Search

The increasing need, in the transportation sector, for new policy initiatives that generate positive and sustainable environmental, social and economic impacts is increasingly directed towards the promotion of intermodal integration in transportation that may prompt a rebalance in the mobility pattern in relevant areas, especially in an urban environment. An interesting example of a city with a great variety of such complex transportation challenges is the Venice area in Italy. In this paper a feasibility study for a sub‐lagoon tube connection between Venice island and its mainland is presented. This project aims to improve accessibility and sustainability in the Venice region, by favouring an intermodal re‐balance in the local transportation system. In particular, the methodology of transportation evaluation and of scenario simulations will be highlighted, while the main results of the study will be presented and discussed. Multi‐criteria analysis is used here inter alia as an important assessment and evaluation method. The case study of Venice can be considered as an illustrative study, in which a novel and challenging urban plan is followed by specific studies assessing the overall sustainability of the proposed policy intervention, even though it is not ensued by an immediate implementation.

Simulatori di guida: vantaggi e problematiche; applicazioni per il testing di misure di traffic calming; il simulatore VERA : caratteristiche e applicazioni. Lo sviluppo del Virtual Testing nell'ingegneria stradale.

In view of the widespread use of microscopic traffic simulation models in common practice an ever more attention on their calibration related issues is bearing. These models, indeed, depend on many parameters, and the value chosen per each of them can sensibly affect model output realism. The only way to undertake is, therefore, their calibration on real traffic data. Hence the work proposes a framework for calibrating microscopic traffic flow models that aims, in particular, to address the issues of MoP choices and calibration parameters. The whole procedure focuses on the execution of one or more tests with laboratory data. This is the only way to overcome the effect of the errors that arise when using empirical data and that regards mainly o/d flow estimation, the data measuring process and mathematical modelling of real dynamics. A crucial element of the proposed procedure is model sensitivity analysis as well, performed by using an Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). Preliminary results, obtained using the microscopic traffic simulation model AIMSUN in freeway conditions, show the capability of the framework of successfully facing the calibration problem.

INRETS, Arcueil (Paris)

Bari

Department of Transportation Engineering. Slovenska Technica Univerzita. Bratislava (Slovacchia)

Seoul, Corea del Sud

Transport modelling/Assessment.Ed.H.Meersman, E.Van de Voorde, W.Winkelmans.

Ed. Franco Angeli

Anversa

Department of Transportation Engineering, Slovenska Technica Univerzita. Bratislava (Slovacchia)

Collegio Ingegneri Ferroviari Italiani- Napoli

Cagliari CNR-SIDT

Atti Seminario Scientifico SIDT di Torino

Napoli

Genova

Capri

Inter-India Publication, New Delhi (India)

accettato per la pubblicazione

The planning and construction of a rail transportation system requires the implementation of several tasks where a major role is assumed by enterprises which have to pre-design, design and produce/build in detail any element of a rail system (i.e. infrastructure, signalling system and rolling stock). Currently, different divisions of a company perform different tasks or sub-tasks without adopting any (or sometimes only a partial) integrated approach in the various phases of product development. The authors proposal, based on the case study of the multinational enterprise Ansaldo STS, is to develop a digital pattern approach for product development which consists of adopting an integrated approach in all phases of the industrial process in order to avoid redundancy and duplication in working phases, and lost times in redesign and in information retrieval. The proposed approach is based on a web platform which allows information sharing among the different phases of project implementation and data (know-how) concerning past projects. Finally, the approach is applied to design the signalling system for a conventional metro system.

This paper offers the description of an integrated information system framework for the assessment of transportation planning and management. After an introductory exposition, in the first part of the paper, a broad overview of international experiences regarding information systems on transportation is given, focusing in particular on the relationship between transportation system's performance monitoring and the decision-making process, and on the importance of this connection in the evaluation and planning process, in Italian and European cases. Next, the methodological design of an information system to support efficient and sustainable transportation planning and management aiming to integrate inputs from several different data sources is presented. The resulting framework deploys modular and integrated databases which include data stemming from different national or regional data banks and which integrate information belonging to different transportation fields. For this reason, it allows public administrations to account for many strategic elements that influence their decisions regarding transportation, both from a systemic and infrastructural point of view. © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Parameter calibration of traffic microsimulation models usually takes the form of a simulation-based optimization problem, that is, an optimization in which every objective function evaluation calls for a simulation. It is recognized that such a problem is computationally intractable. Running time grows exponentially both in the number of parameters and in the digits accuracy. In addition, considerable computing time is required by each objective function evaluation. This means that only heuristic techniques can be applied. Accordingly, results of the application of the OptQuest/Multistart algorithm to the calibration of AIMSUN microsimulation model parameters on a freeway network are presented. Furthermore, it is claimed that the search for an effective solution to the calibration problem cannot be exhausted by the choice of the most efficient optimization algorithm. The use of available information concerning the phenomenon could allow calibration performance to be enhanced, for example, by reducing dimensions of the domain of feasible solutions. It is argued that this goal could be achieved by using information from the stationary counterpart of microscopic traffic-flow models that depict the aggregate variables of traffic flows as a function of drivers’ microscopic parameters. Because they have a closed analytical formulation, they are well suited for faster calibrations. Results show that values of parameters from stationary model-based calibrations are not far from the optimal ones. Thus the integration of the two approaches cannot be excluded but is worth investigating.