The model proposed in this paper uses four psychological instruments for assessing driver behaviour and personality traits aiming to find a relationship between the considered constructs and the occurrence of traffic accidents. A Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-11) was used for the assessment of impulsivity, Aggressive Driving Behaviour Questionnaire (ADBQ) for assessing the aggressiveness while driving, Manchester Driver Attitude Questionnaire (DAQ) and the Questionnaire for self-assessment of driving ability. Besides these instruments, the participants filled out an extensive demographic survey. Within the statistical analysis, in addition to the descriptive indicators, correlation coefficients were calculated and four hierarchical regression analyses were performed to determine the predictive power of personality traits on the occurrence of traffic accidents. Further, to confirm the results and to obtain additional information about the relationship between the considered variables, the structural equation modelling and binary logistic regression have been implemented. A sample of this research covered 305 drivers, of which there were 100 bus drivers and 102 truck drivers, as well as 103 drivers of privately owned vehicles. The results indicate that BIS-11 and ADBQ questionnaires show the best predictive power which means that impulsivity and aggressiveness as personality traits have the greatest influence on the occurrence of traffic accidents. This research could be useful in many fields, such as the design of selection procedures for professional drivers, development of programs for the prevention of traffic accidents and violations of law, rehabilitation of drivers who have been deprived of the driving license, etc.

According to World Health Organization, each year, over 1.2 million people die on roads, and between 20 and 50 million suffer non-fatal injuries. Based on international reports, Iran has a high death rate caused by road accidents. The objective of this study was to extract implicit knowledge from road accident data sets on roads of Iran through data mining. In this regard, three useful data mining techniques were combined: clustering, classification and rule extraction. Following the preparation stage, data were segmented via three clustering algorithms; Kohonen, K-Means and Twostep. Two-step cluster analysis is a one-pass-through data approach which generates a fairly large number of pre-clusters. Next, the optimized algorithm and cluster were identified, after which, in the classification level and by adding the drivers' demographic features through C5.0, a classification algorithm was employed so as to make the decision tree. Ultimately, the effects of these demographic features were investigated on road accidents. The characteristics such as age, job, driving license duration and gender proved to be more important factors in accident analysis. Certain rules of accidents were then extracted in each season of the year.

Express coach (EC) lost a considerable share of passengers after high-speed rail (HSR) was implemented. This paper proposes a door-to-door operation mode for the EC system and builds a model to design an EC trip-end network in the origin city with the aim of maximizing the EC’s daily operating profit. A case study is undertaken, and the results show that the operating profit of the EC system first increases and then decreases with the growth of the trip-end routes. In the HSR era, door-to-door operation can effectively guarantee the market share and operating profits of the EC.

With adaptive customer-orientation the efficiency of supply chain management is improved substantially. By the introduction of service quality-based decision-making into supply chain management the quality of service (QoS) within supply chains is expected to improve autonomously and continuously up- and downstream. In the paper the main characteristics of quality of service oriented supply chain management are outlined. The quality of service criterion, introduced into the adaptive supply chain model, provides market regulators and managements with the needed information and feedback to their increasingly informed decisions. By an experiment comprising several typical scenarios on our agent-based simulation model it was possible to empirically verify the expected impact of quality of service-
based reasoning on generic adaptive supply chains.

Continuous network design problem (CNDP) is searching for a transportation network configuration to minimize the sum of the total system travel time and the investment cost of link capacity expansions by considering that the travellers follow a traditional Wardrop user equilibrium (UE) to choose their routes. In this paper, the CNDP model can be formulated as mathematical programs with complementarity constraints (MPCC) by describing UE as a non-linear complementarity problem (NCP). To address the difficulty resulting from complementarity constraints in MPCC, they are substituted by the Fischer-Burmeister (FB) function, which can be smoothed by the introduction of the smoothing parameter. Therefore, the MPCC can be transformed into a well-behaved non-linear program (NLP) by replacing the complementarity constraints with a smooth equation. Consequently, the solver such as LINDOGLOBAL in GAMS can be used to solve the smooth approximate NLP to obtain the solution to MPCC for modelling CNDP. The numerical experiments on the example from the literature demonstrate that the proposed algorithm is feasible.

This paper investigates a hybrid management policy of road tolls and tradable credits in mixed road networks with both public and private roads. In the public sub-network, a tradable credit scheme is applied to mitigate traffic congestion. In the private sub-network, tolls are collected by the private company, but the toll levels and toll locations are determined by the government. The purpose of toll charge is two-fold: on the one hand, the government uses it as a tool for mitigating congestion; on the other hand, a threshold of revenue should be guaranteed for the profitability of the private company. A bi-level programming model is formulated to minimize the total travel time in the network by taking into account the user equilibrium travel behaviour and the revenue requirement of private firms. To obtain a  global optimum solution, the bi-level model is transformed into an equivalent single-level mixed integer linear program that can be easily solved with commercial software. Numerical examples are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the developed model and the efficiency of the proposed algorithm. It is shown that the mixed management schemes can achieve favourable targets, namely, joint implementation of road tolls and tradable credits can effectively mitigate traffic congestion and meanwhile maintain reasonable revenue for the private company.

Recently, new traffic data sources have emerged raising new challenges and opportunities when applying novel methodologies. The purpose of this research is to analyse car travel time data collected from smartphones by Google Company. Geographic information system (GIS) tools and Python programming language were employed in this study to establish the initial framework as well as to automatically extract, analyse, and visualize data. The analysis resulted in the calculation of travel time fluctuation during the day, calculation of travel time variability and estimation of origin-destination (OD) skim matrices. Furthermore, we accomplished the accessibility analysis and provided recommendations for further research.

According to available data released by the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) in the period from 1990 to 2007, more than 94,743 collisions with birds occurred on the territory of US, UK and Canada. In some parts of the world bird population is significantly growing. Also, the number of aircraft operations has increased in recent decades, and more importantly, their increase is expected in the future as well. In these conditions, the number of aircraft collisions with birds is expected to grow. Bird strikes are affecting safety and also generate additional costs in air traffic. This paper will show what type of bird strike costs exist with focus on repair and withdrawal of bird strike costs. Repair and withdrawal costs due to bird strike are specific because they could vary from insignificant amount up to millions of dollars and because of its unpredictability.

Implementation of Air Traffic Management (ATM) Master
Plan-defined projects represents a prerequisite for the
successful implementation of the Single European Sky initiative
defined by the European Commission in 2004. The
implementation of ATM-related projects is currently under the responsibility of the Single European Sky Research Programme Deployment Manager. While the definition of projects is being performed at the European Network level, the
implementation is performed through sub-regional grouping of Air Navigation Service Providers in a form of Functional Airspace Blocks. This paper analyses the level of implementation of ATM-related projects in the Functional Airspace Block Central Europe and their relation to other Functional Airspace Blocks defined in Europe. From this paper it is obvious that even though the planning of Single European Sky projects is based on the collaborative implementation of Functional Airspace Block level, the real implementation is fragmented and based on national levels.

This study analyses an Adaptive Trajectory Control (ATC) system in case of a sudden change in μ-max (maximum tyreroad friction coefficient) during an emergency lane change manoeuvre in order to maintain the driving safety. Autonomous front wheel steering (FWS) systems have been developed for emergency steering situations. The trajectory design is also a part of these systems. Moreover, in this study ATC has been designed by sensing μ-max to complete the emergency steering manoeuvre successfully. Therefore, the originality of this paper arises from the necessity of a trajectory change in case of a sudden change in μ-max to minimize the distance between the desired and the actual path. Suitable cases were designed by using a two-track model in IPG/CarMaker (MATLAB/Simulink). Results show that ATC could be used during an emergency steering manoeuvre in case of a sudden decrease in μ-max as it can be advantageous in certain critical traffic situations. Therefore, ATC could be
used as an alternative system instead of Electronic Stability Program.

In the UK, the Puffin crossing has provision to extend pedestrian green time for those who take longer to cross. However, even at such a pedestrian friendly facility, the traffic signal control is usually designed to minimise vehicle delay while providing the crossing facility. This situation is rather contrary to the current policies to encourage walking. It is this inequity that has prompted the need to re-examine the traffic control of signalised crossings to provide more benefit to both pedestrians and vehicles. In this context, this paper explores the possibility of implementing an Upstream Detection strategy at a Puffin crossing to provide a user friendly crossing. The study has been carried out by simulating a mid-block Puffin crossing for various detector distances and a number of combinations of pedestrian and traffic flows. This paper presents the simulation results and recommends the situations at which Upstream Detection would be suitable.

The paper examines the impact of integration of macroeconomic indicators on the accuracy of container throughput time series forecasting model. For this purpose, a Dynamic factor analysis and AutoRegressive Integrated Moving-Average model with eXogenous inputs (ARIMAX) are used. Both methodologies are integrated into a novel four-stage heuristic procedure. Firstly, dynamic factors are extracted from external macroeconomic indicators influencing the observed throughput. Secondly, the family of ARIMAX models of different orders is generated based on the derived factors. In the third stage, the diagnostic and goodness-of-fit testing is applied, which includes statistical criteria such as fit performance, information criteria, and parsimony. Finally, the best model is heuristically selected and tested on the real data of the Port of Koper. The results show that by applying macroeconomic indicators into the forecasting model, more accurate future throughput forecasts can be achieved. The model is also used to produce future forecasts for the next four years indicating a more oscillatory behaviour in (2018-2020). Hence, care must be taken concerning any bigger investment decisions initiated from the management side. It is believed that the proposed model might be a useful reinforcement of the existing forecasting module in the observed port.

The rapid development of China’s railway has exerted an enormous influence on the intercity passenger transport structure in recent years. However, it has not satisfied the passengers’ travel demand due to induced traffic. This paper is committed to solving such issue, with the aim of satisfying the current travel demand, and of anticipating the demand of the predicted traffic growth over the next 20 to 30 years. The paper has considered the increase in rail passenger kilometres caused by the growth of rail kilometres as rail-induced traffic. Based on the concept and former research of induced traffic, the panel data of 26 provinces and 3 municipalities of China between the year 2000 and 2014 were collected, and the elasticity models (including elasticity-based model, distributed lag model, high-speed rail (HSR) elasticity model and rail efficiency model) have been constructed. The results show the importance of model formation incorporation of rail-induced traffic. It is better to get the correct value in divided zones with different train frequencies or incorporation rail efficiency in cities or provinces. The lag time and rail types also need to be considered. In summary, the results analysis not only confirms the existence of rail-induced traffic, but also provides substantial recommendations to train operation planning.

With the rapid increase of the subway passenger volume, the conflict among passengers emerges as a significant issue which affects subway serviceability, especially in the bidirectional flow. The aim of this study is to explore the characteristics of the bidirectional flow of pedestrians in a subway corridor. Pedestrian experiments were conducted to investigate microscopic characteristics of the pedestrian flow. It was found that the microscopic characteristics, including the walking speed and turning angle, were time-dependent and had a generalized trend with time. It was also found that different pedestrian volumes affected the microscopic characteristics. Based on the trend of the microscopic characteristics, the lane formation phenomenon was observed and quantitatively studied, identifying three phases: conflict phase, lane formation phase, and steady lane phase. To alleviate the bidirectional pedestrian conflict, additional pedestrian experiments for the countermeasure of adding separating strap in the corridor, which was based on the lane formation analysis, was conducted. The effectiveness of the countermeasure was demonstrated through a before-and-after comparison. The results showed that adding the separation between the adjacent lanes had the best performance in reducing the conflicts. The results would provide a rationale for subway managers in optimizing the corridor bidirectional pedestrian flow.

This paper offers a simulation model for analysing the utilization levels of a section of a railway line between Edinburgh Waverley and Glasgow Queen Street. Specifically, a segment of this line situated in the urban area of Edinburgh has been simulated using SIMUL8 to study the impacts of further inclusion of freight trains on the scheduled passenger trains. The utilisation levels of this segment have been observed in three scenarios: utilisation existing state where all scheduled passenger trains and a few freight trains are observed; utilisation in future state where more freight trains are input in available time gaps running at their actual speed; and utilisation future state where freight trains are input in available time gaps running at speed equivalent to a passenger train. A decomposition approach is implemented. The results suggest that extra freight trains can be input into the current timetables without impeding the current scenario, allowing a reasonable increase in utilisation of the rail line.

Procedures for capacity analysis of two-way stop controlled (TWSC) appeared in scientific literature in the 1970s. In addition to standard TWSC intersections, there are also non-standard unsignalised intersections. The main characteristic of these intersections is that two major approaches are not placed opposite, but next to each other. Because of the non-standard layout of the major and minor approaches, there are unique major and minor movements at these intersections. For these movements, standard procedures for capacity analysis of standard TWSC intersections cannot be used. This paper describes a procedure for capacity analysis of non-standard unsignalised intersections with a new model for rank distribution for all major and minor movements, as well as the conflict flow calculation, and the procedure for the calculation of potential and movement capacity, according to the non-standard layout of the major and minor approaches.

Recently, detection and prediction on driver fatigue have become interest of research worldwide. In the present work, a new method is built to effectively evaluate driver fatigue based on electromyography (EMG) and electrocardiogram (ECG) collected by portable real-time and non-contact sensors. First, under the non-disturbance condition for driver’s attention, mixed physiological signals (EMG, ECG and artefacts) are collected by non-contact sensors located in a cushion on the driver’s seat. EMG and ECG are effectively separated by FastICA, and de-noised by empirical mode decomposition (EMD). Then, three physiological features, complexity of EMG, complexity of ECG, and sample entropy (SampEn) of ECG, are extracted and analysed. Principal components are obtained by principal components analysis (PCA) and are used as independent variables. Finally, a mathematical model of driver fatigue is built, and the accuracy of the model is up to 91%. Moreover, based on the questionnaire, the calculation results of model are consistent with real fatigue felt by the participants. Therefore, this model can effectively detect driver fatigue.

Increased attention has been given to promoting e-bike usage in recent years. However, the research gap still exists in understanding the effects of spatial interdependence on e-bike choice. This study investigated how spatial interdependence affected the e-bike choice. The Moran’s I statistic test showed that spatial interdependence exists in e-bike choice at aggregated level. Bayesian spatial autoregressive logistic analyses were then used to investigate the spatial interdependence at individual level. Separate models were developed for commuting and non-commuting trips. The factors affecting e-bike choice are different between commuting and non-commuting trips. Spatial interdependence exists at both origin and destination sides of commuting and non-commuting trips. Travellers are more likely to choose e-bikes if their neighbours at the trip origin and destination also travel by e-bikes. And the magnitude of this spatial interdependence is different across various traffic analysis zones. The results suggest that, without considering spatial interdependence, the traditional methods may have biased estimation results and make systematic forecasting errors.

Road freight transport often requires the prediction of volume. Such knowledge is necessary to capture trends in the industry and support decision making by large and small trucking companies. The aim of the presented work is to demonstrate that application of some artificial intelligence methods can improve the accuracy of the forecasts. The first method employed was double exponential smoothing. The modification of this method has been proposed. Not only the parameters but also the initial values were set in order to minimize the mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) using the artificial immune system. This change resulted in a marked improvement in the effects of minimization, and suggests that the variability of the initial value of S2 has an impact on this result. Then, the forecasting Bayesian networks method was applied. The Bayesian network approach is able to take into account not only the historical data concerning the volume of freight, but also the data related to the overall state of the national economy. This significantly improves the quality of forecasting. The application of this approach can also help in predicting the trend changes caused by overall state of economy, which is rather impossible when analysing only the historical data.

Driving comfort is of great significance for rural highways, since the variation characteristics of driving speed are comparatively complex on rural highways. Earlier studies about driving comfort were usually based on the actual geometric road alignments and automobiles, without considering the driver’s visual perception. However, some scholars have shown that there is a discrepancy between actual and perceived geometric alignments, especially on rural highways. Moreover, few studies focus on rural highways. Therefore, in this paper the driver’s visual lane model was established based on the Catmull-Rom spline, in order to describe the driver’s visual perception of rural highways. The real vehicle experiment was conducted on 100 km rural highways in Tibet. The driving rhythm was presented to signify the information during the driving process. Shape parameters of the driver’s visual lane model were chosen as input variables to predict the driving rhythm by BP neural network. Wavelet transform was used to explore which part of the driving rhythm is related to the driving comfort. Then the probabilities of good, fair and bad driving comfort can be calculated by wavelets of the driving rhythm. This work not only provides a new perspective into driving comfort analysis and quantifies the driver’s visual perception, but also pays attention to the unique characteristics of rural highways.

This paper provides a description of driver testing in a simulator. As young drivers are more susceptible to collisions, this was done to determine how young drivers behaved in simulated road situations on a motorway. One of the traffic safety concerns is the failure to keep a proper distance from the vehicle in front, which may result in a rearend collision. The tests simulated car-following situations in which the preceding vehicle performed emergency braking. The experiments were conducted for two scenario variants using different distances from the vehicle in front. The drivers could perform the following emergency manoeuvres: braking with steering away or only braking. The driver response times were compared and analysed statistically. The results were used to determine the emergency manoeuvres performed by the drivers in the simulated road situations. The study reveals that the vehicle surroundings may have a considerable influence on the type of emergency manoeuvres and the driver response time.

Due to the increase of congestion on highways, providing real-time information about the traffic state has become a crucial issue. Hence, it is the aim of this research to build an accurate traffic speed prediction model using symbolic regression to generate significant information for travellers. It is built based on genetic programming using Pareto front technique. With real world data from microwave sensor, the performance of the proposed model is compared with two other widely used models. The results indicate that the symbolic regression is the most accurate among these models. Especially, after an incident occurs, the performance of the proposed model is still the best which means it is robust and suitable to predict traffic state of highway under different conditions.

This paper presents the scheduling models for train
platforming problem (TPP) by using mixed integer linear programming and job shop scheduling theory. First, the operation procedures and scheduled time adjustment costs of different train types specific to busy complex passenger stations are explicitly represented. Second, a multi-criteria scheduling model (MCS) for TPP without earliness and tardiness time window (ETTW) and a time window scheduling model (TWS) with ETTW for TPP are proposed. Third, various dispatching rules were designed by incorporating the dispatcher experiences with modern scheduling theory and a rule-based metaheuristic to solve the above model is presented. With solution improvement strategies analogous to those used in practice by dispatchers, the realistic size problems in acceptable time can be solved.

The purpose was to investigate the interrelation between the age of older city bus users, their travelling habits, their estimated physical (dis)abilities and perceived safety during the trip using the Ljubljana public transportation system. Methods: 101 older bus users agreed to participate in a street survey by answering a questionnaire. Results indicate that the habits of bus users are not age dependent. The frequency of public bus use, the walking distance to the nearest bus stop, the estimated physical abilities and perceived physical limitations of the bus users were not associated to the chronological age. Respondents reported on average 3±1.6 perceived physical limitations and 37% of them perceived their travelling habits to be affected by their physical limitations. While decreased perceived safety during the bus journey was significantly related to the chronological age: significantly more bus users of the oldest-old group reported not having enough time to occupy a seat before the bus drove off, although a significantly higher proportion of older-old adults were offered a seat by their fellow travellers. In conclusion, the perception of physical fitness and health problems are more important contributing factors for the use of public transportation than the chronological age.

There are several possible bus stop locations and configurations. A bus stop can be located before or after the intersection as curb-side stop, bus bay or bus bulb. Determining the proper configuration and location of bus stop represents an important planning decision. While previous research efforts in literature have suggested some advantages and disadvantages regarding bus stop locations and configurations, little effort has been made towards understanding the joint impact of bus stop location and configuration on the transit and other vehicle traffic performance on the intersection. So, this paper analyses the joint impact of bus stop location and configuration on the operational characteristics of traffic flow in terms of average bus trip time and control delay. These operational performance measures for various intersection layouts, volume distributions, movement splits, average bus dwell times and bus departure frequencies have been obtained using calibrated microsimulation traffic software.

The transport system causes extremely harmful consequences for society and the environment. It is manifested through the increased emission of harmful exhaust gases, traffic congestions, traffic accidents, increased level of noise, higher levels of stress and various diseases of all participants of the transport system and society in general. The implementation and modernization of intermodality through the Motorways of the Sea (MoS) as its ecological and socio-economic sustainable subsystem is the efficient way of reducing the above mentioned consequences. Further sustainable development of MoS can be observed according to the ecological and socio-economic criteria and sub-criteria set out in this paper in order to keep it in direct function of protecting the society and preserving the environment.

The paper focuses on analysis of the effect of various surveys and inspections on the psychophysical behaviour of the crew. After analysing the scope and the extent of each regime, the authors identified more than 60% of surveys overlapping each other. Furthermore, the results of the survey conducted among seafarers indicate that the present method of carrying out ship surveys and inspections have a negative effect on the psychophysical condition of the crew. Therefore, a new method of tanker inspections has been proposed in order to reduce the psychophysical strain of the crew. The proposed method would minimise the annual duration of the inspections up to 30% and improve inspection time coordination without compromising quality and safety of the ships.

The growing trend of natural resources consumption has caused irreparable losses to the environment. The scientists believe that if environmental degradation continues at its current pace, the prospect of human life will be shrouded in mystery. One of the most effective ways to deal with the environmental adverse effects is by implementing green supply chains. In this study a multilevel mathematical model including supply, production, distribution and customer levels has been presented for routing–location–inventory
in green supply chain. Vehicle routing between distribution centres and customers has been considered in the model. Establishment place of distribution centres among potential places is determined by the model. The distributors use continuous review policy (r, Q) to control the inventory. The proposed model object is to find an optimal supply chain with minimum costs. To validate the proposed model and measure its compliance with real world problems, GAMS IDE/Cplex has been used. In order to measure the efficiency of the proposed model in large scale problems, a genetic algorithm has been used. The results confirm the efficiency of the proposed model as a practical tool for decision makers to solve location-inventory-routing problems in green supply chain. The proposed GA could reduce the solving time by 85% while reaching on the average 97% of optimal solution compared with exact method.

The main objective of this paper, based upon the extensive empirical research of free flow in local conditions, is to quantify the unfavourable impact of the flow structure on the road capacity using PCE (Passenger Car Equivalent) values as a function of longitudinal grade. Based on literature reviews and empirical research, it has been proved that the PCE value for all vehicle classes is directly correlated with the road gradient. The PCE values in free flow conditions have been determined for the approved vehicle classes. Based on the measured values, models for determining the average PCE value depending on the upward grade on two-lane roads have been developed. Comparison of the developed models in conditions of free traffic flow with the Highway Capacity Manual (HCM) models has shown lower PCE values in this research. Models for the percentage of PCE values PCE15%, PCE50% and PCE85% have also been established.

Human factor is one of the safety barriers which is used in order to prevent accidents or incidents of aircraft. Therefore, the question is to which extent the error caused by human factor is included into the share of errors that are made
during aircraft maintenance. In the EASA approved aircraft maintenance organisation, which includes in its working system the human factor as well, the tendency is to apply the approach by continuous monitoring and analysis of errors in aircraft maintenance. Such approach achieves advance prevention or reduction of the occurrence of harmful events, such as accidents, incidents, injuries and in a wider sense damages related to aircraft operation and maintenance. The research presented in this paper is a result of gathering and systematization of errors caused by human factors over the last five years in one organisation for aircraft maintenance certified according to the European standards. The study encompasses an analysis of 28 (twenty-eight) investigations of individual cases and provides insight into the main factors of errors. The results of analyses on the cause of occurrence of human error show similar results like the Boeing study which was carried out for the world fleet.

In the present research, the influence of road geometric properties and traffic characteristics on the right lane capacity value is explored for horizontal curves. The non-traditional procedure (artificial neural networks - ANNs), is adopted for modelling. The research utilizes 78 horizontal curves that provide the traffic and road geometry data, of which55 curves are classified as four-lane and the rest as six-lane ones. Two types of models are introduced to explore the right lane capacity as capacity at curves, and the capacity loss between curves and tangents. The results show that, for horizontal curves, the most effective variables affecting both road types are the percentage of heavy vehicles in traffic composition (HV) followed by radius of curve (R), and the lane width (LW). Furthermore, the capacity loss is also highly affected by R followed by HV. The derived outcomes present a remarkable move towards the beginning of an Egyptian highway design guide.

Despite growing literature on the different aspects of airline service quality in relation to behavioural intentions, less attention has been paid to some specific aspects of in-flight services. The focus of the present research is, therefore, on a multiple conceptual model of the quality of in-flight services in relation to passengers’ perception of value, followed by recommendations (word of mouth - WOM) of airlines, as well as the quality and comfort of airline seats. The study is performed using two databases of reviewers’/passengers’ opinions regarding the quality of in-flight airline services and airline seat comfort. Our research results reveal that the perceived comfort of the airplane seat is the most important factor of passengers’ perceived quality of in-flight airline services, which also considerably affects the passengers’ perception of value, and consequently moderates behavioural intentions (in our research, expressed through positive WOM). The analysis of the relative importance of the components of perceived airline seats’ comfort shows that seat width is the most significant factor that contributes to the overall perceived comfort of the airline seat.

Start-up lost time is an important parameter in performance of signalized intersections which may in turn depict the effect of behaviour of different drivers for different countries. In this study the parameters affecting the startup lost time in Turkey will be defined and a model will be established to present the relationship between start-up lost time, saturation flow as well as start response time with the behaviour of Turkish drivers. For this purpose, observations were carried out at eight intersections in Turkey. Analyses have shown that saturation headways decrease with the increase in time in start response since the drivers in the 2nd and higher rows of a queue have a longer time to get prepared to discharge. Results also indicated that start-up lost time increases rapidly as cycle time increases, and lower start-up lost time values can be observed in left or right turning lanes.

Traffic signs are the basic elements of communication between the relevant road authorities and road users. They manage, regulate, inform and warn road users to ensure their safe movement throughout transport networks. Traffic signs must be timely visible to all traffic participants in all weather and traffic conditions in order to fulfil their function, which means they must have satisfactory retroreflection properties. This paper presents a research of the deterioration of traffic signs retroreflection. The aim of this article is to develop models that will effectively enable predicting the retroreflection of traffic signs and thus optimize the maintenance activities and replacement of road signs to increase road safety. The research included measurements of retroreflection of retroreflective material Classes I and II (white, red and blue colour) and Class III (red and yellow colour). Based on the collected data from the City of Zagreb (Republic of Croatia), the authors developed the models to estimate the functional service life of certain colours and materials used to make traffic signs. Considering that the average coefficient of determination for all the models is between 0.55-0.60, they present an effective tool in the traffic sign maintenance system.

Road accidents are one of the leading causes of death in the world, particularly among young people. Excessive speed is one of the main risk factors in road traffic safety, increasing accident probability and affecting accident severity. Experimental research of the traffic calming measures allocation effect on the driving speed is presented in this paper. The research has been carried out on two aspects. The first one with respect to the mean speed and the second one regarding instantaneous speed. However, the paper is not only restricted by the above research. Standardized survey interview and questioning, a survey of public opinion, was carried out to find out the road users’ opinions about the need for traffic calming measures and speed control measures. Finally, the authors presented their insights and recommendations for the installation of speed humps and gateways and their optimum spacing.

In order to set up a mathematical model suitable for nautical navigational environment risk evaluation and systematically master the navigational environment risk characteristics of the Qiongzhou Strait in a quantitative way, a risk assessment model with approach steps is set up based on the grey fixed weight cluster (GFWC). The evaluation index system is structured scientifically through both literature review and expert investigation. The relative weight of each index is designed to be obtained via fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP); Index membership degree of every grey class is proposed to be achieved by fuzzy statistics (FS) to avoid the difficulty of building whiten weight functions. By using the model, nautical navigational environment risk of the Qiongzhou Strait is determined at a “moderate” level according to the principle of maximum membership degree. The comprehensive risk evaluation of the Qiongzhou Strait nautical navigational environment can provide theoretical reference for implementing targeted risk control measures. It shows that the constructed GFWC risk assessment model as well as the presented steps are workable in case of incomplete information. The proposed strategy can excavate the collected experts’ knowledge mathematically, quantify the weight of each index and risk level, and finally lead to a comprehensive risk evaluation result. Besides, the adoptions of probability and statistic theory, fuzzy theory, aiming at solving the bottlenecks in case of uncertainty, will give the model a better adaptability and executability.

Lane usage measures distribution of a specific traffic movement across multiple available lanes in a given time. Unbalanced lane usages decrease the capacity of subject segment. This paper took multiple left-turn lanes at signalized intersections as case study, and explored the influences of some factors on the lane usage balance. Lane usages were calculated from field collected lane volumes and the constant-sum constraint among them was explicitly considered in the statistical analysis. Classical and compositional analysis of variance was respectively conducted to identify significant influential factors. By comparing the results of compositional analysis and those of the classical one, the former ones have better interpretability. It was found that left-turn lane usages could be affected by parameter variance of geometric design or traffic control, such as length of turning curve, length of upstream segment, length of signal phase or cycle. These factors could make the lane usages achieve relative balance at different factor levels.

Congestion occurs and propagates in the stations of urban rail transit, which results in the impendent need to comprehensively evaluate the station performance. Based on complex network theory, a key station identification method is considered. This approach considers both the topology and dynamic operation states of urban rail transit network, such as degree, passenger demand, system capacity and capacity utilization. A case of Beijing urban rail transit is applied to verify the validation of the proposed method. It shows that the method can be helpful to daily passenger flow control and capacity enhancement during peak hours.

The main objective of this paper proposes the model for the decision-making process with the intent of optimising the collision avoidance in the crossing situation on the open sea. Using the IMO Resolution standards for ship manoeuvrability, along with the equation for determining the required distance of the closest point of approach (CPA) and other parameters for own ship and the target ship, it can be possible to determine the distance at which to start alternation and collision avoidance. The research results that involved ship officers and captains with the aim of determining the Closest Point of Approach (CPA) showed a very subjective assessment method. The presented model obtained by the simulation method to determine the CPA between ships on the open sea is the key finding of this research and leaves room for further research and its further implementation on unmanned ships.

Traffic control and safety hardware such as traffic signs, lighting, signals, pavement markings, guardrails, barriers, and crash cushions form an important and inseparable part of highway infrastructure affecting safety performance. Significant progress has been made in recent decades to develop safety performance functions and crash modification factors for site-specific crash predictions. However, the existing models and methods lack rigorous treatments of safety impacts of time-deteriorating conditions of traffic control and safety hardware. This study introduces a refined method for computing the Safety Index (SI) as a means of crash predictions for a highway segment that incorporates traffic control and safety hardware performance functions into the analysis. The proposed method is applied in a computation experiment using five-year data on nearly two hundred rural and urban highway segments. The root-mean square error (RMSE), Chi-square, Spearman’s rank correlation, and Mann-Whitney U tests are employed for validation.

The paper presents the current research related to the speed of traffic flow on the roads of high serviceability. It analyses the speed of vehicle as one of the main causes of traffic accidents. A flat four-lane motorway section, motorway section in the tunnel and a city bypass section were chosen for this research, and several speed limit scenarios for the vehicles have been applied with the aid of variable signalling. The survey results show that few vehicles respect the speed limits in traffic in the case of a straight section of motorway or city stretch of the motorway which has good geometric elements; however, speed limits are exceptionally well respected in tunnels. Although a large number of drivers do not respect the signs, a certain group of drivers can be influenced by variable signs of limitations, and thus positive changes can be achieved in traffic flow which will result in increasing the traffic safety on the motorways. Thus, increasing the degree of respect for speed limits on the motorways directly affects the increase in the level of traffic safety. It is necessary to influence the group of drivers who do not respect the speed limits with other measures, including repressive ones.

Starting from the fact that the transport mode choice is one of those aspects of travel behaviour that, to a great extent, affects the efficiency of the transport system, this paper analyses the factors that contribute to the use of public and car transport. The goals of the analysis were to obtain insight into the preferences for using these two modes of transport in Croatia and find out to which extent the basic demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of the respondents affect the usage of car and public transport and the possibility of taking trips by these transport modes. The paper analyses the data collected by surveys on a representative national sample. The results show that in Croatia, the number of people who frequently use public transport is far fewer than the number of frequent users of passenger car transport. However, the comparison has found that the number of frequent public transport users varies significantly among certain categories of respondents. Using binary logistic regression analysis has determined that the preferences towards the frequent use of car or public transport are significantly influenced by the age of the respondents, size of the settlement, accessibility of the destinations by public transport, the number of vehicles in the household and whether the respondent is the main car user in the household.

The proposed paper discusses multimodal container transport due to savings in external costs. Relevant data have been analysed by reviewing previous research and published works for making a synthesis of one’s own conclusions. The research findings showed that there is no significant difference in the share of external costs of container transport and transport of other types of cargo in great European seaports as well as in energy consumption of multimodal rail-inland ship container transport and the same transport mode of bulk cargo. Intermodal terminals have also their own external costs. In spite of a double railway operational cost, it is important to include the railway in the intermodal terminal. The inland waterway transport has much higher external costs than sea transport. Multimodal container transport does not necessarily lower external costs. The savings are more common if the location and type of intermodal terminal are selected properly, and the sea transportation is involved in the multimodal transport chain.

Due to their different sizes and operational characteristics, vehicles other than passenger cars have a different influence on traffic operations especially at intersections. The passenger car equivalent (PCE) is the parameter that shows how many passenger cars must be substituted for a specific heavy vehicle to represent its influence on traffic operation. PCE is commonly estimated using headway-based methods that consider the excess headway utilized by heavy vehicles. In this research, the PCE was estimated based on the delay parameter at three signalized intersections in Tehran, Iran. The data collected were traffic volume, travel time for each movement, signalization, and geometric design information. These data were analysed and three different models, one for each intersection, were constructed and calibrated using TRAF-NETSIM simulation software for unsaturated traffic conditions. PCE was estimated under different scenarios and the number of approach movements at each intersection. The results showed that for approaches with only one movement, PCE varies from 1.1 to 1.65. Similarly, for approaches with two and three movements, the PCE varies from 1.07 to 1.99 and from 0.76 to 3.6, respectively. In addition, a general model was developed for predicting PCE for intersections with all of the movements considered. The results obtained from this model showed that the average PCE of 1.5 is similar to the value recommended by the HCM (Highway Capacity Manual) 1985. However, the predicted PCE value of 1.9 for saturated threshold is closer to the PCE value of 2 which was recommended by the HCM 2000 and HCM 2010.

It is necessary to verify the faults tolerance of the European Train Control System (ETCS) on-board unit even if these faults are uncommon. Traditional test methods defined and used in ETCS do not allow to check this, so it is necessary to develop a new mechanism of tests. This paper presents the design and implementation of a saboteur applied to the railway sector. The main purpose of the saboteur is the fault injection in the communication interfaces. By means of a virtual laboratory it is possible to simulate actual train journeys to test the ETCS on-board unit. Making use of the saboteurs and the virtual laboratory it is possible to analyse the behaviour of the train in the presence of unexpected faults, and to verify that the decisions taken are correct to ensure the required safety level. Therefore, this work shows a testing strategy based on different kinds of train journeys when faults are injected, and the analysis of the results.

This study proposes a modified decomposed theory of planned behaviour model (DTPB) that integrates satisfaction and trust into the original DTPB model to explore what kind of factors affect the user intention towards distance-based electronic toll collection (ETC) services. The proposed model is empirically tested by using data collected from a questionnaire survey with a computer assisted telephone interview system. Empirical analysis is carried out in three stages that combine confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation modelling (SEM), and Bayesian network: (1) examination of reliability and validity of the measurement model; (2) analysis of structural model; (3) prediction of the probability of user intention change based on rigorous framework of SEM. The results confirm that the satisfaction and trust have positive effects on the behaviour intention, also validating that five constructs have indirect effects on the behaviour intention through attitude and perceived behaviour control. Compatibility is the most important influence factor, followed by perceived usefulness, facilitating conditions, self-efficacy, and perceived ease of use. The findings of this study identify potential improvements for ETC operator, such as contributing to the society to enhance the company image and trust of enterprise with charity activities, and simultaneously upgrading the information platform of website, software, and Apps.

This paper compared the performance of elliptical roundabout with turbo and modern roundabouts. It considers the effects of increasing the central island radius and speed limit on delay and capacity. Three types of roundabouts (modern, turbo and elliptical roundabouts) with different numbers of lanes (single lane, two-lane and three-lane) were designed. Unsignalized and signalized controls were applied for these roundabouts. The robustness of the designed roundabouts was investigated for saturated and unsaturated flow conditions. Based on the obtained results, increasing the central island radius had both positive and negative effects on delay and capacity. However, a positive effect on these variables was observed in all roundabouts when increasing the speed limit. In unsignalized and signalized control under unsaturated flow conditions, a modern roundabout had lower delay time than an elliptical roundabout. Moreover, in saturated flow, the elliptical roundabout had the best performance in terms of delay. Overall, in comparison with the turbo roundabouts, modern and elliptical roundabouts had the highest capacities in unsignalized and signalized controls. This study can provide useful information for engineers who decide to design a roundabout.

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the use of various chaotic pattern recognition methods for traffic flow prediction. Traffic flow is a variable, dynamic and complex system, which is non-linear and unpredictable. The emergence of traffic flow congestion in road traffic is estimated when the traffic load on a specific section of the road in a specific time period is close to exceeding the capacity of the road infrastructure. Under certain conditions, it can be seen in concentrating chaotic traffic flow patterns. The literature review of traffic flow theory and its connection with chaotic features implies that this kind of method has great theoretical and practical value. Researched methods of identifying chaos in traffic flow have shown certain restrictions in their techniques but have suggested guidelines for improving the identification of chaotic parameters in traffic flow. The proposed new method of forecasting congestion in traffic flow uses Wigner-Ville frequency distribution. This method enables the display of a chaotic attractor without the use of reconstruction phase space.

Air Traffic Management (ATM) is a continuously evolving process, where many current system elements derive from a time when ATM characteristics were very different from today. Nowadays, the provision of ATM services has to design new solutions and adapt to new scenarios. Although ESARR 4 and EU Regulation 1035/2011 define the need of evaluating ATM system risks before implementing any change, they do not define a practical tool to support the decision-makers. The aim of this paper is to fill this gap, proposing a systematic methodology; the Preliminary System Safety Assessment Tool (PSSA-T) capable of helping the decision makers in evaluating safety implications due to system changes. PSSA-T relies on the definition of two Indexes, which have been built according to the Aerospace Performance Factor (APF) methodology, and allow safety assessment of any proposed change. In detail, the former Index compares the evolutionary scenario with the current one and the latter evaluates the evolutionary scenario in which there is a failure of intervention, in the hypothesis the system change has been implemented already. A preliminary study about the change from Flight Progress Strip (FPS) to the Electronic-FPS clarifies the outcome of the study.

The aim of this paper is to develop a cooperative control model for improving the operational efficiency of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) vehicles. The model takes advantage of the emerging connected vehicle technology. A connected vehicle centre is established to assign a specific reservation time interval and transmit the corresponding dynamic speed guidance to each BRT vehicle. Furthermore, a set of constraints have been set up to avoid bus queuing and waiting phenomena in downstream BRT stations. Therefore, many BRT vehicles are strategically guided to form a platoon, which can pass through an intersection with no impedance. An actual signalized intersection along the Guangzhou BRT corridor is employed to verify and assess the cooperative control model in various traffic conditions. The simulation-based evaluation results demonstrate that the proposed approach can reduce delays, decrease the number of stops, and improve the sustainability of the BRT vehicles.