Search

Summarization: This paper investigates the application of real-time route diversion policies, with or without off-ramp closure, to address recurrent motorway traffic congestion created due to a saturated off-ramp. In particular, the proposed route diversion policies attempt to avoid the off-ramp queue spill-over onto the motorway mainstream and the resulting motorway congestion by re- routing the motorway vehicles through nearby off-ramps towards the same destination. This paper addresses the case where real-time route guidance strategies, based on user-optimum considerations, are not sufficient to resolve the spill-over and motorway congestion problem, which may call for harsh measures (off-ramp closure) to force route diversion; while other cases are treated in a companion paper. The proposed route diversion concepts are tested for a hypothetical, but quite typical network infrastructure and traffic scenario by use of macroscopic simulation. The obtained simulation results are compared to the case where no route diversion is employed, and reveal interesting features and the potential for significant improvements. Παρουσιάστηκε στο: 16 th Meeting of the EURO Working Group on Transportation

This paper presents a mode choice model for bike-and-ride using the data combined with RP and SP surveys from the neighborhoods within the distance of 500 meters away from the public bike spots in Xi’an Economic and Technological Development Zone. Compared with the previous researches, this model adds the factors of the owning of vehicles or not and trip purpose besides of the socio-economic characters, trip features and the service and facility level. The significant factors which can influence the mode choice behaviors of the bike-and-ride are identified and the results show that the age, owning of bikes, trip distance and the convenience of the service and facility of bike-and-ride have large impacts on the mode choice of bike-and- ride. Besides, car available and the income per year can also influence the mode choice of bike-and-ride and trip purpose has a small effect on the mode choice of bike-and-ride. Finally, this paper provides the policy suggestions for well implementation of the public bike projects in Xi’an Economic and Technological Development Zone according to the model analysis results to encourage more people choosing this mode pattern, which includes: (1) simplifying the transfer procedures, shorten the distance between bus stops/rail stations and public bike spots, and generalize the using of the transport card (containing both of the transit service and public bike service); (2) increasing the number of the public bike sports in the large commercial, residential, office areas and bus stops/rail stations where is densely populated; (3) planning and designing bike lanes in the road reconstructions.

In this paper, a comprehensive framework for ongoing performance monitoring of urban exclusive bus lane network is introduced. The scheduled, periodic monitoring is critical to ensure the bus lane system accomplishes a specific operational performance threshold under changing traffic conditions. Unlike ex-ante and ex-post evaluation of individual project, this paper focuses on the year-to-year changes in performance of city-wide exclusive bus lane system so that more concise performance measures and efficient data collection method are required. The Framework proposed an effective evaluation procedure with the constraint of data availability. It identifies explicit quantitative performance measures from the perspective of both travellers and traffic managers. Efficient data collection and integration methods are also addressed in the framework. Finally, an application of the framework was implemented to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of the 161.8km bus lane network in Shanghai. The results of the application are presented.

Sustainability and green transportation initiatives have been widely promoted in highway design and maintenance in recent years. While there are many definitions of sustainability and green transportation, there has mainly been a qualitative description of such initiatives in previous works. In this paper we propose a quantitative analysis of sustainability and green transportation from highway design and maintenance perspective. There is a considerable interaction between highway design and maintenance. For example, a well designed and maintained highway should jointly minimize the initial and life-cycle costs. But, generally a precise account of maintenance life-cycle cost analysis is not performed in the design stages of a highway. In this paper a highway alignment optimization problem is analyzed and evaluated based on the joint minimization of initial and life-cycle costs. An illustrative example is presented

Modelling large-scale traffic flow systems at a disaggregate level can be data intensive as it requires extensive knowledge about the activities and activity chains of vehicles. This paper focuses on activity chain generation for commercial vehicles. We use a large sample of GPS records to extract a complex network and sample chain characteristics from. The paper makes a valuable contribution in both its methodology, and in its focus on intra and inter-provincial vehicle populations simultaneously. The simulated chains are validated in terms of vehicle kilometrekilometres travelled and its spatiotemporal accuracy, comparing favorably in both.

The main focus of this paper is to develop gap acceptance model for two-wheelers using neuro-fuzzy approach at three legged uncontrolled intersections in India. Unsignalized intersections are controlled with the help of stop or yield sign in developing countries, but in India, signs do not work and thus they are treated as uncontrolled intersections by the road users. The processing of vehicles at unsignized intersection is complex and very interactive, whereby each driver makes individual decisions about when, where, and how to complete the required maneuver. Such intersections cannot be analyzed based on the findings of the unsignalized intersections in other countries (HCM 2000, for example). This paper systematically analyzes the behavior of right turning two-wheelers at uncontrolled intersections. Data on gap acceptance behavior is obtained with Video. The various parameters that are collected include vehicle arrival rate, gap accepted/rejected, time to cross the intersection, driver's gender and approximate age, type of conflicting vehicle, and occupancy of two-wheelers. The critical lag and gap by Raff method for two-wheelers is found to be 2.51 and 2.47 seconds respectively. This value is smaller than the critical gaps reported in other studies. An Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Interface System (ANFIS) has been developed that estimates the possibility of accepting a given lag/gap based on various drivers and traffic attributes. Eight different combinations of attributes are considered. For model calibration, 80% of the extracted data is used and remaining is used for model validation. The percent correct prediction by all models for validation data is found to be significant.

Many features of the freight wagons/trains differ substantially from those of the passenger coaches/trains. As a result, sharing the same track affects directly or indirectly the design, construction, operation and maintenance of a railway system. In this context, this paper evaluates qualitatively and quantitatively the effect of some of the above features on the components and elements of the railway system and provides cost elements for the construction of a railway infrastructure considering different scenarios of operation. The main findings of this paper have shown that: for freight trains the track maintenance cost is much greater than that for passenger trains, the alignment is determined by the design speed defined for passenger trains, the construction cost of infrastructure for a typical mixed traffic corridor is generally higher than that of a passenger dedicated corridor.

The paper provides a review of the light goods vehicle (LGV) fleet and its activity, with specific reference to operations in urban areas, and sustainability issues associated with the ever-growing use of LGVs. Traditionally these vehicles have received little attention but are becoming an ever-more important element of urban freight transport both for goods collection and delivery and for the provision of a wide range of critical services. Relevant literature from the UK and elsewhere pertaining to LGV operations and their impacts has been identified and utilised. The paper identifies the impacts of LGV operations in terms of economic, social and environmental impacts and presents the range of measures being taken by policy makers and companies to address negative impacts.

The objective of this study was to develop and apply a ‘scientific approach’ for improving the integration of Beijing's metro and bus networks. Daxing Line, which is one of the five newly built metro lines opened in Beijing in 2010, was selected as a demonstration metro corridor for this methodology. A detailed public transport passenger trip matrix is developed from the Beijing public transport IC card data. According to this data, different bus service patterns were evaluated using a pivot point demand model and PT model. In the final section of the paper, the schemes are evaluated through using a set of 6 weighted indicators to decide on an optimal outcome. The bulk of the recommended service planning adjustments recommended by the study are currently being implemented in the corridor. The study concludes that the proposed approach is practical and can provide meaningful input to service planning in multi modal corridors in Chinese cities. Given the rapidly expanding metro networks in many Chinese cities, there is a large potential for replication of the approach described in the paper.

Many urban areas are experiencing growing levels of traffic congestion and increased freight demand due to population growth, globalization and contemporary logistics systems. High Productivity Freight Vehicles (HPFVs) are large combination vehicles that offer significant benefits for lowering costs, improving safety and protecting the environment by reducing the number of truck movements in cities that would otherwise be needed. This paper describes how HPFV are being implemented in Australian urban areas within the Performance Based Standards (PBS) framework to allow better use of existing urban freight networks. PBS is a flexible non-prescription framework for regulating the weight and dimensions as well as network access of road freight vehicles. This paper presents details of case studies used to estimate the productivity gains from operating PBS vehicles in urban areas. A range of PBS vehicles have been identified as being suitable for urban freight operations including Super B-doubles and rigid trucks. This paper demonstrates how the productivity gains from PBS vehicles operating in urban areas can be estimated. The results of simulations of a number of freight networks for specific commodities are presented. The analysis presented shows that substantial benefits can be achieved by the take-up of PBS vehicles in urban freight networks. Case studies show a lowering of several key freight exposure metrics, which involve kilometres, trips, task travel times and vehicle numbers. A description of the HPFV route assessment process as well as the Intelligent Access Program (IAP) is also presented. The route assessment process is used to examine the road geometry and pavement conditions for the first and last mile access. The IAP uses the Global Position System (i.e. GPS) to monitor heavy vehicles’ compliance with access conditions.

The efficiency assessment of road safety measures is considered to be an extremely useful tool in decision making; in particular, cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analyses are carried out in several countries, in a more or less systematic way. The objective of this paper is to present findings from a review of current practices for road safety assessment worldwide gathered in various handbooks, manuals, research projects and other international reports. This review comprises the preliminary results of the work carried out in the framework of the on-going Working Group on the assessment of the effectiveness of road safety measures, of the Joint Transport Research Centre (JTRC) of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the International Transport Forum (ITF). In particular, the most important international initiatives for providing standardized and accurate methods or tools for the estimation of safety effects of road safety measures are presented. Furthermore, the procedural and technical limitations of these methodologies are discussed in this paper, as is the lack of knowledge and data on the safety effects of road safety measures but also the potential for transferability of the assessment results. Emphasis is given to the added value of the safety assessment process and the related results to the various stages of the road safety decision making at local, regional national and international level.

The project delivery method (PDM) greatly influences the project outcome. Design-Build, Construction Management and Design-Bid-Build represent the three main methods. Each PDM comes up with its own advantages and disadvantages which suit different projects in different circumstances. A general literature review and a case specific document study were carried out. Firstly, this paper identifies general criteria for selecting PDM. Secondly, it comes up with specific criteria for selecting the PDM for a large infrastructure project. Due to the project characteristics, the identified specific selection criteria differ from the general selection criteria. The Norwegian Public Roads Administration (NPRA) plans a coastal highway route (E39) along the western coast of Norway covering a total of 1100 km, substituting seven ferry connections, with an estimated cost of 268 billion Norwegian kroner. This project is used as an exemplary case of a large infrastructure project. The paper contributes to the body of knowledge with a list of selection criteria for PDMs aggregated from literature, and points out that this list should be adapted to case specific characteristics before being used to select a PDM

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the implications of the urban context for the sustainability performance of intermodal road-rail transport (IRRT). By calculating the external costs of a road transport and an intermodal alternative of consolidated cargo between a freight forwarder's consolidation terminals, the paper shows that the environmental benefits of a modal shift depend on the relative location of the intermodal terminal and shipper and receiver in the spatial structure. A careful integration of the intermodal terminal in the urban spatial structure is therefore a necessity if IRRT is to contribute to the sustainable development of the freight sector.

As the assembly point of traffic ways in a city, transfer hubs are a large integrated dynamic system with randomness, dynamic and complex nature. At the same time, capacity reliability can help managers to evaluate the overall transportation system. This paper presents a network capacity research based on transfer hubs. In this paper, in order to study the road network capacity reliability and facilitate managers to control the system, we add traffic modes into a road network which is a three- dimensional virtual traffic network. Transfer is divided into zero distance transfer and non-zero distance transfer in this virtual model, and its reliability is calculated and corrected. The results show that the influence of transfer time on road network capacity reliability of transfer hubs is remarkable, and capacity reliability is inversely proportional to transfer time.

This paper investigates small road haulier's spatial location and road network accessibility in relation to proposed freight consolidation centres (FCCs). For many decades, the overall load factor in freight vehicles has decreased; smaller volumes of goods have been transported over longer distances. To counteract this, a well-planned localisation of FCCs has been suggested as a measure to improve transport efficiency. Based on 3,024 road hauliers, road haulier associations, freight forwarders, and delivery firms/couriers located in the Western part of Sweden, the analysis show a high concentration of small road hauliers towards the largest city, its immediate surroundings, and towards existing facilities of large freight forwarders and road haulier associations. Furthermore, the accessibility analysis shows that a very large majority of the small road hauliers as well as large forwarders and haulier associations are reached within a short time distance from the proposed FCCs, indicating the potential to establish FCCs serving small road hauliers. While it is not possible to conclude that the ‘proposed’ FCCs are optimally located, the paper provides a basis to further investigate the most appropriate locations of FCCs serving the city and its surroundings, and whether and under what conditions FCC establishments are viable.

Bike-and-ride users consist of existing and potential bike-and-ride members. This paper first conducts a revealed preference survey for metro travelers, and an additional stated preference survey for travelers who are transferred by bus or foot. Then it selects a residential area surrounded the metro station to implement a supplement survey. Through establishing binary logit model for three kinds of potential users, it finds the potential bicycle transfer possibility of the total metro station users and trips by different transferring modes. Finally, the paper presents a demand analysis of bike-and-ride in Nanjing Longmian Road Station.

This paper analyses the clear zone design parameters, including driver reaction time, conditions of vehicle leaving roadway and driving distance in clear zone. Meanwhile, in classical physics, the process that the vehicle runs off roadway can be seen as a combination of uniform motion in a straight line and rectilinear motion of uniform deceleration. Then, based on the forgiving design concept, the paper sets up a calculation model for the roadside clear zone. It calculates width range of roadside clear zone. According to the calculated results and the actual instance of roadside, it brings forward the recommended width of roadside clear zone. Compared with RISER (Roadside Infrastructure for Safer European Roads), the paper considers driver reaction time, so the calculation of clear zone width is larger and safer. However, the computed results are reasonable and acceptable because they are essentially consistent with the suggested clear zone distance in AASHTO's Roadside Design Guide (American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials). Therefore, the research results of the paper could be a supplementary guidance or reference for road designer and administrator.

Enhancing the bus share rate is a major measure to relieve the traffic congestion. To analyze the effect of public transit policy, this paper establishes multinomial logit (MNL) models based on both stated preference (SP) data and combining SP and revealed preference (RP) data, which were collected in Jinan city. Then the paper analyzes how the influencing factors affect the choice proportion of bus travel mode for the bus user groups. In the end, the paper obtains some significant conclusions and proposes measures which would enhance the bus attraction.

Roundabouts are increasingly popular because of their performance in terms of safety, capacity, and cost. Roundabouts have the potential to reduce accident risk since the traffic flows merge and diverge at small angles, and low speeds. Under certain conditions, roundabouts also improve the flow of traffic at the intersection, compared to other choices. In this paper we present a methodology for estimating an important input in the calculation of the capacity of roundabouts: the critical gap. The critical gap is the smallest gap that a driver is willing to accept to merge with the circulating traffic and mainly determines the gap acceptance behavior of the driver. The critical gap is not directly observable. Only gaps that drivers have accepted or rejected are observed. These gaps define upper and lower values for the underlying critical gap but not its exact value. The paper builds on previous literature proposing a rigorous statistical methodology for the estimation of the critical gap, and demonstrates its applicationthrough field measurements. It is assumed that the critical gap has a lognormal distribution among the driver population with a mean value that is a function of a number of explanatory variables. Based on these assumptions the critical gap and its distribution can then be estimated using maximum likelihood. A case study in a dual lane roundabout in Stockholm is used to illustrate the proposed methodology using video and other data. The results show that the critical gap depends, among other factors, on the target lane (near or far), the type of the vehicle. The results are aslo compared to values recommended by other studies. © 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Strolling along Riau Street and shopping in Factory Outlet are major attraction to the visitor as well as to the small-scale entrepreuner for the urban spectacle and business opportunity being suggested. This paper will discuss the informal activities that constitute urban spectacle on the pedestrian ways in front of the Factory Outlet, and the spatio-temporal arrangement being created through human activities and commodity transaction. Further on the paper will summarize the physical and emotional aspect of urban spaces in attracting people and creating pleasurable experiences.

This paper summarizes the key characteristics of the three year duration Collaborative R&D Project named “Eco innovative refitting technologies and processes for shipbuilding industry promoted by European Repair Shipyards”, in short “Eco-REFITEC”, which is being funded from the European Union's RTD 7th Framework. The project started in January 2011 with the purpose of develop and implement Eco-innovative Retrofitting processes and Life Cycle Strategies in Repair Shipyards to Strength European competitiveness of the Shipbuilding Industry and to reduce the environmental footprint of waterborne transport and operations. Within the paper insights are given concerning the so called “sticking points”: The Value Analysis Methodology adopted to develop and identify alternative and eco-innovative ways to perform future retrofitting jobs, the data base of eco-innovation practices, the repair shipyard model and the LCA tool; which will be developed and that will be used as a basis to test both the environmental shipyards and ships performance, and assess the pertinence of eco-innovative solutions.

With the increase of motor vehicle ownership and the traffic demand in Beijing, the road traffic management is becoming more important and complex. To build the intelligent traffic management system using the information technology is an effective measure to improve the traffic system ability and service level, and the road traffic law enforcement business is one of the key link. With IDEF method, this paper builds the business process model of Beijing road traffic law enforcement, carries out the business process diagnosis and analysis combined with the actual situation. The paper puts forward the optimization idea of Beijing road traffic law enforcement business process, and builds the optimized business procedural model, which provides reference to develop the traffic law enforcement business of the Beijing intelligent traffic management system.

Having easy access to information became vital for people living in the 21st century but most of all for passengers and commuters. As a response to this demand, public transport operators along with municipalities and software engineers started creating a variety of programs called trip planners that have the main purpose to inform passengers about: arriving time, routes, prices, distances, points of interest, location, connections with other means of transport, number of transfers and other information. This paper analyzes the importance of trip planners for public transportation operators and for passengers who use public transportation. The authors present trip planners used today in different cities from different countries and information provided to passengers. There are two types of information: basic information, vital for passengers, that all trip planners should provide and complex information which can be extracted in the near future from the new design trip planners. The paper shows how a trip planner can be built, based on a certain algorithm, the inputs of data that are required and the generated outputs. The trip planner presented in the paper is designed for the city of Timişoara (Romania) and links the city's transportation ways such as: air, rail and road with all the other transportation modes.

Improving the efficiency of transport networks by enhancing road system performance, lays the foundations for the positive change process within a city, achieving good accessibility to the area and optimizing vehicle flows, both in terms of cost, management and attenuation of environmental impacts. The performance of an urban road system can be defined according to different thematic areas such as traffic flow, accessibility, maintenance and safety, for which the scientific literature proposes different measurement indicators. However variations in performance are influenced by interventions which differ from one another, such as infrastructure, management, regulation or legislation, etc. Therefore sometimes it is not easy to understand which areas to act on and what type of action to pursue to improve road network performance. Of particular interest are the tools based on the use of synthetic macro-indicators that are representative of the individual thematic areas and are able to describe the behavior of the entire network as a function of its characteristic elements. These instruments are of major significance when they assess performance not so much in absolute terms but in relative terms, i.e. in relation to other urban areas comparable to the one being examined. Therefore the objective of the proposed paper is to compare performances of different urban networks, using a non-parametric linear programming technique such as Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), Farrel (1957) , in order to provide technical support to the policy maker in the choice of actions to be implemented to make urban road systems efficient. This work is the conclusive study of road system performance analysis using DEA. The study forms part of a research project supported by grant, PRIN-2009 prot. 2009EP3S42_003, in which the University di Cagliari is a partner with a research team comprising the authors of this paper, and which addresses performance assessment of road networks, Fancello, Uccheddu and Fadda (2013a),(2013b).

By comparing the operation data of urban rail transit at home and abroad, this paper has analyzed the current urban rail transit system in China from the perspective of applicability and found that the structure is irrational and functional orientation of urban and suburban line is not clear. This paper has also attached great importance to the research on suburban railway, and analyzed the adaptability, planning and construction conditions and the development trend of suburban railway in China.

This paper develops the integrated operation of rural transit routes in China based on the challenges rural transit systems face from the limitations of separate operation. Firstly the characteristics of routes spatial layout and passenger flow are analyzed as the basis for operation design. Secondly, integrated operation and implement conditions are discussed. The trunk routes operate similar to urban transit route, and the minibus and flexible service are suitable for branch routes. Because of low passenger flow, the branch routes should be interlined with the adjacent trunk route. In addition, multi trunk routes and branch routes of adjacent towns could be allied to obtain better optimization and maximize the utilization of vehicle capacity. Furthermore, the practical application of Pukou district is illustrated to show the advantages of integrated operation. The findings of this paper are therefore potentially helpful to rural transit operators and researchers in China and other developing countries.

Modeling transportation systems at the microscopic level is currently gaining favor among researchers throughout the world. A multi-agent system, which is one method of microscopic modeling, is a dynamic framework dealing with the behavior of each individual actor in the transport system, and is especially favored for passenger transport models. Likewise, freight systems need a similar framework to better represent the interactions amongst freight agents, as large numbers of heterogeneous freight actors and other factors are involved. This paper proposes an extension of a multi-agent transport modeling system to cover the area of freight movement. The focus of this paper is at the stage of commodity distribution, in order to model the links between suppliers and receivers of commodities. The model is developed based on the principal of commodity movement through supply chains. The structure is a demand derived model, where receivers are the decision makers who choose their suppliers. The model is constructed based on the discrete choice method, considering the constraints of the amount of the commodity generated and the amount desired by each of the companies, travel impedance and attractive factors of the shippers. The model is developed and applied to the movement of urban freight in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area.

This paper discusses the basic parameters of resilience engineering and analyses transportation systems, at a high level, in order to identify the key variables for a holistic design of transportation systems that shall include the parameter of resilience. Critical factors in the context of resilience engineering are identified in transportation systems, in order to determine the features and properties that are of prior significance to the system's ability to recover from sudden and severe stresses in a dynamic environment. Based on the review of the respective literature, this paper concludes with a framework for resilience engineering of transportation systems.

The attempt to enhance the safety aspects in low cost houses (LCH) development is still neglected and one of the reason that may contribute to this factor is due to its low price value. Hence, Post Occupancy Evaluation (POE) is adopted to assess the safety requirements as this study is aimed to develop a benchmark for safety aspects for LCH in Malaysia. This paper elaborates the concept of POE in LCH and factors that constitute to the safety failures in LCH. This paper also discusses on the hierarchy of safety elements and attributes as the design of survey.

Every citizen has to right to move throughout a city safely and independently. The term accessibility refers this right in built environment mostly for public uses. In the beginning of 20th century, accessibility started from a restricted application but nowadays it became more comprehensive due to a better understanding of physical barriers in the world. According to a recent research, designers are not aware of how architectural barriers restrict accessibility for different users. It should not be forgotten that accessibility for everyone will increase the whole citizens’ quality of life. Thus, the paper tries to show importance of raising awareness in design studios for better implementing accessibility for all people. In our urban design studio, a strong relationship has been found between accessible design solutions and students’ awareness about physical barriers. The paper concludes that there is an immediate need to elaborate design courses with universal design principles.

The knowledge of the actual current status of the road traffic for the entire road network is a basic component of Advanced Traveler Information Systems and Advanced Traffic Management System applications. Identification of traffic status on signalized intersections is the focus of research on urban road network traffic status identification. In this paper, the use of real-time Floating Car Data (FCD), based on traces of GPS positions, is emerging as a reliable and cost-effective way to gather accurate traffic flow information in a road network. Based on the analysis of traffic flow's moving process on the approach of signalized intersections, the paper puts forward a classification method of traffic status on signalized intersections while the relationship between queue length and the capacity of the approach is under consideration, and the algorithm to identify the real-time traffic status on signalized intersections based on FCD is established at last. To test the effectiveness of this algorithm, a field experiment using Floating Car Data (FCD) was conducted at an intersection in Nanjing. The test results indicate that the proposed method provides very satisfactory accuracy in application.

Some papers have been recently presented (Cunto and Saccomanno, 2007; Cunto and Saccomanno, 2008; Saccomanno et al., 2008) on the potential of traffic microsimulation for the analysis of road safety. In particular, studies have confirmed that the reproduction by simulation of user behaviour under different flow and geometric conditions, can identify a potential incident hazard and allow to take appropriate countermeasures at specific points of the road network. The objective of this paper is to assess the validity of this approach and present a new methodology for investigating road safety issues. A calibrated microsimulation model has been developed to analyze vehicle trajectories, and hence vehicle interactions, in some different scenarios and verify traffic safety levels. The microscopic model allows the estimation of road safety performance through a series of indicators (Crash Potential Index, Deceleration Rate to Avoid Crash, Maximum Available Deceleration Rate, Time to Collision, etc.), representing interactions in real time between different pairs of vehicles belonging to the traffic stream. When these indicators take a certain critical value, a possible accident scenario is identified. The validation of the proposed methodology can be done by comparing the value assumed by safety performance indicators in simulated and real scenarios. The microscopic simulation model is also combined with a new video image traffic detection algorithm to detect vehicle trajectories. Microscopic traffic flow parameters obtained by video detection are, in fact, used to calibrate the microsimulation model. The above described methodology has been applied in the analysis of overtaking maneuvers on single lane for direction fast rural roads. Results indicate that the methodology can be useful in the estimation of safety performance indicators and in evaluating traffic control measures. Language: en

Because of the interactions of the multi-lane freeway mainline, upstream, downstream, the diversity of environmental conditions, as well as the complexity of geometric configuration, speed-change lanes of the multi-lane freeway interchange present the greatest safety and operational challenges for drivers. Most freeway crashes occur in the vicinity of interchange diverging and merging areas, especially in speed-change lanes. In this paper, the UC-win/Road5 software was used as the technical tool, and a three-dimensional driving scene was built. Multi-lane freeway field data were used for the calibration of model parameters. The geometric configuration of the speed-change lanes as well as the driving behavior characteristics such as speed, acceleration rate, and glancing in the diverging and merging areas were studied in this paper. Based on the driving simulation study in the areas, results supply a valuable technical reference for speed-change lane geometric configuration, the length design of the speed-change lane, the operational safety evaluation of multi-lane freeway diverging and merging areas, and also the operation and management of multi-lane freeways.

A MAS (Multi-agent system) is made from independent and interactional multi-agents with some attributes: independence, adaptability, consecution, better cognition ability with actively openness, etc. Public Transport Comprehensive Dispatching MIS is an intelligent service platform that manages urban public transport systems. It has some functions, such as collecting and promulgating information about passengers and means of transportation; forecasting and assigning public transportation flow; optimizing and scheduling the bus route network; evaluating traffic infrastructure and service level, etc. This paper utilizes MAS to separate complicated dynamic urban public transport systems, which includes a variety of factors such as man, vehicle, road, environment and so on, into small concerted system that are easy to manage. The Public Transport Comprehensive Dispatching Management Information System design frame was discussed in conformity to China's city character. In this paper, main contents are stated as follows: the function and demand of this platform are analyzed; control model of this platform is designed based on MAS; variety and action of the agents which belong to the service platform system are separately described. This research is beneficial to improve the efficiency of transportation systems and apply MAS to other traffic aspects.

This paper discusses the negative effects of planning for personal motorized mobility, a phenomenon currently taking place in Romanian cities. After presenting the general and particular picture of the increase in private vehicle ownership, it analyse s the subject of pedestrian accessibility by looking into the past and present situation. Based on GIS measurements of population within specific service areas of public facilities, the foreseen solution takes into consideration a flexible way of planning which adapts to the existing urban structure. The results allow conscious planning decisions focused on the type and number of population with good access to these facilities.

Public open spaces (POS) are the main locations which influence the quality of life. This paper focuses upon the impact of street access improvements on the presence in streets. Dardasht district has been selected as the case study. In this district, the improvement project began in 2006. The primary purpose was to determine if there were changes in the reported pedestrian street use after the improvement, compared to before the intervention began. Questionnaire forms have been applied to 348 users to evaluate perceptions of the neighborhood streets. Finally, on the basis of the findings, some recommendations have been suggested.

This paper proposes a novel approach for analyzing the necessity and effectiveness of forgiving roadside design that aims to mitigate the consequences of run-off-road accidents (RORA). A framework is presented, which comprises the development of road, vehicle and driver models in order to simulate specific RORA scenarios. These scenarios are based on data taken from the Austrian road accident database that contains more than 650,000 personal injury accidents since 1994. Three-dimensional road models (including the roadside) created from laser measurements allow integrating accurate replications of existing accident high-risk sites in simulation. For each “virtual” high-risk site, the roadside is then modified with appropriate safety treatments, before run-off-road accidents are simulated. Indicators for the effectiveness of roadside treatments are the head injury criterion (HIC) and the abbreviated injury scale (AIS) Simulation results show that the risk of fatal injuries strongly declines with forgiving roadside design. For a specific accident high-risk site, safety treatments with hard and soft shoulders are investigated in the simulation. The results show that the implementation of hard shoulders mitigates the risk of severe injuries.

GPS-based probe car data is useful for studying traffic situations that roadside sensors cannot detect. However, the ambiguity in the map-matching and route identification processing of link-based probe data analysis has been a difficult problem especially in urban areas with many high-density roads and elevated roads. Unlike situations in which navigation systems are to be developed, in offline analysis, there are cases where a real-time constraint is not imposed. This means we can refer to data from any time of day of a vehicle tour and use much more computer resources than would be available for real-time embedded systems. In this paper, a new method of map-matching and the route identification based on dynamic programming is proposed and its effectiveness is shown in comprehensive field data tests.

The urban network is a highly dynamic system. Thus, a modern and efficient fleet management in urban areas should account for dynamics of traffic conditions and variability in travel times, since they significantly affect the distribution of goods and the provision of services. For the proficient dynamic fleet management decisions it is proper instead of relying exclusively on the experience of a dispatcher, to base the freight management decisions on information provided by a professional Decision Support System (DSS), which facilitates the consideration of all the factors conditioning the addressed problem. This paper provides a proposal of such DSS for real-time freight management. Its design is based on integration of selected pickup and delivery vehicle routing model and dynamic traffic simulation models, which objective is to carefully emulate the evolving traffic conditions. The optimal dynamic routing and scheduling of a vehicle fleet is obtained due to dynamic modifications of the current routing and scheduling plan on the basis of the newly revealed information conditioning the addressed problem.

This paper presents a study aimed at quantifying and comparing the risk of personal injuries associated with road barrier collisions. Documented data from actual barrier collisions, including post-impact collisions, in Sweden between 2005 and 2008 were analyzed. The analyses were based on the injury classification made by healthcare services. The injury rates, measured in number of injuries per vehicle kilometer travelled, were calculated for the different injury classes as a basis for evaluating barrier performance. The results show that the rate of injuries was higher due to collisions with flexible barrier systems, such as cable barrier, than with other semi-rigid and rigid barrier system, such as w-beam and concrete barriers. This result might be explained by a high rate of post-impact events, such as post-impact collisions, roll-overs and over-rides, associated with the placement and mechanical properties of the cable barriers. The study also showed a considerable difference in injury classifications made by the police and the healthcare services, as well as a considerable under-reporting of barrier collisions by the police.

TeleFOT is a Large Scale Collaborative Project aiming to assess, by conducting Field operational Tests, the impacts of functions provided by aftermarket and nomadic devices in five distinct assessment areas; Safety, Mobility, Efficiency, Environment and User Uptake. The objective of this paper is to present the analysis plan for efficiency assessment, by measuring a set of parameter indicators which characterise traffic efficiency (speed, travel times, traffic composition, etc.), and thus make an estimation of the level of traffic efficiency on the network and whether this is influenced by the use of aftermarket and nomadic devices.

The European Parliament and the European Council issued the Directive, 2008 /96/CE on road infrastructure safety management, foreseeing safety checks, training and certification of road safety auditors. Due to EU rules, the directive is mandatory ONLY in the TEN-T road network, meaning the major European highways, while the highest number of fatalities occurs on the local and regional roads. To overcome this barrier, the PILOT4SAFETY project is applying the Directive's approach to some selected secondary roads in 5 regions of different EU States, in order to share good practices and define a common standardised certification methodology for road safety experts. The pilot project is being developed in 5 different phases: 1) Development of a new Curriculum for the training of Road Safety personnel, mainly based on Road Safety Audit and Inspections of secondary roads, foreseeing a specific certification; 2) International agreement between the 5 participating States about the validity of the certification in each State; 3) Training of the future auditors and inspectors; 4) One Road Safety Audit and Road Safety Inspection in each State, performed by an international team of the trained auditors or inspectors; 5) Evaluation of the results and final recommendations for a European Common Certification Methodology. The expected outcomes are: a) The application of the same curricula for the training of auditors and inspectors of 5 EU Regions, based on the main results from EU Research; b) An agreement between the involved Regions about the reciprocal validity of the certification of the road safety personnel trained during the study; c) International agreement about common standards for training auditors and inspectors; d) Recommendations for a common certification procedure Due to the high transferability of the project results, a relevant number of EU and non EU States will be able to use the recommendations for setting up their own certification system to ensure safety due to road infrastructure management. This paper illustrates the findings after 15 months out of 24 of the project's lifetime (50% of phase 4 completed).

This paper aims at presenting a research roadmap for the short (2015), mid (2020) and long term (2030) in the area of Public Transport (PT) accessibility, as an outcome of the European Commission (EC) funded ACCESS2ALL FP7 research project. For the definition of this roadmap, first, specific goals were set per time horizon. Then, the most important research topics in the area were identified and prioritized. Moreover, experts in the area have been consulted on existing and missing research in accessible PT. Finally, a set of priority issues has emerged, which were described in detail and presented as a roadmap for the coming years.

In this paper, an approach for speed tuning in railway management is proposed in order to optimize journey duration and energy consumption. Indeed, in railway transportation, fastness of travel has often been preferred to other criteria, such as energy. However, for recent years, the concern due to pollution and global warming leads to develop more eco-aware transportation systems, notably for the existing rolling stocks. Nevertheless, reducing energy consumption is, most of the time, achieved at the expense of journey durations. In order to obtain compromises between journey duration and energy saving, this approach deals with a bi-criteria optimization problem, which consists in designing speed profiles integrating both criteria in order to provide patterns of speed control. For that reason, the main objective of the proposed method is to obtain a set of solutions, diversified enough to help decision-makers to choose the most suited speed profile. Based on a state-of-the-art multi-objective evolutionary algorithm, the approach searches for diversified solutions in a continuous space. So as to evaluate these solutions, the Pareto approach is used to assess and rank them. Validating the method is done by applying it on a reallife case study: the Saint-Etienne–Rive de Giers line in France. The outcomes are then detailed and analyzed in order to highlight the efficiency of the method.

Capacity analysis is the only way to formulate traffic organization schemes and evaluate the pros and cons on the work zones of reconstructed expressway. Currently, the lack of work zone capacity modeling and evaluation systems has led to the risk of traffic organization plan failure, which will cause congestion, traffic accidents, and public discontent. First, based on construction zone surveys, the paper defined ten basic forms of reconstructed expressway work zones. Then the basic capacity and adjustment coefficient of several influencing factors, such as the amount and form of lane closed, the median opening length, proportion of trucks, construction work intensity, light condition, and speed limited, were determined based on the measured data and the traffic simulation. Finally, the capacity model was developed to formulate a reasonable construction traffic organization scheme.

In order to effectively attract commuters from private car to public transit, this paper aimed to find out the target population and the attributes of public transit which needs improvement. The research was based on a survey of private car commuters in Shanghai. The survey covered perceptions of public transit and private car service performance, the importance degree of trip attributes, and private car commuters’ intention to switch to public transit. The findings indicate that the target population is female and short distance commuters, because female and short distance private car commuters have lower trip demand and are more likely to switch to public transit. The analysis of Difference-Importance shows that public transit attributes of comfort and timeliness require improvement, and the measures strengthening public transit's comfort level should be taken first.

The Safety Distance Model (SDM) is a key component of the collision prevention system. The SDM research rarely considers vehicle fleet as the research target, as the traditional SDMs only focus on the communication between two vehicles. This paper presents the updated SDMs established on vehicle communication technology characterized by on-time measurement and communication. The research focus is on analyzing vehicle queuing in single lanes which are under car-following status. The absolute and relative SDMs accounting for both the braking theory and driver prediction model, are obtained, which could provide decision-making information to driver. The proposed SDMS are proved to be able to increase the efficiency of vehicle collision prevention.

This paper reports the results of a self-reporting survey (N = 821) that was conducted to examine the travel behaviour of primary school children in the study area of Vadodara city. In many Indian cities including metropolis, auto-rickshaw and van are the main modes opted by the parents for the school trips of children. The issues related to driver's behaviour, safety, comfort and over occupancy of children in vehicles were analysed regarding these current travel modes. An alternative in the form of proposed co-ordinated bus mode providing service to two or more schools and working simultaneously was offered to the school children and the response to this service was modelled by using logit models. The survey result indicates the complaints of more than 60% respondents for the current travel modes. Most effective reasons for choosing the current travel modes of auto-rickshaw and van are door to door service (>50%) and regularity of service (>40%). As about 83% respondents agreed for decision to travel in co-ordinated bus, so this indicates higher probability regarding acceptance of bus service for school trips. Family income and fare relationship seems to be significant for above response. The probability of shifting to co-ordinated bus mode increases if reductions in travel distance and cost can be achieved. Also the significant parameters are age of child, number of persons in family, expected walk time, number of employed persons in family and car ownership in family at 90% confidence level. Bus routes and the number of buses have been estimated based on the study. The proposed co-ordinated bus service is found to be economically viable.

This paper presents results of an analysis of the most relevant urban guided transportation projects of the last decades, to understand root causes of failures and relevant variances from previously estimated parameters. The authors collected information from all sides of the project – history of the transportation network, social environment, technical choices – reading documentation and interviewing stakeholders. Major problems emerging during the executing phases turn out to be managerial and referable to project management areas. So the authors addressed the modern theory of project management based on complexity, which seemed to be fit for urban transportation projects.

In the past three years the first pilot projects in the fields of RSIA (Road Safety Impact Assessment), RSA (Road Safety Audit) and RSI (Road Safety Inspection) have been carried out in Slovenia. The guidelines for these three areas were thus drafted according to the first findings stemming from conducted pilot projects.This paper deals with the findings from the first Slovenian pilot projects in RSI and presents the typical traffic safety deficiencies and irregularities of Slovenian roads and motorways. Pilot projects covered about 36km of motorways and approximately 24km of other state roads.