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To study the problems and opportunities for implementation of high-speed railway (HSR) projects, as well as to confirm the potential demand for highspeed transportation services, the authors studied public opinion regarding three of the potential HSR lines as well as the experience of foreign countries in implementation of projected passenger traffic, financing of construction of high-speed main lines and assessing their impact on the general economic growth of regions.When conducting the study, the authors used the methods of a questionnaire sociological survey, analysis, comparison, induction.The main results of the study have shown that in development and implementation of expensive highspeed rail projects, it is of particular importance to identify the demand of passengers for high-speed transportation, the general attitude and readiness of the population of countries to use such main lines. The article has studied the dynamics of demand for passenger transportation by branded and non-branded trains on key directions, which made it possible to identify several of them as the most promising for development of high-speed lines. The sociological research carried out by the authors, using the method of questioning in social networks, made it possible to reveal the attitude of the country’s residents towards the most potentially promising for high-speed rail projects directions: Moscow–St. Petersburg, Moscow– Kazan and Moscow–Rostov-on-Don. According to the results of the survey, Russians have a positive attitude to development of high-speed railways in the country, most of the respondents intend to use them when it is necessary to make interurban trips, especially on Moscow–St. Petersburg route.The authors present the external economic effects and risks of development of high-speed railways in Russia. The effects comprise the growth of the population’s transport mobility. The potential risks of developing high-speed rail projects are associated with complexity of ensuring reliable operation of rolling stock and infrastructure of these main lines under difficult climatic conditions in Russia, as well as with high cost of travel for Russians, which negatively affects demand. To overcome the latter risk, it is important to form a positive image of projects by modelling public opinion.

Public transportation is a shared transportation service, and includes urban public transit and intercity public transportation. The main transportation modes in urban public transit are buses, trams, trolleybuses, trains, and metro. Ferries also appear in some cities in the world as an urban transportation mode. Airlines, buses, intercity rail, and, in some countries, high-speed rail are the transportation modes that appear in intercity public transportation. Some of the biggest transit operators in the world operate a few thousand buses and serve a few hundred bus routes. They employ thousands of drivers. The world's largest airline serves approximately 100 airports in 41 countries with a fleet of nearly 700 aircraft. This chapter considers planning and operations in public transportation systems and includes public transportation network design, service frequencies determination, vehicle and crew scheduling, disruption management, and revenue management problems. The chapter deals with urban public transit systems, interurban road transport systems, and air transportation.

The combined use of the bicycle and the train in the Netherlands has risen steadily over the past decade. However, little is yet known about the underlying processes driving the growth of bike–train use in the Netherlands. Are new bike–train trips replacing car trips, or are they primarily an extension of existing train travel and cycling practices? The present study investigates this question by exploring the main trajectories of bike–train uptake in the Randstad area. Following a mobility biographies approach, our study seeks to identify the triggers or “key events” which lead to the uptake of bike–train use, and explores their relationship with existing travel behaviour. To this end, we carried out an online survey aimed at people who started commuting regularly by bike–train. Our results show that trajectories of uptake are varied, with a similar proportion of respondents starting to commute by bike–train in order to replace cycling, driving and public transport. While in some cases people shifted to bike–train on their existing commuting trip, most respondents started travelling by bike–train following a change in work or residential location. Overall, our findings suggest that most people do not start commuting by bike–train out of particular preference, but merely because they consider it provides the best available option. Nevertheless, the large proportion of respondents with access to a car suggests that the bike–train system is able to provide an attractive alternative to car-based interurban mobility.

Shared automated vehicles (SAV) are expected to become part of on-demand transport systems in the future. In an interurban context, SAV systems may potentially contribute to significantly improve the availability and quality of public transport. In this paper, we propose a flow-based integer programming approach to design and assess the financial viability of a SAV interurban system. An integer programming model, based on profit maximization and allowing vehicle pooling, was developed to optimize the fleet size and vehicle movements of a typical working day. This model and its optimal results were the basis for assessing the financial viability of an interurban transport network in the central area of Portugal. Different levels of demand were tested and three different fleet compositions were considered: cars, minibuses, and a mixed fleet of both. The results showed that a mixed fleet of vehicles is the best option for profit maximization. The optimal share of each vehicle type, in this fleet composition, asymptotically converges to approximately 1/3 of cars and 2/3 of minibuses, as demand increases. The introduction of a SAV system in such a region for interurban trips can replace up to 18 private vehicles per SAV vehicle, and should be done with sequential expansions to guarantee a profit at the different stages. The break-even point, for the conditions of the case study, is between 1.5 and 2 passengers per vehicle, for a fleet of cars, and between 4 and 5 passengers per vehicle, for a fleet of minibuses.

The ongoing increase of bicycle traffic in urban areas forces transport authorities to reconsider the space allocation for different transport modes. Transport policies favor the introduction of high-quality bicycle infrastructure along urban corridors to improve the traffic quality and safety for bicyclists but more importantly to increase the attractiveness of bicycling and over vehicular modes. Especially in urban areas with an already established high and steadily increasing share of bicyclists, the introduction of bicycle highways is considered to further alleviate saturated interurban public transport and motor vehicle connections and increase the average traveled distance by non-motorized modes. Due to the expensive implementation costs and the space restrictions in already built-up urban environments, there should be an extensive planning phase for defining the expected changes in traffic efficiency and safety. However, the effects of urban bicycle highways on traffic performance metrics of bicyclists as well as other road users are not thoroughly studied. This paper aims to quantify and assess the potential effects of urban bicycle highway on road users. The study considers a possible inner-city pilot route in the city of Munich, where the present bicycle infrastructure is planned to be upgraded to a bicycle highway. A simulation model is designed using traffic data from field observations and future estimates for the traffic composition. Through microscopic traffic simulation, the potential effects of the introduced infrastructure on road users are determined for different study scenarios. Results show that traffic quality thresholds for bicycle highways, as defined in official guidelines, can only be fulfilled through the implementation of special bicycle traffic control measures such as bicycle coordination or bicycle passage time extension. Finally, unidirectional bicycle highways together with bicycle passage time extension provided the best overall traffic performance for bicycle traffic and motor vehicle traffic.

Providing a sustainable public transport service for areas with several small villages or hamlets is a challenge for the whole of Europe. To serve &lsquo, dead-end villages&rsquo, vehicles must make a to-and-fro detour to each village, which requires considerable performance from the operator, and the service must also be ordered from the responsible bodies. The number of inhabitants in rural areas is constantly decreasing, and the remaining residents are aging. This process is due to the fact that economically active people in the country tend to move into towns offering jobs and public institutions instead of commuting to work. The performance requirement of serving low transport demand areas like &lsquo, is high, while the number of passengers is very low. Furthermore, passengers are economically less active, and thus their transport must largely be subsidized. The present study hypothesizes that replacing traditional public transport with demand responsive transport (DRT) can make the service of rural areas with less public transport service and low demand sustainable. To prove this hypothesis, a generally applicable, innovative method of analysis based on performance&ndash, allocation is introduced, and the application of this method is illustrated by a case study conducted in northeastern Hungary. The number of &lsquo, is high in the surveyed area, consequently, the results are impressive. The mathematical model applied here uses several parameters (e.g., population, traffic surveys, trip distance, operational costs), thus the analysis is highly complex.

The paper presents an overview of safety and insights regarding traffic at highway intermediate cross-sections in the interurban highway network. This overview includes rigid and soft ‘one plus one’ cross-sections, passing lanes traffic and geometric characteristics, as well as criteria for widening a two-lane highway to form a divided multilane highway. The design overview of intermediate highway cross-sections includes traffic and safety warrants, design speed characteristics and cross-section infrastructure components, including elements that enhance traffic safety. These developments are partly an outcome of the new Israeli geometric design policy and controls for rural (interurban) highways.

Transportation assets play a crucial role in the development of society, being the backbone of socio-economic development but also a key contributor to climate change. Transportation asset management systems include a set of tools to support agencies in the decision on which infrastructure of a network should be preserved, maintained and/or rehabilitated. However, the evaluation of these networks has traditionally focused on economic and technical aspects of interurban networks. Considering the direct impacts on the evolution of social and natural environments, management of these assets needs to be sustainable. This article proposes a methodology for the sustainable management of transportation assets, by integrating technical, economic, environmental, social and political aspects in the Life Cycle-Assessment of a network. The methodology proposes a framework that integrates these aspects in the various components and processes considered in a management system. It incorporates a Geographic Information System as the main platform to pursue the socio-political analysis based on geographical referencing of formalized variables. The proposed framework is applied to a case study for the management of an urban pavement network. Outcomes demonstrate that it is possible to integrate sustainable aspects, despite their diverse nature, in a management system supported by a Geographic Information System.

Background: Working conditions and psychosocial work factors have acquired an important role explaining the well-being and performance of professional drivers, including those working in the field of public transport. This study aimed to examine the association between job strain and the operational performance of public transport drivers and to compare the expositions with psychosocial risk at work of three different types of transport workers: taxi drivers, city bus drivers, and interurban bus drivers. Method: A sample of 780 professional drivers was drawn from three transport companies in Bogota (Colombia). The participants answered the Job Content Questionnaire and a set of sociodemographic and driving performance questions, including age, professional driving experience, work schedules, and accidents and penalties suffered in the last 2 years. Results: Analyses showed significant associations between measures of socio-labor variables and key performance indicators such road traffic accidents and penalties. Furthermore, multiple linear regression analysis contributed to explain significantly suffered accidents from key variables of the Job Demand-Control model, essentially from job strain. In addition, throughout post-hoc analyses, significant differences were found in terms of perceived social support, job strain, and job insecurity. Conclusion: Work stress is an issue that compromises the safety of professional drivers. This research provides evidence supporting a significant effect of job strain on the professional driver's performance. Moreover, the statistically significant differences between taxi drivers, city bus drivers, and interurban bus drivers in their expositions to work-related stress suggest the need for tailored occupational safety interventions on each occupational group. Keywords: Job strain, Professional drivers, Psychosocial factors at work, Road traffic accidents, Working conditions

The development of quality policies applied to the public transport sector has increased the operators and managers interest in ensuring passengers’ satisfaction standards; therefore, their actions have been instrumented through the quality of service perception. In this context, the research project GESCAL performs a comparative analysis about the evaluation techniques used by the operators, from the passengers’ point of view, as a tool that support the service quality management. This comparison shapes the innovative nature of this research. This paper presents, the diversity of procedures carried out at a national level for evaluating passengers’ perceptions about the transit service quality. Some conclusions are obtained through a qualitative analysis based on in-depth interviews conducted to operators and administrations of different public transport services (bus, train, tramway and light rail services in the urban, metropolitan and interurban contexts).These results permit to affirm that these procedures are to a large extent standardized, but the implemented methodologies are heterogeneous between organizations due to the influence of the exogenous context and different endogenous factors of the organization. Likewise, the objectives of the quality evaluation service campaigns can be affected by these conditioning factors and, in some cases there is no correspondence between the applied methodology and the postulated objectives

Urban scaling laws assume that the performance of a city largely relies on its urban population size. However, two cities with the same population size may have vastly different economic outputs, which reveals that factors apart from urban size (a measurement of intra-urban interactions) determine their economic outputs. Economic production is essentially the product of social interactions. Urban population size and interurban interactions reflected by population mobility were both considered to evaluate the scaling of urban economic outputs in this paper. We quantified the scaling relationship between urban economic outputs and interurban interactions, and compared it with the paradigm derived from urban size. Results showed that urban economic outputs scale with urban interactions across cities and present the same super-linear scaling regimes but with a greater scaling exponent. A deeper looking showed that interurban interactions definitely bring a more obvious super-linearity than population size but the scaling relationship between urban size and economic outputs is more robust. Urban population size has a greater impact on Gross Domestic Product (GDP), secondary and tertiary industries output products, total retail sales of consumer goods and total wage with 60– 65% relative contribution. For exports, interurban interactions and urban population size are almost equally important. We also proved that interactions between cities are significantly positively correlated with urban extra growth. These findings provide convictive evidence that in addition to population size, interurban interaction is also crucial for exploring the scaling of urban growth. Our results are enlightening to the study of mechanisms and evolutions of urban scaling that interurban interaction besides urban population size should both be a vital consideration to urban economic outputs.

Traditionally, road traffic has been considered the main noise source in urban and interurban areas. As a consequence, governments have developed some new regulations to assess and control these constantly growing noise sources [1] . At the same time, numerous research groups have analysed and studied the main characteristics of new models of vehicles as a noise source and how technological improvements can reduce the overall levels emitted by road traffic, considered as a linear source. However, the sound effect of mechanical wear of vehicles has not been deeply studied, neither analysed. This paper aims to analyse the evolution of noise emissions of different vehicle types over time, based on the results of real technical inspections of vehicles. Since August 2004, the Technical Inspection of Vehicles Centres (ITVs) located in the Valencian Region have been recording the noise emissions levels of millions of vehicles in static tests, in accordance with Decree 19/2004 [2] passed by the Consell de la Generalitat (Regional Council). This extensive data logging provides a great opportunity to evaluate sound characteristics of the vehicles of this region over the last 7 years. Therefore, in this paper, sound trend of different types of vehicles depending on the passing of the years is analysed. The purpose of this study is to determine the evolution of the sound level of vehicles over time and the influence on traffic noise prediction models used to develop noise maps.

The article presents urban agriculture as a practice that is gaining attention in many cities worldwide, and focuses in particular on the experiences in Mexico City. It first gives a general description of urban agriculture, introduces some conceptual dimensions and presents a policy framework to stimulate agriculture in cities worldwide. It then discusses current practices in the periurban, suburban and interurban parts of Mexico City, and analyses them in terms of their economic, ecological, social and symbolic dimension. The article shows that Mexico City produces some 20% of its own food, but that its importance in economic terms – seen as employment and income generation – is still limited. Its contribution to the ecological infrastructure of the city equally is limited but has potential, as recent policies firmly integrate urban agriculture in environmental policies of the city. An important challenge is to expand urban agriculture to the 22,000 m 2 of green roof gardens recently created in the city. In terms of the social dimension, it is observed that Mexico City clearly follows international policy recommendations, invests in capacity building and has policies to help vulnerable groups and women. Finally it addresses the symbolic dimension and observes that this is very important in Mexico City, as urban agriculture is seen as a way to restore some of the pre-Hispanic practices of the Aztecs especially the Floating gardens or Chinampas that have largely been lost due to colonization. Its final conclusion is that a policy to balance the economic, ecological, social and symbolic dimensions of urban agriculture is missing, and that such a policy is important, especially for the periurban zone of the city, where most of the food is produced.

Statistical methods such as Poisson distribution, negative binomial regression (NB), and zero inflated negative binomial regression (ZINB) have generally been used in road safety studies to establish the complex relationships between variables. Over the last few years, the artificial neural networks (ANN) model has also been used. The ANN model does not have any prior limitations such as the equality condition of mean and variance observed in Poisson regression. However, though the ANN model has been used in the analysis of different accident types, to the best of our knowledge, no study has used the ANN model for establishing this relationship with truck accident data on divided multilane interurban roads. In this study, the road sections D750/07–D750/15 in Ankara–Aksaray–Eregli, Turkey, were considered and truck accident data from 2008 to 2011 were analyzed using NB and ANN. The analysis show that the ANN model has lower errors and higher R2 values than NB and performs slightly better than NB fo...

Freight transportation is an important factor in Turkish economic growth, and the high volume of truck traffic has increased traffic accidents on Turkish roads. However, to the best of our knowledge, no studies have investigated the factors that contribute to truck accidents. This study aims to reduce truck accident involvement and quantify the effect of variables on the occurrence of truck accidents on divided multilane interurban roads in Turkey. This study documents the performance of Poisson, Negative Binomial (NB), and Zero-inflated Negative Binomial Regression (ZINB) models to establish the relation between truck accidents and traffic and geometric road characteristics on a 282 km section of the Ankara–Aksaray–Eregli divided multilane interurban road. Model coefficients were estimated by the maximum likelihood method, and deviance and the Akaike information criterion were considered as goodness of fit statistics. The Vuong test was used to determine the appropriateness of using the ZINB model rather than the NB model. The results show that the NB model fitted the data very well. The proposed model for Turkish divided multilane interurban roads with a high percentage of truck traffic might be useful to detect critical factors and reduce truck accident involvement.

The paper presents an extensive theoretical background related to the travel time and the studies that were conducted during the recent years on the subject. As a concept, travel time is related to the period of time spent in travelling between two different points in space. The analysis focuses on several aspects related to the travel time concept such as its usefulness, its influencing factors, and data collection methods for its determination. In order to also provide a practical outcome, the main interurban road connection between Cluj-Napoca and Tîrgu-Mureş was studied. The road trespasses both urban and rural localities in the North-Western of Romania. For the data collection process, a GPS-based equipment was placed on a test vehicle to run the route for multiple times, at different days and hours. The collected data were studied by means of statistical analysis in order to establish the most relevant aspects of the travel time. The research goal of the paper was to evaluate the influence exerted by demographics and type of locality on travel time by means of eventual delays. The main findings were employed to analyze the traffic conditions as well as the parameters that have a major impact on them. According to the results of the analysis, the traffic flow on the interurban route is best described by the travel time and consequently the delays registered due to multiple obstructive elements such as railway level crossings, pedestrian crossings within the localities, and level intersections between different roads category. However, according to the study, it can also be concluded that travel time and therefore the eventual delays are not influenced to a great extent by neither the type of transited localities - urban or rural, nor the demographics.

The basic principle for a proper road design is a balanced consideration of the factors capacity and safety adapted in an environment-friendly context. This approach, generally adopted in the case of interurban road projects is also applicable to small urban localities. In a remedial street design plan the factor “environment” needs to be examined in close relation with road safety and traffic capacity at the design stage. The aim of the new tendency in urban road network re-design is to find solutions that meet the need of society to move easily and safely, all by providing a pleasant natural background. In this paper, basic principles for the re-design of street networks combining safe mobility with friendly environment and aesthetics are presented. This model for street re-design was applied to three small towns of the Prefecture of Phthia, to face serious traffic and environment problems. Accordingly, the formulated proposal moved towards a holistic consideration of the urban road space and the related activities, operations and peculiarities. The accent was given to concrete but applicable measures to accommodate and assist the varying needs of citizens for mobility providing a street network that is driven calmly enhancing the surrounding environment.

Electronic payment is increasing inexorably as a means of paying for the use of toll roads worldwide. However, it is necessary to increase the effectiveness and expediency of this mechanism, as well as improve policy issues such as privacy or data management. The state of the art in this field typically analyzes users’ perceptions and willingness to pay to use toll roads. However, research addressing drivers’ attitudes toward the use of electronic toll collection (ETC) systems is not sufficiently developed. The aim of this paper is to identify the explanatory variables influencing toll road users’ use of ETC technologies. For that purpose, based on a nationwide survey directed toward road users of interurban toll roads in Spain, a binomial logit model was developed to explore users’ attitudes toward the use of ETC systems. The research concludes that drivers’ tag ownership is related mainly to trip-related attributes, while personal socioeconomic characteristics play a minor role. In addition, free tags would be an effective policy measure to increase toll road use, given that a majority of respondents show a positive response.

Interurban air mobility, as addressed in this paper, refers to air transportation activities designed for small groups of 2–6 passengers traveling relatively short distances between locations 200–300 miles apart. These first few hundred miles is where general aviation can make a big impact for business and tourist travelers, going directly where they want and when they want. This paper defends the argument that the major transformational process required to revamp the piston-engine aircraft industry will be made possible by a set of emergent, exponential technologies coalescing in the field of aviation over the next five years. The personal aircraft coming into service by 2025 will be simpler to operate and more capable than today's piston-engine aircraft because of a rare convergence of apparently unrelated technologies, mainly electric propulsion, automation, and autonomy.

The network communication of the centralized traffic control(CTC) is one of the most important aspect that cause the CTC fault, so it has important impact on the CTC's normal work. The network construction, channel and the route realization method of the CTC used now can make the facility to miss data, delay information or break off the communication and so on. Using the loop net and the double channel among the railway station, the information transmission double redundancy has been improved and not change the hardware of the CTC. Through the example of Qing-Rong interurban railway of the Jinan Railway Bureau, it has proved that the method in the paper can effectively increase the stability of the CTC.

Based on choice experiments conducted in the Rhone-Alpes Region (France), we estimate an Integrated Choice and Latent Variable model that addresses heterogeneity in values of interurban travel time. We evaluate how sensitivity to travel time by public transport is distributed according to the level of comfort. Comfort is modeled as a function of objective attributes and individual perceptions about it: whether a seat is guaranteed, quality of trip experience (feelings experienced), (perceived) use of travel time during the trip, and overall ease of using public transport (perceived behavioral control). The results show that the last two play a significant role in the choice of a public transport mode and that the value of time function is downward sloping with higher levels of objective and perceived comfort. We discuss public policy implications and show that the most effective measure, in terms of economic benefits, would be to optimize and target investments in seat capacity supply.

The twentieth century witnessed the closure of many kilometres of railway lines that once came to structure their surrounding territory. Although nowadays many of them are converted in greenways, this paper supports that disused railway lines could also operate as non-motorised transport axes related to daily activities, organising their surrounding territory. In this regard, it is necessary to measure the potential of the line, studying the relations created between the disused line and its surrounding environment by means of non-motorised accessibility analyses. The presented methodology analyses accessibility around a linear system with a multilevel approach: regional, interurban and urban. Each approach provides results of different scales, but in turn provides results of the whole line areas, enabling the comprehension of the potentiality of the infrastructure as a non-motorised axis and the connection with its urban and rural environment. The proposed methodology has been applied in a case study, demonstrating the capability of non-motorised routes to structure the territory and attend several activities, giving rise to more sustainable transport.

Two years after the deregulation of the German interurban bus industry in January 2013, two new entrants emerged as market leaders: MeinFernbus (MFB) and FlixBus (FB). We use a comprehensive route-level data set to investigate the determinants of route entry for both providers. Applying survival models, we find that both companies show an increased probability to enter populous, centrally located routes with large shares of young inhabitants; however, they both avoid entries into routes including an airport or with low quality rail connection. Furthermore, both market leaders refrain from entering small and medium-sized routes in which another provider is already operating. In large markets, however, they both show an increased entry probability independent of the presence of a competitor.

The work presented in this paper aims to model and solve multi-criteria international itinerary planning problems The emerging itinerary planning problems are defined on a multimodal time-dependent transportation network that consists of hierarchically interconnected international, interurban and urban transportation networks. The itinerary planning problems under study fall into two major categories: i) static, and ii) dynamic. The static refers to journey planning decisions at the pre-trip phase while the dynamic refers to the journey on-trip re-planning problem. An overall solution approach was developed for solving the proposed international itinerary planning problems. This approach involves a pre-processing stage in which a customized international sub-network is designed and stored for each pair of potential origin and destination countries of a trip request. In this context, addressing any trip request involves recalling just the corresponding customized sub-network instead of the entire international transportation network. Subsequently the international itinerary planning problem is solved on the customized network leading to a list of alternative generic itineraries, i.e., itineraries for which only the international transportation links are fully specified.

International audience; This paper explores the interplay between trade costs and urban costs within a new economic geography model in which workers are mobile. As in former research, we show that workers tend at the same time to agglomerate in order to limit trade costs of manufactured goods and to scatter in order to alleviate the burden of urban costs due to large urban areas. In this paper, special attention is paid to the role of congestion, which acts as a dispersion force and hampers workers from agglomerating in the same urban area. We show that the development of public transport, or the construction of road infrastructure, modifies the spatial organization of the economy and fosters agglomeration, as it reduces congestion.

Interest in vehicle automation has been growing in recent years, especially with the very visible Google car project. Although full automation is not yet a reality there has been significant research on the impacts of self-driving vehicles on traffic flows, mainly on interurban roads. However, little attention has been given to what could happen to urban mobility when all vehicles are automated. In this paper we propose a new method to study how replacing privately owned conventional vehicles with automated ones affects traffic delays and parking demand in a city. The model solves what we designate as the User Optimum Privately Owned Automated Vehicles Assignment Problem (UO-POAVAP), which dynamically assigns family trips in their automated vehicles in an urban road network from a user equilibrium perspective where, in equilibrium, households with similar trips should have similar transport costs. Automation allows a vehicle to travel without passengers to satisfy multiple household trips and, if needed, to park itself in any of the network nodes to benefit from lower parking charges. Nonetheless, the empty trips can also represent added congestion in the network. The model was applied to a case study based on the city of Delft, the Netherlands. Several experiments were done, comparing scenarios where parking policies and value of travel time (VTT) are changed. The model shows good equilibrium convergence with a small difference between the general costs of traveling for similar families. We were able to conclude that vehicle automation reduces generalized transport costs, satisfies more trips by car and is associated with increased traffic congestion because empty vehicles have to be relocated. It is possible for a city to charge for all street parking and create free central parking lots that will keep total transport costs the same, or reduce them. However, this will add to congestion as traffic competes to access those central nodes. In a scenario where a lower VTT is experienced by the travelers, because of the added comfort of vehicle automation, the car mode share increases. Nevertheless this may help to reduce traffic congestion because some vehicles will reroute to satisfy trips which previously were not cost efficient to be done by car. Placing the free parking in the outskirts is less attractive due to the extra kilometers but with a lower VTT the same private vehicle demand would be attended with the advantage of freeing space in the city center.

This paper reports on the results of a drivers' survey regarding the effects of speed cameras for speed enforcement in Israel. The survey was part of a larger study that accompanied the introduction of digital speed cameras. Speed camera deployment started in 2011, and till the end of 2013 twenty-one cameras were deployed in interurban road sections. Yearly surveys were taken between 2010 and 2013 in 9 gas stations near speed camera installation sites in order to capture drivers' opinions about speed and enforcement. Overall, 1993 drivers were interviewed. In terms of admitted speed behavior, 38% of the drivers in 2010, 21% in 2011, 13% in 2012 and 11% in 2013 reported that their driving speed was above the perceived posted speed limit. The proportion of drivers indicating some speed camera influence on driving decreased over the years. In addition, the majority of drivers (61%) predicted positive impact of speed cameras on safety. This result did not change significantly over the years. The main stated explanation for speed limit violations was time pressure, while the main stated explanation for respecting the posted speed was enforcement, rather than safety concerns. Linear regression and sigmoidal models were applied to describe the linkage between the reported driving speed (dependent) and the perceived posted speed (independent). The sigmoidal model fitted the data better, especially at high levels of the perceived posted speeds. That is, although the perceived posted speed increased, at some point the actual driving speed levels off (asymptote) and did not increase. Moreover, we found that the upper asymptote of the sigmoidal model decreased over the years: from 113.22 (SE=18.84)km/h in 2010 to 88.92 (SE=1.55)km/h in 2013. A wide variance in perceived speed limits suggest that drivers may not know what the speed limits really are.

Introduction: Taxi drivers’ exposure to repeat whole-body vibrations can cause back pain and digestive disorders. Since this type of vibration depends on the car components, this study was carried out to determine the influence of tire characteristics on the amount of whole-body vibrations transmitted to the Peugeot 405 taxi drivers. Methods: In this experimental study, vibration characteristics were measured according to the ISO2631-1 with each of the statuses: tubeless tires fixed and fluid in it (normal air or nitrogen) and also the fluid in the tires fixed with tubes or tubeless on asphalt-paved road. Other variables including tire pressure, engine speed, road gradient, number of passengers, springs, and shock absorbers were kept constant. Then the effect of changes was analyzed using an appropriate statistical test. Results: After changing nitrogen to normal air and tubeless tires to tube, the average of RMS in Z-axis, eight-hour equivalent acceleration A(8) and crest factor were reduced (P < 0.05). Also, A(8) reduced from health risk zone (> 0.9 m/s2) to caution zone (0.45-0.9 m/s2) with a value of 0.8 m/s2. Conclusions: The amount of vibration transmitted to the whole body is sensitive to existence of tubes and tires inflation so that we can reduce the amount of whole-body vibration to lower than the upper limit of the health risk by changing the characteristics of the tire

Developing driver-oriented highway performance measures is the key to performance-based highway design. Highways should be designed so that an appropriate performance measure corresponding to major highway functions can achieve a required level of quality of traffic service. Quantitative assessments of performance measures need to evaluate the achieved level of performance as compared with the required level. Various measures have been proposed, such as overall travel speed, target travel speed, travel time, traffic safety, traffic density, congestion, freedom to maneuver, and driving comfort and convenience (HRB, 1965; TRB, 1985; FGSV, 1988). However, it is unclear how existing performance measures relate to driver perceptions of the quality of traffic service. This study focuses on ease of access to destinations as a new driver-oriented performance measure under various driving conditions on interurban expressways connecting hub cities. This measure indicates the ease of maintaining vehicle speed near a target travel speed while maintaining a constant headway in the lane. The authors hereinafter refer to this measure as “interurban accessibility.” Interurban accessibility can be expressed as the sum total of utility that each driver perceives from smooth and safe traffic flow at each point in interurban expressway lanes. The objectives of this study are twofold. One objective is to develop an estimation method for interurban accessibility based on driver utility as proposed by Kita et al. (2014). Their experimental results indicate that the authors proposed measure more appropriately describes driver perceptions of the quality of traffic service than do previously proposed performance measures. The other objective is to demonstrate how to use interurban accessibility to determine the planning level of the performance measure in comparison with a required level of quality of traffic service. In modeling the interurban accessibility measure, the level of interurban accessibility decreases as travel time between hub cities increases or as freedom to maneuver decreases because of congestion and delays. Hence, the authors model of interurban accessibility assumes a target travel time, defined as the travel distance divided by the target travel speed, so interurban accessibility is presumed to increase with travel speed. In addition, Kita and Kouchi (2011) showed that perception structures of interurban accessibility are momentarily formed by accumulating perceived values. Hence, the authors model involves both average and minimum point-based utilities in microscopic driving environments, so that accident risks contingent on speed can be considered for each point-based utility. Moreover, accumulation of point-based utilities between hub cities is considered to exert a decisive influence on the level of interurban accessibility. Driver memory is assumed to decay over elapsed driving time. Hence, accumulated point-based utilities are multiplied by a time discount factor, so that average point-based utilities are obtained to average the discounted point-based utilities. This study proposes a method for assessing the planning level of performance measures by means of an interurban accessibility estimation model, as compared with a required level of quality of traffic service. The authors therefore utilize exceedance probability of a probability distribution function regarding interurban accessibility. Note that, regarding traffic management and control through the use of a highway performance measure, it is believed to be better to apply data from roadside continuous-traffic-monitoring devices. Therefore, this study proposes a method for assessing interurban accessibility by examining traffic volume, which is easy to observe at each device. Before assessing the planning level of the measure as compared with the required level, the distribution of the interurban accessibility measure must be particularized. The authors presents a flowchart for specifying the distribution of a measure. The procedure of this flowchart requires a probability distribution of instant utility and a probability distribution of difference in instant utility between two points. The former requires distributions of time headway and spot speed, and the latter requires microscopic driving environments such as space headway that each driver perceives. Both the former and the latter require data on traffic volume and travel distance. The travel distance here means a given highway distance between hub cities. The distributions of the time headway and spot speed are affected by traffic characteristics such as road gradient and large-vehicle mix rate, in addition to the traffic volume. The following describes the procedure of the proposed flowchart. Firstly, assuming that the distribution of the time headway and that of the spot speed can be approximated by a log-normal distribution and a normal distribution, respectively, data on both the time headway and the spot speed are generated. Secondly, assuming that the distribution of the instant utility and that of the difference in instant utility between two neighboring points can be approximated by a shifted log-normal distribution and a Cauchy distribution, respectively, data on both the instant utility and the difference in instant utility between two points are generated. Thirdly, according to the point-based utility model, the number of point-based utilities for each point is generated based on Monte Carlo simulation employing both the distribution of the instant utility and that of the difference in instant utility between two points. Finally, a distribution of the interurban accessibility can be obtained from the interurban accessibility estimation model. Here, as a critical value indicating an exceedance probability of 85% in this distribution, a planning level of the performance measure is considered. Through a numerical example, the authors confirmed that the proposed measure can better describe driver perception than can existing measures such as travel speed. Consequently, the authors believe that performance-based highway design considering data obtained from vehicle detectors is possible by considering interurban accessibility as the performance measure.

While common digital road network graphs are able to represent real-world street network topology relations quite adequately, they are highly generalized with regard to the composition of a road. Irrespective of their actual number of lanes, roads are shown as just one single line. As many intelligent transportation systems (ITS) applications require or provide lane-specific data and services, this is no longer sufficient from a short- to medium-term perspective. In particular, automated driving requires high-accuracy graphs both in topology and in geometry to localize positions not only on the correct road, but also in the correct lane. In the following paper, a cost-effective methodology for deriving such lane-level road network graphs will be described. The methodology is applied to standard GNSS trajectories collected for three different road types (urban, interurban, motorway) by vehicles participating in real-world traffic situations (Floating Car Data). The methodology extracts the number and position of lane centrelines from pre-processed GNSS trajectories using a kernel density estimation (KDE) and distance relations. Results show that the proposed method can, depending on the quality of the input data, reliably model lane centrelines for different road settings.

This paper is focused on the effect of road geometry, and other accident causing conditions, on the binary response variable road accident severity. The data is collected from two interurban routes in Spain (Madrid-Irún and Barcelona-Almeria) and covers a 3 year period (2010-2012). Data mining techniques were applied for the treatment and combination of two databases for road accident associated factors and geometry standards respectively. The effect of the influential factors on road accident severity was estimated through a non-parametric statistical methodology, random forests. Several standards of the road geometry design were found to have a significant effect on the road accident severity.

The subject of the paper is a brief description of the state of bicycle transport in the region of South Bohemia, the analysis of planning and financing its development. The aim of the paper is to outline the issue of cycling infrastructure in urban and interurban planning, especially in view of methods for determining the share of bicycle transport on modal split within the specific area. The paper includes possibilities of obtaining data about bicycle traffic and outlines the steps to perform manual bike flow counting on a specific project in the city of Ceske Budejovice.

International audience; The aim of this article is to conduct an analysis of the consequences of public modal shift policies on interurban journeys in France (people who live and work in two separate functional urban areas). It measures and analyses three facets of these policies: the potential for a modal shift from the car to public transport, the environmental consequences (CO2 emissions) and the social consequences (transport costs) of such a shift. The increase in travel costs brought about by higher fuel prices or from charges for access to urban centres, together with a reduction in the costs of travelling by public transport, are the three elements which-according to the models-have the biggest influence on modal shift and the reduction in CO2 emissions. However, our findings also show that these policies are socially regressive in that they financially advantage the higher socioeconomic categories.

Traffic enforcement drones reduce high-risk driving behavior which often leads to traffic crashes. However, the introduction of drones may face a public acceptance challenge which may severely hinder their potential impact. In this paper, we report and discuss the results of a drivers' survey, administered both in the US and Israel, regarding the benefits, concerns and policy considerations for the deployment of traffic enforcement drones. The results show that drivers perceive traffic enforcement drones as significantly more efficient and deterring compared to current aerial traffic enforcement resources (i.e., police helicopters) and comparable in quality to speed cameras. Privacy and safety are the main concerns expressed with regards to such technology, yet these concerns have been shown to be significantly relieved if traffic enforcement drones are restricted to interurban spaces. Interestingly, only a few Israeli participants object to the introduction of traffic enforcement drones to the traffic police's arsenal compared to about half of American participants. These results combine to suggest several practical guidelines for decision-makers which can facilitate the deployment of this potentially life-saving technology in the field.

Um die Mobilität der Zukunft umweltfreundlicher zu gestalten, entwickelt das Deutsche Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e. V. (DLR) innovative Fahrzeugtypen im Rahmen des DLR-internen Projektes Next Generation Car (NGC). Das Inter Urban Vehicle (IUV) ist beispielsweise ein emissionsfreies, automatisiert fahrendes Fahrzeug für das Jahr 2035, welches hohe Reichweite und eine sichere Fahrgastzelle garantieren soll. Das Institut für Fahrzeugkonzepte in Stuttgart entwickelt hierfür eine Karosserie, welche den zukünftigen Anforderungen entspricht. Hohe Reichweite und lange Laufleistung werden durch den Einsatz von Brennstoffzelle und faserverbundintensiver Bauweise ermöglicht. Zusätzlich hilft die Möglichkeit zur Einbindung von weiteren Funktionen in das Laminat, das Gesamtgewicht des Fahrzeugs zu reduzieren. Aus sicherheitstechnischen Gründen muss insbesondere die Struktur um die Wasserstofftanks so ausgelegt sein, dass selbst in Crash-Situationen die Tanks unbeschädigt bleiben. Eine Herausforderung dabei ist die simulative Abbildung der Versagensmechanismen bei Einsatz hybrider, thermoplastischer Bauweisen, um Bauteile realitätsnah optimieren zu können. Unter Berücksichtigung zukünftiger Fertigungsaspekte und unter Berücksichtigung von Leichtbaupotentialen wie Funktionsintegration oder Hybridbauweise werden thermoplastische Endlosfaserverbundstrukturen entwickelt, welche kritischen Crashanforderungen standhalten sowie für die Fertigung in der automobilen Serie geeignet sind.

Congestion is an ever increasing problem for infrastructures in interurban as well as urban areas. All solutions aim to encourage greater use of public transport and/or penalize the use of the private car. However, the economic structures surrounding the concessions for running public transport services are in many cases very delicate, which means that operating companies are reluctant to invest in making improvements in quality as they do not consider them to be profitable.

A transition towards low-carbon energy sources, such as wind, requires higher levels of public interaction; as such, the ultimate contribution of wind energy relies as much on technological advancements and policies as on societal sentiments. This study evaluates the influence of region, community involvement, and several IEA-recommended practices on social acceptance of wind energy projects among residents ( n = 350) surveyed from cities in four OECD and three non-OECD countries. The results indicate interurban variations among the generally high levels of acceptance reported, especially among residents of cities in developing countries with lower domestic CO 2 emissions. The level of community involvement in a hypothetical wind energy project had a positive effect on acceptance, and respondents from cities in countries with the highest installed wind capacity reported the greatest sensitivity towards involvement. Moreover, the results revealed that although the IEA-recommended practices collectively predicted acceptance across all cities, fair distribution of earnings and costs was the only significant individual predictor. These economic considerations, combined with increased community involvement, appear to be paramount to facilitating future development of wind energy. Through its broad geographical coverage, this research provides valuable groundwork for future cross-cultural studies on social acceptance of wind energy.

This paper presents an original essay that explains the mobility behaviour towards the public transport supply in Tunisia. This research aims to determine the key variables affecting an individual’s decision to travel by public transport and explains how the use of these means fits the mobility strategies. The dynamic panel model is applied to twelve Tunisian Regional companies, where we aim to analyze the behaviours of Tunisian citizens in the regions where Regional Transport Companies ensure the total service supply of urban, interurban and suburban public transport of travellers. The results show that mobility behaviours are subject to various variables. In particular, service quality, mean price and active population are the most significant variables regarding public transport demand in Tunisia.

The possible consequences of the advent of fully automated vehicles (AVs) for personal transport are assessed. A shared-user model is considered preferable to an owner-user model; public-sector intervention is considered necessary to secure the successful integration of AVs with mass transit. Interurban expressways are found to offer a better opportunity than urban roads of capturing the vehicles' potential traffic and safety benefits. AVs' performance in a mixed-fleet scenario is highly dependent on segregation from other road users, but segregation poses significant challenges. The governance of a range of themes (such as demand management and security) is considered. In each case, challenges to achieving a socially desirable outcome are identified. Both laissez-faire and more interventionist styles of governance with respect to AVs present problems but laissez faire may carry greater risk. Decisions on governance should be based on meaningful dialogue with those who stand to be affected.

This article considers the motivations for rapid mass transit (RMT) development in two mid-sized cities: Auckland, New Zealand and Edmonton, Canada. To understand these cities' investment in RMT, we weigh factors related to interurban competition (around economic and non-economic factors) as well as explanations grounded in utilitarian and local benefits. Key informants reported that concerns for urban image and competitiveness were important in both cities. RMT was understood to contribute to both economic performance and international reputation, especially in Auckland. Local benefits related to improvements in economic efficiency and meeting city residents' demand for high-quality public transport.

This paper presents work carried out in the projects STRAIGHTSOL and SMARTFUSION, both funded within the seventh framework programme of the European Commission. Both projects develop and apply an evaluation framework to assess innovative urban and interurban freight transport solutions. The frameworks will be generic and applicable to any measure within the urban-interurban context and across regions in Europe. To reach that goal, the two projects work together on improvements. This paper discusses their common challenges, approaches, provisional outcomes and differences. Next it looks at the lessons that can be learned from each other.

A complex network analysis methodology was adopted to evaluate structural resilience in surface transportation networks with the use of examples of the U.S. highway and Interstate networks in Connecticut and the Indiana interurban railroad network. Resilience in these networks was evaluated alongside that of a biological network, which through millions of years of evolution had developed an adaptive behavior in which cost, efficiency, and resilience were optimized in the feeding network that was constructed. Disruptions in the networks were simulated by using link-based targeted and random strategies. With simulation results, network performance under disruption was assessed by using two metrics: global efficiency and the relative size of the giant component for each disruption strategy. The biological network exhibits superior resistance to disruption regardless of strategy, a quality attributed to its redundant and cyclic weblike network structure and its innate ability to adapt to disruptions by develo...

This paper describes the methodology and the analysis tool developed for a study, carried out in 2012, aimed at the reorganisation of the interurban public transport services of the Piedmont region of Italy. Reorganization was necessary as a result of the reduction in funds allocated to public transport. The authors needed to work on a large dataset spanning different types of data, such as service provision, ridership, economic data, and geographical information. The size of the task warranted the effort to merge all those data into a single database and develop an analysis tool on purpose. Therefore the authors custom built a web-based visual analysis tool, using free web applications, including geo-referenced dynamic maps and allowing users to visualise and interact readily with the information in the database. This web geographic information system (GIS) application was used to characterise public transport lines on the basis of combinations of indicators of interest (such as ridership, number of services and km produced by time unit), or on the basis of their characteristics (such as route overlaps, reference public administration, type of services, e.g. daily, for schoolchildren, market day only). Tables, charts and maps obtained from the web GIS were employed to compare the information the authors had with a set of criteria and identify instances of inefficiency or ineffectiveness of interurban public transport services.

Passenger car units (PCU) of different types of vehicles are required to convert a mixed traffic stream into a homogeneous equivalent, and thereby to express the mixed traffic flow in terms of equivalent number of passenger cars. Earlier studies have reported that PCU for a vehicle is dynamic in nature and changes with traffic volume and proportional share of a vehicle type in the traffic stream. The present study provides PCU values for different types of vehicles typically found on interurban multilane highways in India at different levels of service (LOS). Traffic simulation model VISSIM is used to generate the traffic flow and speed data for conditions that are difficult to obtain from field observations. Important VISSIM parameters are first calibrated to reflect mixed traffic flow behavior and then the software is used to draw the speed-volume relationships for cars and one of the remaining four categories of vehicles in the traffic stream. The proportion of second category of the vehicle was also varied to observe its effects on PCU values. Finally, PCU values are suggested for different type of vehicles at different LOS and for different traffic composition on four-lane and six-lane divided highways.

Various road safety performance indicators (SPIs) have been proposed for different road safety research areas, mainly as regards driver behaviour (e.g. seat belt use, alcohol, drugs, etc.) and vehicles (e.g. passive safety); however, no SPIs for the road network and design have been developed. The objective of this research is the development of an SPI for the road network, to be used as a benchmark for cross-region comparisons. The developed SPI essentially makes a comparison of the existing road network to the theoretically required one, defined as one which meets some minimum requirements with respect to road safety. This paper presents a theoretical concept for the determination of this SPI as well as a translation of this theory into a practical method. Also, the method is applied in a number of pilot countries namely the Netherlands, Portugal, Greece and Israel. The results show that the SPI could be efficiently calculated in all countries, despite some differences in the data sources. In general, the calculated overall SPI scores were realistic and ranged from 81 to 94%, with the exception of Greece where the SPI was relatively lower (67%). However, the SPI should be considered as a first attempt to determine the safety level of the road network. The proposed method has some limitations and could be further improved. The paper presents directions for further research to further develop the SPI.

In this article we use discrete choice experiments to analyze service quality of public transport bus services in Gran Canaria, Spain. Discrete choice experiments are created to estimate travellers’ preferences and to obtain a measure of the global service quality. The modeling strategy considers the combination of two data sets, the analysis of the inertia effect as well as the correlation among responses of the same individual. Results suggest the existence of behavioral differences for urban and interurban passengers, especially in their perception of certain attributes as well as in the willingness to pay for improving the level of service.

The transport sector is the main contributor to CO2 emissions in Mexico accounting for 39% in 2010, of which road transport represented 92%. This paper presents a disaggregation of the fuel consumption and its related CO2 emissions from passenger and freight road transport in Mexico, based on a bottom-up model. Results show that private gasoline-powered vehicles represented 32.6% of CO2 emissions in 2010, followed by gasoline light duty freight vehicles with 25%, diesel interurban buses, 11.3% and diesel heavy duty freight vehicles, 12%. A simple econometric model shows that gasoline price increases have not impacted gasoline demand. Mitigation of GHG emissions must be based on policies aimed to reduce fuel consumption in gasoline vehicles, such as through fuel efficiency standards, but also reduction of the use of private cars by public transportation and logistics operation for light freight transportation.

This paper presents the results of applying DRAG methodology to the identification of the main factors of influence on the number of injury and fatal accidents occurring on Spain’s interurban network. Nineteen independent variables have been included in the model grouped together under ten categories: exposure, infrastructure, weather, drivers, economic variables, vehicle stock, surveillance, speed and legislative measures. Highly interesting conclusions can be reached from the results on the basis of the different effects of a single variable on each of the accident types according to severity. The greatest influence revealed by the results is exposure, which together with inexperienced drivers, speed and an ageing vehicle stock, have a negative effect, while the increased surveillance on roads, the improvement in the technological features of vehicles and the proportion of high capacity networks have a positive effect, since the results obtained show a significant drop in accidents.