strategy. In this case, the evaluation measures of optimized RSU configurations generated by the ranking algorithm are always better than those of random RSU configurations. In addition, the benefits of optimized RSU configurations increase along with RSU number and market penetration rate while the benefits of random RSU configurations are more fluctuant. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Many studies focused on the analysis of effect factors contributing to the crashes and development of crash prediction models have resulted in aggregate researches to quantify the safety effects of geometric and traffic variables and environmental concerns on the expected outcome of fatal, injury and/or property damage losses at specific locations. Crash insight regarding different locations, however, has rarely been performed. Such investigations are useful for at least two reasons. First, there is a priori need to identify high risk sites with respect to crash. Second, it is generally believed that different crash types (e.g. rear-end, angle etc.) are associated with road geometry, the environment and traffic condition, and as a result justifying the inside causes of such crashes helps with understanding and improving the specific ability to make effective countermeasures. Therefore, the objectives of this paper are to (1) demonstrate that different crash types are associated to intersections in different ways and (2) reveal that the statistics of intersection crashes may lead to greater insights considering crash occurrence and countermeasure effectiveness. This paper first divides crashes into 5 categories or types: pedestrian-involved, rear-end, head-on, angle and sideswipe crash types. Based on 3208 crashes collected on the intersections in the city of Harbin during the period of 1992–2008, distribution, overall count and the occurrence of rate features are estimated resulting in two models. The performed analysis reveals that safety improvement factors such as the presence of a signal light set, a traffic monitoring device and ITS measure have a positive association with intersection crash in different ways, suggesting that different traffic control and management aspects may be helpful in identifying specific countermeasures in the overall safety improvement project. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The paper begins with a brief review of evidence related to the different types of ‘green’ taxation measures that have been introduced by governments worldwide as a means to lessen the environmental consequences of private car ownership by incentivising the purchase of Low Emission Vehicles (LEV's). An overview is then provided of current understanding of individuals’ car purchasing decisions, highlighting gaps in knowledge that exist with current explanatory models. Based on these gaps in knowledge and to investigate the potential of various taxation measures in influencing individuals’ car purchasing decisions, an online survey was conducted with students from Dalian University of Technology, China. The questionnaire was designed to measure: (1) situational and psychological factors that would be important for their next car purchase; (2) the impacts of adapting current taxation measures to incentivise LEV purchases; (3) the potential role of a range of taxation measures on their decisions on type of future car purchases. K-Cluster means analysis was employed to identify population segments according to their psychological preparedness and importance attached to situational factors in their future decisions to purchase a LEV, or not. This resulted in three distinct segments – Pro-Greens (33.6% of sample), Maybe-Greens (20.2%) and No-Greens (46.2%). Pro-Greens were more psychologically prepared to purchase LEV's than the other two segments, whose future car purchasing decisions were primarily driven by situational factors (vehicle characteristics, performance, etc.). Pro-Greens were also more likely to be influenced by changes in current Chinese taxation measures (VAT and fuel duty), and also significantly more likely to be influenced by the introduction of future measures that would incentivise LEV purchases than the other two segments. In terms of future measures to incentivise future Chinese drivers LEV purchases and use, the introduction of a feebate system, a CO2emissions VAT system, a distance based user charging scheme and annual road tax based on CO2emissions would appear to have the greatest potential overall. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims at developing a fuzzy multiobjective decision support model for urban rail transit projects in China under the background that China is presently experiencing an unprecedented construction of urban rail transit. In this study, an appropriate model using multilevel fuzzy comprehensive evaluation is developed. To do so, detailed description and definition of multilevel fuzzy comprehensive evaluation is displayed. In the decision process, the followings are considered as the influential objectives: traveller attraction, environment protection, project feasibility and operation. In addition, consistent matrix analysis method is used to determine the weights between objectives and the factor weights between factors, which reduce the work caused by repeated establishment of the decision matrix on the basis of ensuring the consistency of decision matrix. An application study is provided as an example to demonstrate the feasibility of this model. The results show that this model is reliable and applicable for decisionmaking in urban rail transit projects. Finally, a decision support system is developed to benefit decisionmakers in optimizing the process of identifying superior urban rail transit projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Road safety conditions in China have worsened following rapid urbanization and motorization. For a long time now, China has ranked first in the world in the number of road accidents and fatalities. Therefore, evaluating safety levels is essential to implementing effective countermeasures. For developing countries like China, however, assessing safety levels via crash data statistical analysis is difficult because of limitations on a short history of collecting crash data, small samples and an incomplete collection of information. To address these limitations, the method of surrogate safety analysis using the traffic conflict technique (TCT) has become a widely used evaluation procedure. On the basis of the mechanism analysis of TCT, the paper presents a conflict hazardous assessment model (CHAM) for the mixed traffic safety evaluation of urban intersections. In the proposed model, the principle of the conservation of momentum is used. CHAM is a model used for assessing safety levels from the aspects of severe conflict numbers and conflict hazardous levels (CHLs) when traffic conflicts among mixed-traffic modes occur. Factors such as the conflict type and conflict angle of different traffic modes, weight and velocity are considered and incorporated into the model through the integration of the accident collision theory and the head injury criterion (HIC) index for head hazard assessments. The calibration and validation of CHL models are also carried out using 341 intersection crash reports in Beijing from 2006 to 2008. The results show that the established CHL models have good validity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is known that the installation of edge rate lines can help reduce driving speed. Theoretically, higher edge rate density leads to higher perception speed, so as the effect of speed reduction. However, there has not been a successful evaluation of appropriate design cycle length requirements. A series of experiments were taken on the straight sections on Hangrui highway in China. The cycle length was separately set in different values of 16, 8, 4, 2 and 1 m. The results showed that cycle length had significantly influence on the speed reduction effect. When the length of spatial edge rate line in each cycle λ equalled to the value of 16, 8, 4, 2 m, the effect of speed reduction was significantly enhanced as λ decreased. Percent of average speed reduction was 0.8, 3.0, 5.8 and 7.4%, respectively. However, when λ = 1 m, speed reduction effect was weaker than λ = 2 m, reduction percent of average speed was 5.2%. Then, relations between acceleration and average edge rate was analysed. When temporal frequency of edge rate lines fell in (10 Hz, 19 Hz], the braking deceleration of drivers increased as the temporal frequency increased, which conformed to the relation between temporal frequency and perception speed; when temporal frequency was lower than 10 Hz, some drivers will speed up. It may be related to the threshold of perception speed difference; when temporal frequency was higher than 19 Hz, some drivers will speed up. It may be related to flicker fusion phenomenon. According to the experiments results, edge rate lines cycle length for future implementations should be determined by the speed distribution of the target road. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Head injury is the most common and fatal injury in car-pedestrian accidents. Due to the lack of human test data, real-world accident data is useful for the research on the mechanism and tolerance of head injuries. The objective of the present work is to investigate pedestrian head-brain injuries through real car-pedestrian accidents and evaluate the existed injury criteria. Seven car-to-pedestrian accidents in China were selected from the IVAC (Investigation of Vehicle Accident in Changsha) database. Accident reconstructions using multi-body models were conducted to determine the kinematic parameters associated with the injury and were used to measure head injury criteria. Kinematic parameters were input into a finite element model to run simulations on the head-brain and car interface to determine levels of brain tissue stress, strain, and brain tissue injury criteria. A binary logistic regression model was used to determine the probability of head injury risk associated with AIS3+ injuries (Abbreviated Injury Scale). The results showed that head injury criteria using kinematic parameters can effectively predict injury risk of a pedestrians' head skull. Regarding brain injuries, physical parameters like coup/countercoup pressure are more effective predictors. The results of this study can be used as the background knowledge for pedestrian friendly car design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traffic fatalities and injuries on urban roads especially at urban intersections constitute a growing problem in China. This study aims at researching urban intersection crashes in China and drawing conclusions by using hierarchical structured data with reference to Bayesian network (BN). On the basis of 3584 recorded crashes collected from the urban intersections of Changshu, China, a BN topological structure is developed to reflect the hierarchical characteristic of crash variables. The parameter learning process is completed with Dirichlet prior distribution. Junction tree engine is used to make inference on crash types at urban intersections with two respective given evidences, i.e. human factor and vehicle type. Parameter learning results suggest the efficacy of BN approach in the prediction accuracy. The average learned probability of illegal driving is 40.83%, which is much higher than other learned probabilities of human factors. The inferred probabilities of frontal collision at urban intersection crashes involving bicycles and electric bikes are 43.16% and 40.44% respectively, which is higher than the probabilities involving small cars and heavy vehicles. However, heavy vehicles have a higher inferred probability in side collision than light vehicles, whose inferred side collision probability is 41.02%. This study has a good potential in traffic safety discipline to reveal the correlation exists in traffic risk factors. By means of BN, researchers can make an intensive study on the hierarchical traffic crash data, determine the key risk factors and then propose corresponding and appropriate improvement measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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