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Urban regeneration projects in modern metropolitan areas often incorporate major changes in the structure and operations of a city's transportation system. In this paper we discuss the traffic impacts of such a project—the pedestrianization of a major arterial, in the Athens, Greece, downtown area—by applying an ex-ante evaluation of the project on a city-wide level. A scenario planning approach is adopted to represent post-project traffic conditions. Findings indicate that although in the short-run traffic conditions will worsen, a potential traffic evaporation resulting from the project could significantly improve traffic and environmental conditions in the Athens downtown area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] We analyze the market share of each public transport mode in total PT ridership. [•] Cointegration and error correction techniques are applied. [•] Short and long run effects of various factors are computed. [•] Fare, GDP and total PT ridership are the main determinants of PT mode shares. [•] Adjustment towards long run equilibrium takes approximately two months. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The need for dependable and flexible models of transit vehicle maintenance has been well established in the literature as a means for improving daily operations, capital planning and service quality. Stemming from the practical need to predict the duration of maintenance activities and active service time for buses, this paper uses the principles of duration modeling to address two important questions: what is the duration of vehicle maintenance activities and, given that a bus is in active service, how long will it take? We extend previous work by including exogenous factors directly affecting maintenance duration and active service time in fully parametric duration models and examine such activities for the transit system in Athens (Greece). Results indicate that vehicle age, kilometers travelled and repair type are amongst the most important determinants of maintenance duration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper studies public transport demand by estimating a system of equations for multimodal transit systems where different modes may act competitively or cooperatively. Using data from Athens, Greece, we explicitly correct for higher-order serial correlation in the error terms and investigate two, largely overlooked, questions in the transit literature; first, whether a varying fare structure in a multimodal transit system affects demand and, second, what the determinants of ticket versus travelcard sales may be. Model estimation results suggest that the effect of fare type on ridership levels in a multimodal system varies by mode and by relative ticket to travelcard prices. Further, regardless of competition or cooperation between modes, fare increases will have limited effects on ridership, but the magnitude of these effects does depend on the relative ticket to travelcard prices. Finally, incorrectly assuming serial independence for the error terms during model estimation could yield upward or downward biased parameters and hence result in incorrect inferences and policy recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modeling the elasticity modulus of unbound granular pavement materials has attracted significant research interest because of its importance in pavement design particularly in PPP/BOT projects. These efforts have been hampered by three factors: (i) inability to capture the correlations between the asphalt and granular layers and the subgrade, (ii) inadequate modeling of the effects of external factors on the elasticity modulus of unbound materials, and (iii) widespread use of linear statistical relationships to model a complex and non-linear phenomenon. In this paper genetically optimized neural networks and falling weight deflectometer (FWD) back-analysis results from a newly constructed BOT project in Athens, Greece, are employed in order to evaluate pavement section design parameters. It is shown that parameter values adopted during design do not co-inside with those observed from the back-analysis studies. Further, the results indicate that the relative estimation error for the modulus of elasticity of the unbound material does not exceed 25%, while the correlation between actual and predicted values is 86%, both suggesting that the proposed approach models the physical phenomenon adequately, a finding with important practical implications particularly in PPP projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the nature of the taxi market in Athens and estimates the impacts of taxi traffic on congestion. Using computer simulation and the taxi equivalence factor, a concept similar to the passenger car equivalents (PCE) for heavy vehicles, the effects regarding various traffic and environmental characteristics related to taxi traffic can be quantified. The methodology was used to estimate the effects of taxi traffic in Athens, Greece, a city whose dependence on taxis is high. The results show that the effect of taxis on traffic appears to depend on whether streets have one, two, or three traffic lanes, and on the traffic mix. But, what seems to be the most important problem of taxi traffic is the location of their stops. That is, the most important problem with taxis, in the context of Athens, is curbside stopping to drop-off/pick-up passengers. Alleviating this problem could help in improving traffic speeds in the CBD by almost 12% during the morning peak hours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the highlights of the 10th Applications of Advanced Technologies in Transportation Conference series held in Athens, Greece. It relates the two part process of reviewing the papers presented in the conference. The papers focuses on various aspects in the development and use of intelligent transport system (ITS) technologies, and the algorithmic developments for supporting ITS technologies.