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The operation of metro trains with a focus on energy savings can effectively reduce operating costs and carbon emissions. Reducing traction energy consumption and increasing the utilization efficiency of regenerative braking energy are two important energy-saving approaches that are closely related to the metro train interstation running strategy and timetable. Changes in train mass caused by dynamic changes in passenger flow represent one of the important factors affecting the energy consumption and energy-saving operation of metro trains. In this study, the differences in the temporal and spatial distributions of metro line passenger flow were specifically considered, and an energy-saving metro train timetable optimization method focused on the dissipative regenerative braking energy utilization mode was studied. First, a logistic function is used to fit the passenger flow pattern of the origin-destination (OD) station pairs, and the number of passengers getting on and off at each station is derived by establishing the OD dynamic demand matrix for the entire metro line. Then, the passenger load in each station segment is calculated. Next, a timetable optimization model is established to minimize the net energy consumption based on the load difference between station segments and the train motion equation. The interstation running time and dwell time of the metro train are optimized to increase the amount of regenerative braking energy used during the overlap time between the traction and braking actions of adjacent trains in the train operation timetable. A particle swarm optimization and genetic algorithm (PSO-GA) structure is designed to solve the model. The PSO-GA structure has PSO as the main body and integrates the chromosome crossover and mutation operations of the GA into the iterative process to improve the search efficiency of the algorithm. Finally, the proposed method and model are tested based on the actual data of a metro line in Qingdao, China. The goodness of fit of the passenger flow pattern is 0.997. The energy consumption during the study period is reduced by 5169.67kWh using the optimized timetable. The energy-saving efficiency decreases by 12.18% at a constant OD ratio during the entire travel time and by 20.23% at the same constant load for all station segments. The results of the case analysis prove the effectiveness of the proposed method and model. In addition, the energy-saving timetable can be better optimized by considering the differences in temporal and spatial distributions of dynamic passenger flow., Author(s): Jingshuang Li [1]; Fuquan Pan (corresponding author) [1]; Hailiang Tang [2]; Sen Tong [2]; Lixia Zhang [1]; Xinguang Li [1]; Xiaoxia Yang [1] 1. Introduction 1.1. Research Background Metro [...]

Pedestrian crossing chaos has become one of the significant problems of urban traffic nowadays, and the irregular behavior of pedestrians affects traffic operation and regional safety to a certain extent. Aiming at the safety of pedestrian crossing in the advance right-turn lane, the pedestrian path deviation (PPD) is proposed to quantitatively describe the pedestrian crossing path deviation and analyze the impact of PPD on pedestrian crossing safety. With four advance right-turn lanes at an intersection in Qingdao as the investigation site, the spatiotemporal information of pedestrians and motor vehicles is collected to analyze the characteristics of pedestrian path distribution and the influencing factors of pedestrian crossing under the factors of traffic flow and environment. The pedestrian-vehicle conflict characteristics are analyzed from the perspective of conflict rate and deceleration-to-safety. The severity level of human-vehicle conflict is classified according to the cumulative frequency of safety deceleration, and the severity model of human-vehicle conflict based on ordered probit is established. The results show that buildings such as large shopping malls and transportation hubs have an attractive effect on pedestrians. Under the influence of unilateral buildings, the proportion of irregular use of pedestrian crosswalks reaches 46.9%. There is a significant positive correlation between pedestrian flow and PPD index, and the increase of pedestrian flow causes the aggravation of pedestrian path deviation. The results of the analysis of PPD with pedestrian-vehicle conflict rate and conflict severity show that the increase of PPD significantly increases the risk of pedestrian-vehicle conflict occurrence; in addition, motor vehicle speed and PPD have significant effects on the severity of pedestrian-vehicle conflict, and the increase of both vehicle traffic speed and PPD causes the aggravation of the severity level of pedestrian-vehicle conflict. Combined with the above findings, the PPD index has some value in quantifying pedestrian spatial violations as well as regional safety evaluation, and the findings can provide theoretical guidance for the establishment of traffic facilities., Author(s): Xiufeng Chen (corresponding author) [1]; Ziyu Chen [1]; Jinshun Yang [1]; Fuquan Pan [1]; Ruicong Wang [1] 1. Introduction The advance right-turn lane is widely used in large urban [...]

This study aimed to reveal the potential relationship between personal characteristics of e-bike riders and illegal occupation of motor vehicle lane. To this end, a questionnaire survey was conducted and 350 valid copies of responses were retrieved from the e-bike riders. Depending on the number of motor vehicle lanes occupied, the risky behavior of illegal occupation was divided into four intervals: intervals A, B, C, and D. The disaggregate theory has high adaptability to the analysis of individual traffic behavior. In this study, the multinomial logit model was used, and eight personal characteristics of e-bike riders were selected. The aforementioned four intervals were the four selection limbs, and a measurement model calculating the influence of personal characteristics on the behavior of illegal occupation was built. The theory of elasticity was employed to analyze the sensitivity degree of each influence factor. The results showed that the absolute values of elasticity of all tested influence factors, including age, educational level, and eye vision, were less than 1.000. However, on the four intervals, the elasticity of riders' temperament was 1.203, 1.656, 1.554, and 1.355, respectively, and elasticity of riding proficiency was 2.782, 3.883, 3.453, and 2.932, respectively., 1. Introduction e-bike is defined as the mass of the whole vehicle shall not exceed 55 kg, the speed shall not exceed 25 km/h, and the motor power shall be [...]

In recent years, there are more and more applications of traffic violation monitoring in some countries. The present work aims to analyze the vehicle speeds nearby road traffic violation monitoring area on urban main roads and find out the impact of road traffic violation monitoring on the vehicle speeds. A representative urban main road section was selected and the traffic flow was recorded by camera method. The vehicle speeds before, within, and after the road traffic violation monitoring area were obtained by the calculation method. The speed data was classified and processed by SPSS software and mathematical method to establish the vehicle speed probability density models before, within, and after the road traffic violation monitoring area. The results show that the average speed and maximum speed within the traffic violation monitoring area are significantly slower than those before and after the traffic violation monitoring area. 70.1% of the vehicles before the road traffic violation monitoring area were speeding, and 80.2% of the vehicles after the road traffic violation monitoring area were speeding, while within the road traffic violation monitoring area, the speeding vehicles were reduced to 15.9%. When vehicles pass through the road traffic violation monitoring area, the vehicle speeds tend to first decrease and subsequently increase. In its active area, road traffic violation monitoring can effectively regulate driving behaviors and reduce speeding, but this effect is limited to the vicinity of the traffic violation monitoring. The distribution of vehicle speeds can be calculated from vehicle speed probability density models., 1. Introduction In many countries, with the development of the social economy, the number of automobiles has increased yearly, and a series of problems such as road congestion mess in [...]

To comprehensively understand the research progress of the fleet scheduling for hazardous materials, the study has summarized the corresponding research results from three aspects (a) hazardous materials transportation risk, (b) route optimization, and (c) fleet scheduling, and then pointed out potential problems from six aspects: (a) the coupling risk of the transport fleet; (b) the screening of time and space for the transport of hazardous materials; (c) the scheduling optimization for transport fleets; (d) taking insufficient account of transport risks fairness; (e) insufficient robustness of scheduling schemes; and (f) lacking of research results on fleet scheduling of transport in the context of antiterrorism. After that, by considering the existing shortcomings of the current research, five research directions are presented that should be further explored in the future. Subsequently, both rough set and association rule theory is applied to explore the cause chain of transportation accidents for hazardous materials, and analyze the mechanism of transport accident for hazardous materials. Next, the Bayesian network is presented to predict the accident rate of hazardous materials transportation under different temporal and spatial conditions, and the dynamic rolling scheduling method of hazardous materials transport fleet is constructed under normal and antiterrorism background., 1. Introduction Hazardous materials are referred to those substances and articles with explosive, inflammable, toxic, infectious, corrosive, and other dangerous characteristics that are liable to cause human casualties, property damage, [...]

Countdown signal control is a relatively new control mode that can inform a driver in advance about the remaining time to pass through intersections or the time needed to wait for other drivers and pedestrians. At present, few countries apply vehicular countdown signals. However, in China, some cities have applied vehicular countdown signals for years, though it is unclear how and how much such signals influence driving psychologies and behaviors compared with non-countdown signal controls. The present work aims to clarify the impact of vehicular countdown signals on driving psychologies and behaviors on the cognitive level. A questionnaire survey with 32 questions about driving psychologies and behaviors was designed, and an online survey was conducted. A total of 1051 valid questionnaires were received. The survey data were analyzed, and the main results indicate that most of the surveyed drivers prefer countdown signal controls and think that such controls can improve not only traffic safety but also traffic operational efficiency. The surveyed drivers also think that countdown signal controls have an impact on driving psychologies and behaviors and the survey results have demonstrated that the driving behaviors of female drivers surveyed are not conservative under the clear conditions of green countdown signal control. Further studies and methods concerning the effects of countdown signals on driving psychologies and behaviors are discussed., 1. Introduction While intersections are part of the road system, they are far more complex than the segments connecting them [1, 2]. Driving psychologies and behaviors at road intersections are [...]

SUMMARY Traffic movement conflict points at intersections are the points at which traffic movements intersect (including crossing, merging, and diverging). Numbers and distribution of different types of conflict points are used to evaluate intersection access management designs and safety performance. Traditionally, the determination of the numbers of conflict points for different traffic movements is based on manual methods, which causes the difficulty for computerized procedures to evaluate safety performance of different access management designs. Sometimes, a programmable calculation procedure may provide more effective solutions as compared with manual methods. This paper presents a programmable calculation procedure for the determination of the numbers of conflict points, which could be used as a basis for a computerized procedure. Concepts of virtual movement lanes and intersection quadrants are introduced to specify types of intersections, traffic lane configurations, and traffic movement regulations. Calculation models, based on such concepts, for traffic movement conflict points at signalized and unsignalized intersections can be obtained. In support of the procedure, case studies are presented in the paper. The procedure presented in the paper can be programmed into a computer program for the purpose of a computerized evaluation of intersection safety and design performance of different access management or control approaches. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]