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Promet - Traffic&Transportation journal

Accelerating Discoveries in Traffic Science

Accelerating Discoveries in Traffic Science

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Berna AKSOY, Mustafa GURSOY
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 6

Freight transport significantly contributes to urban traffic but is often overlooked by decision-makers compared to passenger transport. Conventional transportation modelling studies often use aggregate approaches for freight transport, undoubtedly due to the difficulty of data collection. However, the nature of freight transportation is much more complex. For this reason, examining the determinants of freight vehicle preferences with discrete approaches is crucial for the contributions that can be put forward, especially in local studies. To address this apparent gap in the study of local disaggregated approaches to freight transport, we present a discrete modelling-based methodology to investigate the factors that determine freight vehicle preferences for shippers and senders. The estimated nested logit model is constructed with the RU2 approach, the second part of random utility theory, thus avoiding the theoretical inconsistencies that arise when generic coefficients are used. As a result, the model structures provided satisfactory results compared to the literature. It was revealed that the factors affecting freight vehicle choice preferences were influenced by packaging preferences and differed according to freight groups. This local study is the first nested logit study for freight modelling in Istanbul and it is aimed to shed light on future national studies.

 


Yijun ZHAO, Qian WEN, Yongjun PAN, Feigang TAN
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 6

More and more connected and autonomous vehicle (CAV) open test roads reconstructed on the basis of traditional roads have appeared in China. However, the management policies vary, which makes the traffic environment complicated. This paper takes CAV test road safety management as the research aim and investigates the open test condition through the evaluation of the traffic safety facilities. Indicators were rigorously screened, then the game theory model was used to determine the combination weight of the indicators, and the set pair analysis was applied to solve the uncertain problems. A case study for the CAV test road network of a city in central China was implemented and the results show, regarding the traffic safety facilities’ condition, among the 20 sections of the city’s CAV test road network, 15% of which are at an excellent level, 75% of which are at a good level and 10% of which are at a moderate level; road signs, guardrail facilities, isolation facilities and road features are the main limiting factors affecting the level of traffic safety facilities. Based on the results, recommendations have been made for the transport management authorities in the aspects of safety management policy-making and facilities maintenance.


Adnan ABDULVAHİTOĞLU, Danışment VURAL, Aslı ABDULVAHİTOĞLU
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 6

Turkey’s expanding population and growing economy have resulted in a significant increase in automobile ownership, leading to a rise in traffic volume and, subsequently, an increase in the number of accidents. The increase in the number of deaths and injuries caused by traffic accidents has motivated authorities and automobile manufacturers to work together to mitigate the impact of traffic accidents. Therefore, the demand for better roads, modern technologies and higher-quality driver training is becoming increasingly urgent for traffic safety. Due to the scale of harm to the country’s economy and society caused by the material and moral losses, resulting from traffic accidents, traffic safety and management is one of the most important government initiatives. One of the responsible units of traffic safety and management in Turkey is the traffic gendarme. This study reviewed the categories of traffic accidents, the number of accidents, and the road network that occurred in a province's gendarme responsibility area in Turkey and linked them with the number of traffic gendarmes in that province. Thus, the study utilised mixed integer programming based on multi-criteria decision-making methods to identify the areas where these traffic gendarmes will be deployed according to established principles.


Hui XU, Jianping WU
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 6

Road elements are increasingly digitalized to provide drivers advanced assistance especially in the emergent or adverse conditions. It is challenging and expensive to accurately digitalize all the road elements especially on the urban roads with many infrastructures and complex designs, where we may focus on the most important ones at the first stage. This research designs a questionnaire to ask the drivers to rank the importance of the road elements in various driving conditions. Driver characteristics are also collected, including age, driving style, accident experience, and accumulated driving distance, to explore their effect on drivers’ cognition of road elements importance. It is found that driving is a complex activity, and the moving elements (e.g. surrounding cars) are more important than the non-moving ones. Attention should be paid to the road elements even distant from the ego car, to get prepared to the potential driving risk or penalty. Statistical difference between the experienced and non-experienced drivers recommends that driver assistance system should be sufficiently trained in various conditions, to build up autonomous driving tactics and skills. This research promotes the understanding of driving cognition pattern to provide insights into the development of road digitalization.


Sunghwan CHO, Dohyeong KIM, Hiba KHAN, Chang Kil LEE
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 6

Heinrich’s Law indicates an empirical ratio between serious accidents, minor accidents and near misses in industrial sites, but has not been discussed in the context of road traffic accidents. Digital tachographs (DTG), a type of IoT device collecting spatiotemporal big data of vehicle trajectories, allow0 for examining a linkage between abnormal driving behaviours and the prevalence of road traffic incidents. According to the Traffic Safety Act implemented in 2011, DTG has been mandatorily pre-installed on most commercial vehicles in South Korea. The data have been analysed to evaluate the data processing method or promote eco-driving or safe driving, but only a few studies have examined an association between driving behaviours and actual traffic accidents using the limited data. We obtained 7,785,124 DTG sensing records from 1,523 commercial taxis driving within the city limits of Seoul at least once in 2013 and integrated them with 57,139 traffic accident cases during the same period. Using the integrated GIS database, we performed a grid-based spatiotemporal mapping and analysis to calculate a ratio among abnormal driving events, minor and major traffic accidents by road type. The findings suggest a potential for enhancing road safety by monitoring and controlling abnormal driving patterns as a precursor for accidents.


Ahmad H. ALOMARI, Bara’ W. AL-MISTAREHI, Al-Jammal A. AL-JAMMAL, Taqwa I. ALHADIDI, Motasem S. OBEIDAT
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 6

This study investigated several factors that may influence driver actions throughout the yellow interval at urban signalised intersections. The selected samples include 2,168 observations. Almost 33% of drivers stopped ahead of the stop line, 60% passed the intersection through the yellow interval, and 7% passed after the yellow interval was complete (red light running, RLR violations). Binary logistic regression models showed that the chance of passing went up as vehicle speed went up and down as the gap between the vehicle and the traffic light and green interval went up. The movement type and vehicle position influenced the passing probability, but the vehicle type did not. Moreover, multinomial logistic regression models showed that the legal passing probability declined with the growth in the green time and vehicle distance to the traffic signal. It also increased with the growth in the speed of approaching vehicles. Also, movement type directly affected the chance of legally passing, but vehicle position and type did not. Furthermore, the driver’s performance during the yellow phase was studied using the k-nearest neighbours algorithm (KNN), support vector machines (SVM), random forest (RF) and AdaBoost machine learning techniques. The driver’s action run prediction was the most accurate, and the run-on-red camera was the least accurate.


Fei YE, Wen CHENG
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 6

To develop effective interventions to transit the instant delivery service riders towards avoiding red light running behaviour, a valid and reliable questionnaire is needed to identify the potential theoretical factors that influence the intention. This study describes the development and validation of the red light running behaviour causes questionnaire based on the theoretical domains framework. First, the exploratory factor analysis was used to identify the initial questionnaire’s underlying structure, including a set of 67 items in 13 domains. Next, confirmatory factor analysis was undertaken to assess the questionnaire’s reliability, discriminant validity and goodness of fit. CFA produced a proper fit with adequate discriminant validity and internal consistency. CFA and Cronbach’s alpha results in the final version of the RLRBCQ consisted of 39 items assessing 13 domains, explaining 69.799% of the variance, and internal consistency reliability values ranging from 0.710 to 0.825. These results suggest that the RLRBCQ demonstrates reliable, stable and valid properties, which can be used to assess potential determinants of avoiding red light running behaviour following the domains of the TDF. It can be utilised by safety managers and practitioners to guide the design of interventions for various traffic safety behaviours.


Branko MILOVANOVIĆ, Ana TRPKOVIĆ, Sreten JEVREMOVIĆ, Predrag ŽIVANOVIĆ, Stanko BAJČETIĆ, Andrea NAĐ
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 6

This paper presents the main challenges of integrating micromobility vehicles into modern traffic and transportation systems. Although micromobility seems to be an effective concept for the first and last mile, the reality points to the potential problems that the integration of micromobility vehicles can create and that must be resolved appropriately. Micromobility vehicles are characterised by extensive development, which is not accompanied by appropriate legal regulations. The street design has its spatial limitations and usually separates non-motorised and motorised users, which is a notion that could be disrupted by new micromobility options. When it comes to Serbia, the existing legislation does not recognise the majority of micromobility vehicles, which results in the lack of safety of these participants and their place in the street profile. The aim of this paper is to provide guidelines for improving the existing regulations and integrating these vehicles into the traffic system of Serbia, with special reference to general recommendations through which micromobility vehicles can be treated in other countries. The results of this paper can be useful to decision-makers but also to all other participants in the process of developing effective policies and strategies for the integration of micromobility vehicles into traffic and transportation systems.


Branko MILOVANOVIĆ, Ana TRPKOVIĆ, Sreten JEVREMOVIĆ, Predrag ŽIVANOVIĆ, Stanko BAJČETIĆ, Andrea NAĐ
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 6

This paper presents the main challenges of integrating micromobility vehicles into modern traffic and transportation systems. Although micromobility seems to be an effective concept for the first and last mile, the reality points to the potential problems that the integration of micromobility vehicles can create and that must be resolved appropriately. Micromobility vehicles are characterised by extensive development, which is not accompanied by appropriate legal regulations. The street design has its spatial limitations and usually separates non-motorised and motorised users, which is a notion that could be disrupted by new micromobility options. When it comes to Serbia, the existing legislation does not recognise the majority of micromobility vehicles, which results in the lack of safety of these participants and their place in the street profile. The aim of this paper is to provide guidelines for improving the existing regulations and integrating these vehicles into the traffic system of Serbia, with special reference to general recommendations through which micromobility vehicles can be treated in other countries. The results of this paper can be useful to decision-makers but also to all other participants in the process of developing effective policies and strategies for the integration of micromobility vehicles into traffic and transportation systems.


Wenjing LIU, Jinbao ZHAO, Jiawei JIANG, Mingxing LI, Yuejuan XU, Keke HOU, Shengli ZHAO
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 6

Dockless bike-sharing (DBS) is an effective solution to the “first and last mile” problem in urban transportation. It can be integrated with urban rail transit (URT) to provide passengers with more convenient travel services. This study focuses on the integrated use of DBS and URT in Shenzhen, utilising a multi-buffer zone approach to identify DBS data within URT station catchment areas. By employing ordinary least squares (OLS), geographically weighted regression (GWR) and multiscale geographically weighted regression (MGWR) models, the spatiotemporal heterogeneity of integrated use and its relationship with environmental factors surrounding URT stations were examined. The empirical findings highlight the superiority of the MGWR model in accurately explaining spatial relationships compared to the OLS and GWR models. Furthermore, the study reveals that the impact of built environment factors on integrated use varies during morning and evening peak periods, as well as in terms of access and egress. Specifically, factors such as catering, shopping, companies, residential buildings, bus stops, minor roads, transfer stations and population density were found to influence the integrated use of DBS and URT. These findings not only contribute to the promotion of the DBS-URT integration but also promote the overall development of urban transportation.


Jelena SIMIĆEVIĆ, Nataša VIDOVIĆ, Vladimir ĐORIĆ
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 6

Parking search reduces the quality of parking service, as well as traffic network level of service, due to additionally generated traffic. Parking search also entails other negative effects, primarily ecological, social and economic. Even though the importance of this problem has been noted in the past, there is an impression that this issue has not been sufficiently researched and should be additionally analysed in order to properly understand this phenomenon. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to study the factors affecting parking search time that can be influenced through a set of parking management measures. In this paper, an ordinal regression model was developed to estimate these parameters and it was fitted using empirical data collected by interviewing drivers. Main model results show that parking occupancy has the highest impact upon the value of parking search time, indicating the significance of defining proper policies and measures aimed at reaching targeted parking occupancy. Parking frequency is the second parameter observed to be significant, demonstrating the importance of implementing proper parking information systems.


Berna AKSOY, Mustafa GURSOY
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 6

Freight transport significantly contributes to urban traffic but is often overlooked by decision-makers compared to passenger transport. Conventional transportation modelling studies often use aggregate approaches for freight transport, undoubtedly due to the difficulty of data collection. However, the nature of freight transportation is much more complex. For this reason, examining the determinants of freight vehicle preferences with discrete approaches is crucial for the contributions that can be put forward, especially in local studies. To address this apparent gap in the study of local disaggregated approaches to freight transport, we present a discrete modelling-based methodology to investigate the factors that determine freight vehicle preferences for shippers and senders. The estimated nested logit model is constructed with the RU2 approach, the second part of random utility theory, thus avoiding the theoretical inconsistencies that arise when generic coefficients are used. As a result, the model structures provided satisfactory results compared to the literature. It was revealed that the factors affecting freight vehicle choice preferences were influenced by packaging preferences and differed according to freight groups. This local study is the first nested logit study for freight modelling in Istanbul and it is aimed to shed light on future national studies.

 


Milja SIMEUNOVIĆ, Radoslav KOJIĆ, Nebojša RALEVIĆ, Pavle PITKA, Tatjana KOVAČEVIĆ
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 6

In this paper, the influence of traffic flow volume and meteorological conditions on carbon monoxide (CO), particulate matter (PM), ozone (O3) and sulphur dioxide (SO2) concertation is determined based on the measurements conducted at a selected location over a 784-hour period. Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) were applied to the data set. Regression analysis was also used to determine trends in pollutant concentrations as a function of traffic flow and meteorological parameters. Analysis of the obtained data indicates a statistically significant relationship between traffic volume and meteorological parameters on the one hand and pollutants on the other. However, increase in the value of certain input variables does not necessarily result in the increase in pollutant concentration. CO and O3 showed a significant dependence on the number of vehicles, while for SO2 the influence of commercial vehicles was greater than that of passenger cars. The relationship between the number of vehicles and PM was not evident at the study site.


Martin BALÁŽ, Juraj VACULÍK
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 6

The emergence of global health crises has emphasised the need for efficient and secure methods to verify the individuals’ vaccination and testing status. The research paper proposes an innovative application of the Radio Frequency Identification technology to develop a comprehensive system that ensures the controlled entry of vaccinated and tested individuals into buildings and extends its use to transportation networks. By combining tags, readers and a centralised database, with the extension of using Message Queuing Telemetry Transport, this solution aims to enhance public health safety, restore confidence in public spaces and optimise transportation operations.


Martin BALÁŽ, Juraj VACULÍK
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 6

The emergence of global health crises has emphasised the need for efficient and secure methods to verify the individuals’ vaccination and testing status. The research paper proposes an innovative application of the Radio Frequency Identification technology to develop a comprehensive system that ensures the controlled entry of vaccinated and tested individuals into buildings and extends its use to transportation networks. By combining tags, readers and a centralised database, with the extension of using Message Queuing Telemetry Transport, this solution aims to enhance public health safety, restore confidence in public spaces and optimise transportation operations.


Anas Alatawneh, Adam Torok
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 5

This study explores the potential impact of per capita gross domestic product (GDP) changes on the adoption of autonomous vehicles (AVs). The level of adoption of AVs is anticipated to influence the benefits of future mobility, prompting numerous studies that forecast the market share of AVs using various methods. The influence of changes in the per capita GDP on vehicle ownership is crucial in assessing the challenges associated with reducing dependence on AVs in the future. This phenomenon, known as the hysteresis effect, implies that AV adoption estimates may differ when the GDP is rising as opposed to when it is falling. This research examines the effect of rising and falling GDP per capita on the anticipated AV diffusion in Hungary, utilising a scenario-based method to account for the variation in adoption rates in the literature. The study findings indicate that declines in GDP in the past will impact AV ownership, leading to a shift in future adoption patterns. The AV market is projected to reach saturation in the 2070s and the 2090s in favourable and moderate scenarios, respectively, while a pessimistic state would delay this outcome until after the year 2100.


Sebastian Kot, Stephen Ojinji
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 5

Transportation, which is a significant facilitator of global trade and development, faces a serious problem with respect to sustainability. Firstly, there is the need to minimise greenhouse gas emissions while maintaining profitability and social responsibility. Transportation will be totally decarbonised by consistently moving towards a more sustainable, diverse and resilient range of transportation modes with advanced vehicle technologies. However, what impact this will have on the economic performance of transport service providers remains a big question. The aim of this study is to examine the short-run relationship between environmental sustainability in road freight transportation and the economic performance of the road freight transport sector in the European Union using an autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (ARCH) model. The analysis was conducted using annual data spanning from 2008 to 2021. The results indicate that energy taxes on transport and storage, biodiesel consumption and vehicle capacity utilisation have a positive and significant impact on freight transport performance (FTP). The findings suggest that policymakers could use energy taxes and incentives to promote the use of biodiesel in the transportation sector to increase FTP. Additionally, efforts to improve vehicle capacity utilisation could significantly increase FTP and have positive environmental implications such as reducing traffic congestion and emissions.


Mladenka Blagojević, Dragana Šarac, Katarina Mostarac
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 5

Postal service providers can reorganise the last-mile delivery process within the scope of universal service and apply some of the flexible models for the organisation of the delivery. In this paper, the question of the selection of Flexible Last-Mile Delivery Models (FLMDMs) is treated using multicriteria decision-making. We have identified four different sustainable last-mile delivery models with an emphasis on the number of delivery workers. One postal service provider from Europe was selected, where the proposed FLMDMs were tested. The proposed last-mile delivery models are ranked using Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) techniques. In this context, MCDA techniques are used to make a comparative assessment of alternatives. The obtained results suggest the AB delivery model as the optimal choice for the last-mile delivery and complete allocation of the number of delivery workers.


Tibor Sipos
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 5

In this paper, the author investigated the stated preference survey in transport modelling. The research was conducted to ensure that the best fractional orthogonal design of stated preference paired comparison survey would not increase the error or uncertainty in transport-related decision modelling. The research was conducted based on artificial Monte Carlo simulated respondents, and the results were assessed with standard mathematical-statistical tools. Although the assessment should have resulted in 0% errors, according to our 2,000 sample, a minor 5% of errors occurred. The problem to be investigated in this paper is that the best-designed survey could have some errors.


Qingchao Liu, Fenxia Gao, Jingya Zhao, Weiqi Zhou
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 5

Accurate energy consumption prediction is essential for improving the driving experience. In the urban road scenario, we discussed the influencing factors of energy consumption and divided the modes from various perspectives. The differences in energy consumption characteristics and distribution laws for electric vehicles using the IDM and CACC car-following models under different traffic flows are compared. An energy consumption prediction framework based on the LightGBM model is proposed. According to the study, driving range, acceleration, accelerating time, decelerating time and cruising time all significantly impact the overall energy consumption of electric vehicles. There are apparent differences in energy consumption characteristics and distribution laws under different traffic flows: average energy consumption is lower under low flow and increased under high flow. The CACC-electric vehicles consume more energy in low flow than IDM-electric vehicles. Under high flow, the opposite is true. The results show that the proposed framework has a high accuracy: the MAPE based on IDM datasets is 3.45% and the RMSE is 0.039 kWh; the MAPE based on CACC datasets is 5.57% and the RMSE is 0.042 kWh. The MAPE and RMSE are reduced by 33.7% and 50.6% (maximum extent) compared to the best comparison algorithm.


Xiaoli Deng, Yao Hu
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 5

A macroscopic fundamental diagram (MFD) is an important basis for road network research. It describes the functional relationship between the average flow and average density of the road network. We proposed an MFD estimation method based on the traffic flow condition. Firstly, according to statistical theories, the road network data are divided into three traffic flow conditions (free flow, chaotic and congested) bounded by a 95% confidence interval of the maximum traffic capacity of each intersection in the road network. Then, in each condition, we combined principal component analysis and the Jolliffe B4 method to reduce dimension for extracting critical intersections. Finally, the full-scale dataset of the road network was reconstructed to estimate the road network MFD. Through numerical simulation and empirical research, it is found that the root mean square error and absolute percentage error between estimated MFD and true MFD considering the traffic flow condition are smaller than those without considering the traffic flow condition. The MFD estimation and the division of the traffic states of the road network were completed at the same time. The proposed method effectively saves the time cost of road network research and is highly accurate.


Meng Li, Qi Lin
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 5

Urban rail transit plays a very important role in cities’ social and economic development. To ensure the safe and stable operation of urban rail transit operation equipment and facilities, it is necessary to monitor a large number of safety hazard statuses and data and improve the over-centralisation of traditional monitoring. This paper designs a scheme for storing, validating and monitoring the safety hazard status of urban rail transit operation equipment and facilities based on blockchain technology. The safety hazards of equipment and facilities during the operation stage of urban rail transit are listed using the literature analysis method and the case study method. The European RAMS (reliability, availability, maintainability and safety) standard method is used to determine the safety hazard status of equipment and facilities by availability index. Based on the features of the consensus mechanism, smart contract and other features of blockchain technology, this paper designs an overall scheme for storing, verifying and monitoring the safety hazard status of equipment and facilities. This scheme provides a practical operation method for evaluating the safety hazard status of rail transit equipment and facilities, which is conducive to the safety rectification of the entire urban rail transit.


Yi Zhu, Shuyan Chen, Ying Wu; Fengxiang Qiao; Yongfeng Ma
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 5

The shared parking mode represents a feasible solution to the persistent problem of parking scarcity in urban areas. This paper aims to examine the shared parking choice behaviours using a combination of structural equation modelling (SEM) and neural network, taking into account both the parking location characteristics and the travellers’ characteristics. Data were collected from a commercial district in Nanjing, China, through an online questionnaire survey covering 11 factors affecting shared parking choice. The method involved two steps: firstly, SEM was applied to examine the influence of these factors on shared parking choice. Following this, the seven factors with the strongest correlation to shared parking choice were used to train a neural network model for shared parking prediction. This SEM-informed model was found to outperform a neural network model trained on all eleven factors across precision, recall, accuracy, F1 and AUC metrics. The research concluded that the selected factors significantly influence shared parking choice, reinforcing the hypothesis regarding the importance of parking location and traveller characteristics. These findings provide valuable insights to support the effective implementation and promotion of shared parking.


Zhenyang Qiu, Xiaowei Hu, Shuai Song, Yu Wang
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 5

Electric buses (EBs) have attracted more and more attention in recent years because of their energy-saving and pollution-free characteristics. However, very few studies have considered the impact of stochastic traffic conditions on their operations. This paper focuses on the departure interval optimisation of EBs which is a critical problem in the operations. We consider the stochastic traffic conditions in the operations and establish a departure interval optimisation model. The objective function aims at minimising passenger travel costs and enterprise operation costs, including waiting time costs, congestion costs, energy consumption costs and operational fixed costs. To solve this problem, a genetic algorithm (GA) based on fitness adjustment crossover and mutation rate is proposed. Based on the Harbin bus dataset, we find that improved GA performance is 4.481% higher, and it can solve the models more accurately and efficiently. Compared with the current situation, the optimisation model reduces passenger travel costs by 20.2% and helps improve passenger travel quality. Under stochastic traffic conditions, total cost change is small, but passenger travel costs increase significantly. This indicates the high impact degree of random traffic conditions on passenger travel. In addition, a sensitivity analysis is conducted to provide suggestions for improving the EBs operation and management.


Heng Yu, Ailing Li
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 5

The Guangzhou Metro Authority implemented health condition registration and temperature checks to curb the spread of the virus during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, it is important to investigate how these measures may have impacted the get-through efficiency and whether they caused the increased crowding at entrances and the station hall. To address these questions, simulation models based on the T Station were developed using AnyLogic. The model compared the get-through efficiencies with and without the anti-epidemic measures, while also analysing the risk of crowding at entrances and within the station hall after their implementation. Results revealed an increase in the number of passengers unsuccessfully passing through the check-in gate machines from 15% to 53% within 5 minutes, and 10% to 45% within 10 minutes when the anti-epidemic measures were in place. It was also observed that some entrances experienced significant crowding. Three measures were simulated to find effective ways to increase the get-through efficiency and mitigate the crowding – increasing the distance between security and health checks, utilising automatic infrared thermometers, and arranging volunteers or staff to assist with the registration process. The results demonstrated that using automatic infrared thermometers instead of handheld forehead thermometers proved to be effective in improving passenger efficiency and alleviating crowding at entrances and within the station hall.


Hung Tuan Trinh, Sang-Hoon Bae, Quang Duy Tran
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 5

In the future, mixed traffic flow will consist of human-driven vehicles (HDVs) and connected autonomous vehicles (CAVs). Effective traffic management is a global challenge, especially in urban areas with many intersections. Much research has focused on solving this problem to increase intersection network performance. Reinforcement learning (RL) is a new approach to optimising traffic signal lights that overcomes the disadvantages of traditional methods. In this paper, we propose an integrated approach that combines the multi-agent advantage actor-critic (MA-A2C) and smart navigation (SN) to solve the congestion problem in a road network under mixed traffic conditions. The A2C algorithm combines the advantages of value-based and policy-based methods to stabilise the training by reducing the variance. It also overcomes the limitations of centralised and independent MARL. In addition, the SN technique reroutes traffic load to alternate paths to avoid congestion at intersections. To evaluate the robustness of our approach, we compare our model against independent-A2C (I-A2C) and max pressure (MP). These results show that our proposed approach performs more efficiently than others regarding average waiting time, speed and queue length. In addition, the simulation results also suggest that the model is effective as the CAV penetration rate is greater than 20%.


Bin He, Yaping Liu, Xiaocheng Gao, Fei An, Xikui Lv
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 5

In order to avoid the congestion in front of the entrance gate units, it is necessary to analyse and optimise the queuing situation at the planning and design stage. The security inspection area and the ticket-checking area were jointly considered, and a queuing congestion analysis method was proposed. Firstly, the research problem was stated. Then, the problem of calculating the number of passengers in each subarea at any time was transformed into the problem of calculating the transit time of each passenger in each subarea. The transit time was divided into basic transit time and additional transit time. Based on the velocity-density relationship, a quantisation method for basic transit time was proposed related to passenger arrival time. The additional transit time was determined by the moment when the passengers left the subarea according to the sequence of arrival of passengers, the number of queuing passengers in the subarea and the congestion of the subarea to be entered. Finally, the queuing situation of passengers in each subarea at any moment was obtained through passenger flow recursion. Examples showed that the proposed method can deal with multiple working conditions and avoid the tedious and time-consuming scene construction process of the microsimulation software.


Domokos Esztergár-Kiss
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 4

In recent years several projects have been realised in the field of transportation, but there is a lack of systematic analysis of research challenges connected to these projects. Thus, the main aim of this paper is to provide an overview of these challenges through EU funded projects in the field of smart, green and integrated transport. Based on EU strategic documents, reports and roadmaps, 10 topics are identified playing a crucial role in transportation-related research. A systematic analysis of the projects is realised, where the projects collected from an online database in the Horizon 2020 framework programme from 2015 to 2020 are categorised into these topics. The results show that travel behaviour, big data and open data, sustainable mobility planning and smart solutions are covered by several projects which reflect the main research trends. While active and shared modes, multimodal transportation, trip optimisation and Mobility as a Service are also popular topics. Based on the results, the most underrepresented research areas are artificial intelligence and social networks. The analysis of the connections between the research topics could enable the achievement of a long-term paradigm shift in urban mobility, which is beneficial for researchers, professionals and policy makers.


Lu Yang, Ahmad Sufril Azlan Bin Mohamed, Majid Khan Bin Majahar Ali
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 4

Although computer vision-based methods have seen broad utilisation in evaluating traffic situations, there is a lack of research on the assessment and prediction of near misses in traffic. In addition, most object detection algorithms are not very good at detecting small targets. This study proposes a combination of object detection and tracking algorithms, Inverse Perspective Mapping (IPM), and trajectory prediction mechanisms to assess near-miss events. First, an instance segmentation head was proposed to improve the accuracy of the object frame box detection phase. Secondly, IPM was applied to all detection results. The relationship between them is then explored based on their distance to determine whether there is a near-miss event. In this process, the moving speed of the target was considered as a parameter. Finally, the Kalman filter is used to predict the object's trajectory to determine whether there will be a near-miss in the next few seconds. Experiments on Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) datasets showed results of 0.94 mAP compared to other state-of-the-art methods. In addition to improved detection accuracy, the advantages of instance segmentation fused object detection for small target detection are validated. Therefore, the results will be used to analyse near misses more accurately.


Ladislav Bartuška; Jiří Hanzl; Rudolf Kampf, Predrag Brlek
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 4

Urban transport system planning has been moving towards sustainability in recent years, and the concept of urban freight logistics is an integral part of this planning. Urban freight logistics involves many stakeholders that participate in its operation and should be considered in the system planning process. The paper presents one of the approaches to the methodology for the selection of key indicators suitable for the evaluation and monitoring of a sustainable system of urban freight logistics in such a way that it reflects as much as possible the needs of all involved stakeholders. This is done by applying the selected method of multi-criteria analysis with the involvement of various urban freight logistics stakeholders. Based on the proposed methodology, the paper defines significant indicators that can be considered for further evaluation of the level of a sustainable urban freight logistics system. In addition to the possibilities of further development of this methodology, the application of determined significant indicators for calculating the proposed index of sustainable urban freight logistics is discussed. The proposed procedure can be implemented in the preparatory steps in the framework of the creation of sustainable urban logistics plans (SULPs).


İlker Ünder, Kadir Aksay, Omur Akbayir, Umran Under
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 4

For organisations to take preventive measures and eliminate potential accidents, the information gained through voluntary reporting is essential. Employees do not, however, report voluntarily for a number of reasons. In this study, we examine why train drivers, who are vital to maintaining rail safety, fail to report hazardous occurrences, leading to employee silence. The measurement tool, which has already been developed specifically for aviation employees, has been applied to 346 train drivers working on Turkish Railways. The scale used for research purposes has proven to be valid and reliable for organisations involved in railways. As a result, it was determined that the drivers did not participate in voluntary reporting due to relational and prosocial, disengaged, quiescence and acquiescence and fear and defensive factors. The highest score for the reasons for non-reporting was observed in the dimension of quiescence and acquiescence. The results of the correlation analysis between dimensions, which are assumed to be the reasons for non-reporting, point to strong positive relationships between each dimension.


Branimir Duvnjak, Tomislav Josip Mlinarić, Danko Kezić
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 4

Timetable stability depends on the regularity of trains. Any deviation from the planned timetable leads to its instability. Railway network characteristics determine the capacities of the transport service. Depending on the capacity calculation method, time components are added to the minimum headway to ensure timetable stability. The UIC 405 method is simple and can be used on all railways. The disadvantage is that the calculations are based on average data. According to the method, the minimum headway consists of the time of the average headway interval, additional time and the buffer time. The additional time is precisely defined by the number of APB sections, while the buffer time is in the average value. When creating the timetable, the goal is optimal utilisation of the infrastructure. If the headway is too long, the capacity is not used, and if it is too short, timetable instability will ensue. Instead of averaging, this work calculates a buffer time that depends on the ratio of the travel time of the previous and the following trains. In this way, the headway is optimised and the calculation of the UIC 405 method is improved.


Ognjen Pantelić, Dalibor Pešić, Milan Vujanić, Katarina Švab, Aleksandar Trifunović
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 4

It is generally known that traffic safety is influenced by humans, vehicles, and roads. Nowadays, when new technologies have taken over a large part of the traffic industry, the selection of relevant software, whose competition is great, presents a big problem for the decision-maker. Intelligent systems, such as Motion, SCOOT, and SCATS, are used for the implementation of a control strategy in order to manage signals on the traffic network, with the goal of increasing efficiency and traffic safety. These systems operate on the demand-responsive principle and have logic for traffic optimization which represents their main difference along with the optimization subject and method of the system functioning. The research included consideration of mentioned differences, software, and hardware architecture that have a significant impact on the system’s functionality since the detector’s locations themselves depend on the optimization subject. The implementation benefits are considered through the existing world’s projects. Based on the obtained data, the criteria used for the comparative analysis of these three systems were defined, from the aspect of traffic safety.


Jiuju Bi, Xunpeng Qin, Dongjin Hu, Chenyang Xu
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 4

Physiological signal index can accurately reflect the degree of fatigue, but the contact detection method will greatly affect the driver's driving. This paper presents a non-contact method for detecting tired driving. It uses cameras and other devices to collect information about the driver's face. By recording facial changes over a period and processing the captured video, pulse waves are extracted. Then the frequency domain index and nonlinear index of heart rate variability were extracted by pulse wave characteristics. Finally, the experiment proves that the method can clearly judge whether the driver is tired. In this study, the Imaging Photoplethysmography (IPPG) technology was used to realise non-contact driver fatigue detection. Compared with the non-contact detection method through identifying drivers' blinking and yawning, the physiological signal adopted in this paper is more convincing. Compared with other methods that detect physiological signals to judge driver fatigue, the method in this paper has the advantages of being non-contact, fast, convenient and available for the cockpit environment.


Ying Chen, Zhigang Du, Zehao Jiang, Congjian Liu, Xuefeng Chen
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 4

For urban extra-long underwater tunnels, the obstacle space formed by the tunnel walls on both sides has an impact on the driver's driving. The aim of this study is to investigate the shy away characteristics of drivers in urban extra-long underwater tunnels. Using trajectory offset and speed data obtained from real vehicle tests, the driving behaviour at different lanes of an urban extra-long underwater tunnel was investigated, and a theory of shy away effects and indicators of sidewall shy away deviation for quantitative analysis were proposed. The results show that the left-hand lane has the largest offset and driving speed from the sidewall compared to the other two lanes. In the centre lane there is a large fluctuation in the amount of deflection per 50 seconds of driving, increasing the risk of two-lane collisions. When the lateral clearances are increased from 0.5 m to 2.19 m on the left and 1.29 m on the right, the safety needs of drivers can be better met. The results of this study have implications for improving traffic safety in urban extra-long underwater tunnels and for the improvement of tunnel traffic safety facilities.


Yancheng Ling; Xiaoxiong Weng
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 4

Fatigue detection based on vision is widely employed in vehicles due to its real-time and reliable detection results. With the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, many proposed detection systems based on facial characteristics would be unreliable due to the face covering with the mask. In this paper, we propose a robust visual-based fatigue detection system for monitoring drivers, which is robust regarding the coverings of masks, changing illumination and head movement of drivers. Our system has three main modules: face key point alignment, fatigue feature extraction and fatigue measurement based on fused features. The innovative core techniques are described as follows: (1) a robust key point alignment algorithm by fusing global face information and regional eye information, (2) dynamic threshold methods to extract fatigue characteristics and (3) a stable fatigue measurement based on fusing percentage of eyelid closure (PERCLOS) and proportion of long closure duration blink (PLCDB). The excellent performance of our proposed algorithm and methods are verified in experiments. The experimental results show that our key point alignment algorithm is robust to different scenes, and the performance of our proposed fatigue measurement is more reliable due to the fusion of PERCLOS and PLCDB.


Ronghu Zhou, Qin Ge
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 4

Aiming at the lack of an anti-clogging ability index in the road network traffic evaluation index, an anti-clogging ability index was proposed to measure the anti-clogging ability of urban road traffic network: Κ-anti-clogging coefficient, which is used to measure the shortest path between any pair of starting and ending points on the urban road traffic network. After the current edge of the shortest path is blocked, the shortest path is selected from the current node of the shortest path. If the current edge of the shortest path is blocked again, the selection continues until the shortest path to the ending point is selected. In the case of unrecoverable congestion, the properties of the anti-clogging coefficient vector on any origin-destination pair, a path, and the whole traffic network are analysed, and the algorithm of the anti-clogging coefficient and its complexity are given. Finally, an example analysis is carried out using a local traffic network in a city.


Yi Guo, Abdol Aziz Shahraki
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 4

Cities located on a path of intercity railroads tend to be in a corridor system to increase commerce and economic profits. Theoretic and practical work concerning train station locations can be used to provide factors that affect the choice of train station sites. In this paper, we find optimal places to locate train stations according to location theories and particular natural and socioeconomic characteristics. The methods we used are focused on maximising users’ economic profits associated with passenger and cargo transportation by finding optimal stations on the route. Furthermore, we created a general algebraic modelling system (GAMS) with linear planning, which is solvable using a C programming language (CPLEX) interactive optimiser. Case studies on 14 stations along the 820 km long Milak-Chabahar corridor helped us to simulate our model and test its feasibility at three alternative times to prove the outcomes. The stations would increase an average profit of 38.6%, 42.94% and 50.85%, but the growth varied in the stations. This research contributes to freight and passenger transportation engineers in railroad design. They benefit from the model to determine the location of a train station to obtain maximum user profits in that station and its surrounding areas.


Marina Zanne, Elen Twrdy, Robert Muha, Milan Batista
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 3

Transport is an industry that generates a significant portion of national income and directly or indirectly employs a large number of workers, while supporting the existence and development of all other sectors of the economy. Despite the long-standing goal of decoupling economic and transport growth in the European Union (EU), freight transport volumes, especially road freight transport, continue to increase. This leads to a deterioration of the quality of life and the environment, but on the other hand also creates business opportunities. The question is which country’s haulers will benefit the most. Using a shift-share analysis, the authors provide an overview of the dynamics of the EU road freight market and select countries for closer examination. They then examine the extent to which the road freight sector contributes to national income in these countries. Using a regression analysis, they estimate transport prices and changes in turnover and gross value added (GVA) for selected countries due to market structure change. The results show that the sector’s turnover increased by 4% due to market changes, sectoral GVA deviated only slightly, and there was a loss of at least 8 billion EUR in GVA due to the shortage of truck drivers.


František Stellner , Marek Vokoun, Pavel Szobi, Marek Kasa
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 3

Vienna’s geostrategic importance fluctuated through the ages because of the power clashes and subsequent political and socio-economic impacts on the population. This paper assesses its current position in a historical context and then focuses more on the socio-economic dimensions such as interconnectedness and other transport aspects of the geostrategic position. Air and environmentally friendlier modes of passenger transport like high-speed rail are considered and analysed in the European context. This paper also reviews the results and issues dealing with the development of the Vienna Airport and the progress of high-speed railway projects in the Central European Economies (CEEs) after the European Union’s enlargement in 2004. The results suggest that after a restoration period of Vienna’s geostrategic position between 1995–2005, there is currently only a moderate and slowly growing exercise of power, control or influence over the CEEs. The results suggest that there is competition from busier German hub airports as well as the growing importance of CEE airports in transit and growing passenger transport performance figures. The lack of environmentally friendly high-speed infrastructure as a viable option instead of the fastest air travel is preventing Vienna to strengthen its strategic position. Its strategic importance is highly affected by the underdeveloped transport networks in CEEs and the future development of the Vienna Airport as a major transport hub.


Mateusz Zajac, Tomislav Rožić, Dora Naletina
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 3

The paper concerns the method of determining the probability of unproductive manipulations during operations, maintenance or repairs on an inland intermodal terminal. The method is mathematically based on the semi-Markov process. The developed method enables revision of unproductive manipulation frequency and duration. It provides an opportunity to analyse and change inland terminal operations so as to increase productivity.


Nemanja Stepanović, Vladan Tubić, Stefan Zdravković
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 3

Current analytical free-flow speed models consider all rural two-lane highways as the same road type despite their different functional significance in the network. The aim of this paper is to develop a prediction model for free-flow speed as a function of speed limit and road geometric characteristics for different classes of rural two-lane highways. The research was conducted on 50 representative sections of the two rural classes of two-lane highways equipped with automatic traffic counters in Serbia. In order to develop the appropriate models, it was necessary to determine the threshold values of vehicle time headway in the free-flow for both classes of rural two-lane highways, based on the total number of 191,720 vehicles. The obtained results show that there are differences in the threshold values of free-flow time headway for different road classes. Namely, it was determined that the values of free-flow time headway for Class I amounted to 6.3 s, and for Class II to 8.4 s. The free-flow speed prediction model for different road classes showed that speed limit had the highest impact on free-flow speed for Class I and II highways, followed by horizontal curve radius and shoulder width.


Qingchao Liu, Wenjie Ouyang, Jingya Zhao, Yingfeng Cai, Long Chen
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 3

Connected automated vehicles (CAV) can increase traffic efficiency, which is considered a critical factor in saving energy and reducing emissions in traffic congestion. In this paper, systematic traffic simulations are conducted for three car-following modes, including intelligent driver model (IDM), adaptive cruise control (ACC), and cooperative ACC (CACC), in congestions caused by rear-end collisions. From the perspectives of lane density, vehicle trajectory and vehicle speed, the fuel consumption of vehicles under the three car-following modes are compared and analysed, respectively. Based on the vehicle driving and accident environment parameters, an XGBoost algorithm-based fuel consumption prediction framework is proposed for traffic congestions caused by rear-end collisions. The results show that compared with IDM and ACC modes, the vehicles in CACC car-following mode have the ideal performance in terms of total fuel consumption; besides, the traffic flow in CACC mode is more stable, and the speed fluctuation is relatively tiny in different accident impact regions, which meets the driving desires of drivers.


Ovidiu-Laurențiu Harpalete
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 3

Cities, even medium-sized and small ones, have become overwhelmed by traffic and congestion. Innovative solutions are required and recent studies have focused on sustainable approaches. This study aims to develop a multimodal transport model consisting of an urban public transportation (UPT) service combined with an e-scooter sharing service. The main purpose of the model is a comparison between two travel alternatives (car and UPT + e-scooter), calculating their associated levels of utility. The methodology is based on a multinomial logit model, implemented in Matlab software, using results from an online mobility survey (socio-economic characteristics of potential users of e-scooters). The additional aim is related to the assessment of the inhabitants’ availability to shift from car to multimodal service or to simple e-scooter service. The developed micromodel was applied in Iași, a mid-sized city located in the northeast of Romania. Several price strategies were analysed in order to find their influence on users’ mobility behaviour. It turned out that the price for the shared e-scooter is too high at this moment to be used for daily travel. Without a price decrease and public authorities’ involvement in facilitating the multimodality, the e-scooter remains only an entertainment activity.


Željko Ivanović
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 3

The expansion of logistics requirements, limited space and strict requirements of generators of logistics requests (GLR) in terms of service quality complicate the supply of the region, resulting in the necessity to improve logistics models (MoL). Proximity to water, the presence of ports and piers along the coast, new eco vehicles and the development of cooperation between land and water transport are elements for improving the existing MoLs in an economically and environmentally acceptable way. Research on the development of an improved multi-echelon logistics network with variable terminals including the coordination and cooperation of a heterogeneous group of transport agencies for the realisation of goods flows represents an innovation in regional logistics (RL). This article presents an integrated MoL development process using dynamic optimisation with a focus on spatial, temporal, transport, economic and environmental components.


Xingyu Chen, Haijian Bai, Heng Ding, Jianshe Gao; Wenjuan Huang
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 3

This paper focuses on the potential safety hazards of collision in car-following behaviour generated by deep learning models. Based on an intelligent LSTM model, combined with a Gipps model of safe collision avoidance, a new, Gipps-LSTM model is constructed, which can not only learn the intelligent behaviour of people but also ensure the safety of vehicles. The idea of the Gipps-LSTM model combination is as follows: the concept of a potential collision point (PCP) is introduced, and the LSTM model or Gipps model is controlled and started through a risk judgment algorithm. Dataset 1 and dataset 2 are used to train and simulate the LSTM model and Gipps-LSTM model. The simulation results show that the Gipps-LSTM can solve the problem of partial trajectory collision in the LSTM model simulation. Moreover, the risk level of all trajectories is lower than that of the LSTM model. The safety and stability of the model are verified by multi-vehicle loop simulation and multi-vehicle linear simulation. Compared with the LSTM model, the safety of the Gipps-LSTM model is improved by 42.02%, and the convergence time is reduced by 25 seconds.


Yueer Gao, Yanqing Liao
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 3

Tourism traffic has a considerable influence on the state of urban traffic in tourist cities. To consider tourism traffic demand in the division of conventional traffic analysis zones (TAZ), a spatial analysis method combining dynamic traffic state features with static land use and road network characteristics is proposed to define tourism traffic analysis zones (TTAZs). Taking Xiamen Island as an example, first, point of interest (POI) data for the tourism elements on Xiamen Island and kernel density estimation (KDE) are applied to determine the core zones impacted by tourism traffic. Second, within the impacted zones, this paper studies the dynamic distribution of the tourism traffic for peak hours during holidays and non-tourism period by employing spatial autocorrelation method based on floating car data (FCD) and determines the area of slow traffic agglomeration of tourism traffic. In view of the distribution of tourism infrastructure, land use, tourism traffic state distribution and road network, this study identified the characteristics of slow traffic agglomeration in the area near Siming Road and divided four TAZs into six TTAZs. By further dividing the urban TTAZs, this paper hopes to provide a reference for urban traffic planning and management, tourism planning and land use planning.


Yi Zhao, Yongmeng Wu, DiDi Yan, Zerui Xiang, Jinyi Zhi, Yunming Li, Bochu Xu
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 3

This paper proposes a functional carriage design and an evaluation index system to improve the operational efficiency of high-speed medical trains. Hierarchical task analysis and human-machine-environment analysis were applied to model the transfer task and the functional modules of the medical train. The functional module configuration was obtained by performing a correlation analysis between the task and function. The relationship between carriages was elucidated by analysing material, personnel and information flow, and an optimal grouping diagram was obtained. Based on this design method, an innovative 6-carriage grouping design scheme was proposed. A functional evaluation index system for the carriage design was constructed, and the 6-carriage design was compared with the conventional 8-carriage design to verify the usability of the design method. The results showed that the 6-carriage high-speed trains can be flexibly configured to suit the changing task environment and are generally better than the 8-carriage design. This study provides theoretical and methodological support for constructing efficient and rational functional carriages for high-speed medical trains.


Yimin Wang, Heng Yu, Yue Luo, Peiyu Qiu, Jiacheng Chen
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 3

To better utilise the service capacity of the limited facilities of a metro station, as well as ensure safety and transport efficiency during peak hours, a large passenger flow control plan is studied through theoretical analysis and numerical simulation. Firstly, by passenger data collection and data analysis, the characteristics of the inbound and outbound passenger flow of a T metro station are analysed. Secondly, AnyLogic evacuation simulation models for the T Station during peak hours, peak hours without/with passenger flow control are established based on real passenger flow data as well as the station structures and layouts by using the AnyLogic software. The results show that there are no obvious congestions in the station hall, and the travel delay is significantly reduced when effective passenger flow control measures are taken. By controlling the speed, direction and movement path of passengers, as well as adjusting the operation of escalators, entrances and automatic ticket-checking machines, passenger flow can become more orderly, transport efficiency can also be improved, and congestion in the station can be well mitigated.


Huiling Zhang, Dekai Zhang, Ruihao Wang
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 3

The crossing decisions and behaviour of elderly pedestrians are affected by the pedestrian level of service (PLOS). In this paper, an evaluation model was established to analyse the relationship between the traffic environment and the perceived evaluation of elderly pedestrians. Firstly, the characteristic parameters of the selected intersections and the perceived evaluation data of elderly pedestrians at the synchronisation scenery were extracted using manual recording and questionnaire-based truncation methods. The correlation between the perceived evaluation data of elderly pedestrians and the traffic parameters were tested with respect to the dimensions of safety, convenience and efficiency. Then, the significant parameters affecting PLOS were recognised. Based on the traffic characteristic parameters, the PLOS evaluation model from the elderly perspective was established using the fuzzy linear regression method. PLOS classification thresholds were obtained using the fuzzy C-means clustering algorithm. The data from two intersections were used to validate the model. The results show that the difference between the actual and the predicted PLOS values of the two crosswalks were 0.2 and 0.1, respectively. Thus, the proposed PLOS evaluation model in this paper can be used to accurately predict the PLOS from the elderly perspective using the traffic data of signalised intersections.


Roman Ježdík, Vladislav Kemka, Jan Kovanda, František Lopot, Hynek Purš, Barbora Hájková
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 2

Safety of rail vehicles is an important feature of sustainable public transport. Proofs of an effort in that area are new recommendations and regulations from the expert commission (WG2 of the Technical Committee CEN / TC 256) regarding trams and light rail vehicles aimed at vulnerable road users. Additional requirements on tram safety can be requested by the vehicle operator and/or city. Pedestrian safety measures can be adopted from the automotive sector utilising the protection principles from Regulation EC No. 78/2009, ECE/UN regulations, and EuroNCAP tests. The purpose of this publication is to introduce a simplified testing method for the tram front end with respect to pedestrian head-on collisions. Testing methods based on segment impactors were generally accepted. The wrap-around distance defines the assessment of vehicle impact areas. A mathematical model was created to compare the results of the full-scale tests and the segment tests done by the standard and simplified aluminium head impactors. The tram front-end design can be tested using this alternate method, based on a simple impactor and easy methodology, providing an efficient tool to inspire both the tram manufacturers and vehicle operators to improve the vulnerable road users’ safety in city traffic.


Siyuan Sun, Ronghui Bi, Zongyao Wang, Yu Ji
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 2

Based on the GPS trajectory data of a freight enterprise in Dalian, China, this paper studies the identification of loading and unloading points by a clustering algorithm. Firstly, by analysing the characteristics of freight loading and unloading behaviour, combined with the spatial and temporal distribution characteristics of truck GPS trajectory data, three characteristic variables of the number of trucks passing through a certain place, the average speed of trucks and the average stay time of trucks in the place are extracted. Then, the clustering algorithm and visual analysis are used to obtain the target cluster, and the POI language of the geographic information is obtained according to the points in the target cluster. The meaning information is crawled to accurately identify the result of the freight loading point. Finally, two classical clustering algorithms, K-means and GMM, are evaluated and compared. The results show that the identification method designed in this paper finally identifies 2,320 freight loading and unloading points from 11,406,000 trajectory data, which can realise the accurate extraction of freight loading and unloading points.


Chuwei Zhao, Yi Zhao, Zhiqi Wang, Jianxiao Ma, Minghao Li
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 2

Urban intertunnel weaving (UIW) section is a special type of weaving section, where various lane-changing behaviours occur. To gain insight into the lane-changing behaviour in the UIW section, in this paper we attempt to analyse the decision feature and model the behaviour from the lane-changing point selection perspective. Based on field-collected lane-changing trajectory data, the lane-changing behaviours are divided into four types. Random forest method is applied to analyse the influencing factors of choice of lane-changing point. Moreover, a support vector machine model is adopted to perform decision behaviour modelling. Results reveal that there are significant differences in the influencing factors for different lane-changing types and different positions in the UIW segment. The three most important factor types are object vehicle status, current-lane rear vehicle status and target-lane rear vehicle status. The precision of the choice of lane-changing point models is at least 82%. The proposed method could reveal the detailed features of the lane-changing point selection behaviour in the UIW section and also provide a feasible choice of lane-changing point model.


Martina Mavrin Jeličić, Tomislav Josip Mlinarić, Pawel Zajac
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 2

Numerous studies have shown that city bus drivers suffer from three key categories of health disorders: cardiovascular diseases, gastrointestinal disorders and musculoskeletal system issues, affecting the individual’s ability to work. The aim of this research was to assess the working ability of bus drivers and to determine the connection between the level of physical activity and the work ability in professional bus drivers. The study protocol included an assessment of participants’ work ability using the Work Ability Index (WAI) Questionnaire on a sample of 115 bus drivers. A statistical analysis was performed using the SAS System software package (SAS Institute Inc., North Carolina, USA). The questionnaire for determining the work ability index indicated good or excellent work ability in 78 (67.8%) of bus drivers. Moderate work ability that needed to be improved was recorded in 27 (23.5%) of drivers, and poor work ability that needed to be restored in 10 (8.7%). The results of the regression analysis show that increasing the average number of steps per day by a 1,000 increases the WAI score by 0.8. The obtained data should serve as an important argument for the design of future public health and kinesiology interventions to improve the work ability in professional bus drivers.


Huan Zhang, Yuxia Wang, ChuanHua Zeng
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 2

Vehicle exhausts diffuse into roadside crowd breathing zones, thereby jeopardising human health. This study applies dynamic traffic distribution theories to comprehensively consider the impact of vehicle emission diffusion. The results provide a theoretical basis for improving the diffusion of urban traffic pollution to benefit the surrounding environment for roadside crowds. Firstly, a multi-vehicle cellular transport model that is suitable for analysing dynamic traffic distribution is constructed considering the distinct emission factors of various types of vehicles. Secondly, a multi-vehicle emission model is established to consider a range of driving conditions. Then, the concept of roadside crowd exposure risk is introduced, and we describe a method for calculating the total amounts of pollutants emitted by vehicles and inhaled by roadside crowds. The impact of vehicle emission diffusion is comprehensively discussed in terms of vehicle emissions and roadside crowd exposure risk. A generalised impedance function considering the influence of vehicle exhaust emission diffusion is also established based on the weighted average of actual vehicle travel time, multi-model emissions and roadside crowd exposure risk. Finally, this generalised impedance function is integrated into the dynamic optimal user allocation model, and a dynamic traffic allocation model considering the influence of vehicle emission control is developed.

 


Ning Gao, Yuanbo Hong, Junfei Chen, Chonghao Pang
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 2

In the post-epidemic era, dynamic monitoring of expressway road freight volume is an important task. To accurately predict the daily freight volume of urban expressway, meteorological and other information are considered. Four commonly used algorithms, a random forest (RF), extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost), long short-term memory (LSTM) and K-nearest neighbour (KNN), are employed to predict freight volume based on expressway toll data sets, and a ridge regression method is used to fuse each algorithm. Nanjing and Suzhou in China are taken as a case study, using the meteorological data and freight volume data of the past week to predict the freight volume of the next day, next two days and three days. The performance of each algorithm is compared in terms of prediction accuracy and training time. The results show that in the forecast of freight volume in Nanjing, the overall prediction accuracies of the RF and XGBoost models are better; in the forecast of freight volume in Suzhou, the LSTM model has higher accuracy. The fusion forecasting method combines the advantages of each forecasting algorithm and presents the best results of forecasting the freight volumes in two cities.


Hong Ki An, Gimik Bae, Dong Sun Kim
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 2

When roundabouts face congestion problems, the transition to signalised roundabouts is considered a solution to the problem. The majority of studies have concentrated on how to calculate the optimal cycle length and signal timing to minimise congestion at roundabouts. To date, intelligence algorithms with multi-objectives such as queue length, number of stops, delay time, capacity and so on are widely used for calculating signal timing. Although roundabout congestion can be generated by the weaving zone reducing roundabout capacity, there have been minimal studies which take into account the density in the weaving zone. This study proposed a hybrid gravitational search algorithm – ABFO random forest regression with the following objectives: density, delay time and capacity to find the optimal cycle length and green time in each phase of Changwon city hall roundabout in South Korea as a case study. The optimal cycle length and green time were calculated in MATLAB and microscopic simulation VISSIM sought the effectiveness of a signalised roundabout. The result of the analysis demonstrated that signalised roundabouts with 102 seconds cycle length (phase 1 – 65 seconds of green time and phase 2 – 37 seconds of green time) can reduce density by 46.1%, delays by 32.8% and increase roundabout capacity by 14.8%.


Yang Wang, Bin Li, Zhenghui Zhao, Kuanwu Tang
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 2

The application of electric vehicles (EVs) in the logistics industry has become more extensive. However, the mileage limitation of electric logistics vehicles (ELVs) and the long-distance distribution of ELVs have become urgent problems. Therefore, this paper proposes a long-distance distribution model for ELVs based on dynamic traffic information considering fleet mileage, distribution time and total distribution cost as the optimisation objectives, thus reasonably planning road selection and charging, and alleviating “mileage anxiety” in the long-distance distribution of ELVs. The model proposed in this paper comprehensively considers the characteristics of the high-speed and low-speed roads, the changes in road traffic flow on weekdays and non-weekdays, the time-of-use electricity price of electric vehicle charging stations (EVCSs) and uses the M/M/s queuing theory model to determine the charging waiting time. Finally, a real traffic network is taken as an example to verify the practicability and effectiveness of this model.


Zuzana Židová, Vladislav Zitrický
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 2

Transport is an integral part of any company. Nowadays, there is a great emphasis on the use of environmentally friendly modes of transport. In addition to being one of the environmentally friendly modes of transport, rail transport can carry large quantities of various goods over long distances. In order for rail transport in Slovakia to be able to compete with other modes of transport, it is important that Industry 4.0 elements are applied in the technological processes at railway stations. The aim of this article is to draw attention to the impact of the introduction of Industry 4.0 elements into the transport process in rail transport. The premise of the research task is based on the experience with the introduction of intelligent sensors in rail transport in some European Union countries. On the basis of the analysis of the use of information and communication technologies in railway transport, the article carries out a technological evaluation of the design of the wagon control unit in the transport process with regard to the speed of processing a shipment in a border-crossing station.


Junlan Chen, Hanshang Du, Meina Zheng, Xiucheng Guo
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 2

Commuting contributes to high levels of greenhouse gases and air pollution. The recently advocated ‘green commuting’, i.e. active and public modes of transport, will be conducive to low-carbon and environmentally friendly transport. A baseline goal of urban planning is to promote health; however, few studies have explored the health-related impacts of environments at both ends of the commute on residents’ commuting mode choices. To fill the gap, this study proposes to consider the impact of the neighbourhood and working environment on green commuting from a health perspective. Using a sample of 15,886 people from 368 communities in China, three generalised multilevel linear regression models were estimated. Physical and psychological health were combined to further analyse health-related environmental attributes on the commuting choices of residents with different health levels. The results indicate that the working environment exerts more substantial effects on ‘green commuting’ than the neighbourhood environment, especially for workplace satisfaction. Moreover, we found that a good working environment and relationships will significantly encourage the sub-healthy group to choose active commuting. These findings are beneficial for policymakers to consider focusing on reconciling neighbourhood and working environments and meeting the commuting requirements of the less healthy group.


Hao Li, Yahong Guo
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 1

In order to promote the modernisation process of rural roads and improve road capacity, the problem of bottleneck sections of rural roads needs to be solved urgently. The phenomenon of wide-road-and-narrow-bridge sections is particularly prominent in rural roads. Based on this, this paper analyses the degree of influence of roadway one-way lane width, bridge deck oneway lane width, motorised vehicles to non-motorised vehicles ratio, and road-bridge connection dimension on the capacity of the wide-road-and-narrow-bridge section based on the combination of VISSIM simulation and random forest algorithm. The result of the coefficient of determination (R2) of the random forest-based capacity prediction model shows that the random forest fits the data very well; the degree of influence on the capacity is in descending order of the bridge deck one-way lane width, motorised vehicles to non-motorised vehicles ratio, roadway one-way lane width and the road-bridge connection dimension. The model can, on the one hand, provide a reference for  improving the capacity of bottleneck sections of rural roads; on the other hand, it can provide decision value for the order of measures to be taken when rural roads are rebuilt and expanded, according to the order of importance.


Weihua Zhang, Siping Wei, Changsheng Wang, Meng Qiu
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 1

Drivers show different characteristics in traffic oscillations. These differences reflect the driver’s driving style, which is an important part of traffic uncertainty. This paper deeply explores the driving characteristics in asymmetric driving behaviour and its influence on traffic flow characteristics. The aim is to improve the understanding of safe driving. Continuous vehicle trajectories under various traffic flow conditions in an expressway merging area are obtained by aerial photography. Image processing technology is used to extract the basic parameters of traffic flow and vehicle operating characteristic data. Based on the measured data, the driver’s response mode is subdivided into multiple sub-modes. On the basis of this study, the types and distribution of traffic hysteresis and the impact of asymmetric behaviour on merging area capacity are further revealed. The results show that the response coefficient will increase for 58.72 % drivers during the process of experiencing oscillation disturbance to rebalance. The traffic hysteresis caused by driver’s asymmetric following behaviour in an expressway merging area is generally positive. This reduces the bottleneck outflow rate of the merging area by about 7 % on average. This study has important practical significance in analysing the formation mechanism of traffic congestion and adopting effective protective measures.


Grgo Luburić, Antonia Perković Blašković, Habib Hasani
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 1

Young drivers represent the most vulnerable age group at risk of participating in traffic accidents. In order to reduce the occurrence of traffic accidents involving young drivers, various models for assessing the risk of accidents have been studied. Inexperience, lack of driving skills and risky behaviour in traffic are the main characteristics of traffic accidents involving young adult drivers. On the contrary, traffic accidents involving older adult drivers are characterised by reduced visual and cognitive stimuli and reduced mobility. Based on the data about traffic accidents from the available databases relevant for road traffic safety in the Republic of Kosovo over a four-year period, the road characteristics that caused the majority of traffic accidents involving young adult drivers and the subjective  and objective factors that affected the occurrence of traffic accidents the most have been defined. To conclude the research, a correlation has been defined between objective and subjective factors that increase the risk of traffic accidents, as well as the  frequency of single safety factors (human, vehicle, road and environment) in traffic accidents involving young adult drivers.


Stanko Bajčetić, Predrag Živanović, Slaven Tica, Branko Milovanović, Andrea Nađ
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 1

Deviations in driving time (DT), or significant variations, occur frequently on urban public transport (PT) lines, except in subsystems with separate routes. DT variability is the main reason for disturbances in operation, leading to unstable and unreliable transport service. Moreover, it also causes variability in total user travel time, which is one of the main parameters of transport service quality. Identifying and quantifying factors that influence PT vehicle DT characteristics is significant for designing advanced prediction and  passenger information systems and prioritising investments to reduce bus travel time and improve the scheduling process, and thus the level of transport service quality. An analysis of the elements of the route and other static elements of the line that influence DT was carried out in this paper. A model for determining and quantifying influential factors and methodologies for collecting all necessary data was created. The multiple regression model, developed as a result of the conducted multivariate statistical analysis using the specialised SPSS software, was applied to the selected representative set of lines in a real urban PT system. The created regression model explains between 18.2% and 97.4% of the variance of average, minimum and maximum DT and its deviation in the peak and off-peak periods.


Xiaoxing Gong, Jieyuan Lan, Yongfang Li, Lingye Zhang
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 1

The emerging seaport-inland port dyad contributes greatly to the development of seaport hinterlands. However, little research has examined its influence on container hinterland delimitation. This paper used an improved radiation model to study the effects of seaport-inland port dyads on the container seaport hinterland delimitation in the context of a Chinese multi-port system. The radiation of each seaport was estimated to track changes in the seaport superior hinterlands and hinterland ratings and discover the patterns of the effects. The results show that the formation of dyads expands the scope of superior hinterlands and improves the hinterland ratings of seaports. The provinces close to inland ports and far from seaports were significantly affected and the same inland port influenced seaports differently. These results demonstrate that establishing a seaport-inland port dyad is a good way to compete with other seaports for larger market shares. These different effects can serve as a guideline for seaport authorities to choose suitable dyads to achieve their hinterland targets.


Qi Zhou, Baohua Mao, Sairong Peng, Junsheng Huang, Peining Tian
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 1

With the rapid development of urban rail transit (URT) in China, a contradiction between high costs and low passenger demand becomes prominent. Complete analysis of the impacts of passenger demand on the profitability of URT can be difficult to conduct, due to the multifaceted impact of passenger demand with multidimensional characteristics. To this end, we propose a strategy that helps to analyse the profitability of different types of URT, taking into account the spatial and temporal characteristics of demand. Based on data of the Shunde (SD) district in China, the profitability of metro, light rail transit (LRT), monorail and tram was evaluated. Results show the profitability under different demand levels. Tram might be the best choice at low demand levels. At medium demand levels, LRT and monorail are competitive. At high demand levels, LRT with medium to high capacity and low cost is a good alternative to metro, though the capacity of metro is higher. Utilizing the URT with high capacity under insufficient demand can aggravate the burden of depreciation, and make it hard to achieve profit. The spatial characteristics of the demand described in this paper reflect the problem of insufficient demand in marginal areas due to the diversified construction of URT.


Danfeng Du, Tiantian Liu, Chun Guo
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 1

The container terminal handling system plays an important role in marine transportation, and improving its efficiency has become a big challenge. Therefore, this paper proposes an analytical method that combines a Petri net with simulation tools. Firstly, the container terminal handling system is abstracted into a Petri net system according to the internal logic of the handling process. Next, eigenvalues of the correlation matrix are calculated to analyse the effectiveness of the Petri net system. Then, the Petri net system is simulated using the Extend-Sim software. The result suggests that, after optimising, the handling capacity of the berth is clearly improved. Using the Petri net and simulation tools together to analyse the container terminal system is the innovation and the most important aspect of this paper. Because the combination of a Petri net and simulation can not only ensure the reliability of the model but also optimise the container terminal handling system more intuitively.


Na Wu, Yating Liu
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 1

Energy conservation and emission reduction from the transportation sector are of great significance in coping with the global energy and environmental crisis. As the bottleneck of urban road traffic, intersection burdens the urban environment greatly. When the volume of left-turn traffic is large, the continuous flow intersection (CFI) can effectively improve intersection operation efficiency. This paper first put forward the definition and application conditions of CFI. Then its mechanism for energy saving and emission reduction was analysed. CFI transformation was designed taking a typical intersection in Xi’an as an example. Operating efficiency, energy consumption and emissions of the intersection before and after CFI transformation were evaluated using the VISSIM model. The  results show that energy consumption and emissions in the intersection are greatly reduced after CFI transformation. Queue length is reduced by more than 41%. Energy consumption and pollutant emission are reduced by about 8%. Through the simulation analysis, the emission reduction benefits most when the volume of left-turn traffic is 80%–85% of the design capacity, and the ratio of leftturn
traffic over through traffic is maintained between 50% and 100%. This study suggests that CFI is suitable for large-scale promotion with careful examination.


Ahmed Jaber, Bálint Csonka
2023 (Vol 35), Issue 1

The purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of land use, built environment and public transportation facilities’ locations on destinations of bike-sharing trips in an urban setting. Several methods have been applied to determine the relationship between predicting variables and trip destinations, such as ordinary least squares regression, spatial regression and geographically weighted regression. Additionally, a comparison between the proposed models, count models and random forest has been conducted. The data were collected in Budapest, Hungary. It has been found that touristic points of interest, and healthcare and educational points have a positive impact on bike-sharing destinations. Public transportation stops for buses, trains and trams attract bike-sharing users, which has a potential for the bike-and-ride system. Land use has different effects on bike-sharing trip destinations; mostly as a circular shape variation within the urban structure of the city, such as residential, industrial, commercial and educational zones. Other variables, such as road length and water areas, form as constraints to bike-sharing trip destinations. Geographically weighted and spatial regression performs better than count models and random forest. This study helps decision-makers in predicting the origin-destination matrix of bike-sharing trips based on the transportation network and land use.



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