Alternative Transportation Systems Research Articles

Safety technology, law and insurance of the 'free-flow' transport concept

There is increased national activity in the development of future transportation systems, and there is a major focus on automating the highway/roadway system. The obvious reasons are to enhance safety, increase capacities, and reduce environmental and energy impacts. This paper reviews the current problems in automated transport systems in relation to safety, (appropriate) technology, law and insurance. An innovative alternative transportation system; the 'free-flow' concept is described, and the conclusion lists the superiority of the 'free-flow' concept in relation to safety, technology, law and insurance.

Weber problems with alternative transportation systems

In this paper we address a planar p-facility location problem where, together with a metric induced by a gauge, there exists a series of rapid transit lines, which can be used as alternative transportation system to reduce the total transportation cost. The location problem is reduced to solving a finite number of (multi)-Weber problems, from which localization results are obtained. In particular, it is shown that, if the gauge in use is polyhedral, then the problem is reduced to finding a p-median.

TOTAL COST ANALYSIS: AN ALTERNATIVE TO BENEFIT-COST ANALYSIS IN EVALUATING TRANSPORTATION ALTERNATIVES

This paper explains the theory in support of total cost analysis (TCA) to compare transportation system alternatives. The full costs of each alternative are first aggregated, including travel time costs and monetizable environmental and social costs. Many costs which are considered on the benefits side of the equation in benefit-cost analysis (BCA) as "cost savings" are brought over to the costs side. Total cost differences among alternatives are then traded off against their estimated non-monetized benefits or impacts, just as a consumer trades off product quality against cost before deciding which product he or she will buy. One advantage of TCA over traditional BCA is that the concept of "total cost" is more easily understood by the public and by political decision-makers than BCA concepts such as "net present worth", "benefit-cost ratio" and "internal rate of return". A second advantage is that there is no suggestion that all "benefits" have been considered; decision-makers are free to use their own value judgements to trade off total cost against non-monetizable social, environmental and economic impacts, just as they trade off quality and convenience against cost when purchasing goods and services in their roles as consumers. The TCA approach is demonstrated in this paper through a case study of two systemwide alternatives for the Baltimore, MD urban area.

Evaluating the Options in Urban Areas with Financial Constraints

Logic is devised for a needs test for new general-purpose lane (GPL) highway capacity in urban areas that have limited funding available for new infrastructure investments. GPL capacity is defined as mixed-flow lanes on which both single-occupant and high-occupancy vehicles are permitted. Methodologies to apply the needs test and to evaluate the options in urban areas facing limitations on new GPL capacity are developed. A case study is used to demonstrate the methodologies to evaluate the air quality and cost-effectiveness impacts of transportation system alternatives, illustrating how planners may develop the type of information that policy makers will need to help them make informed decisions about long-term options.

Evaluating the Options in Urban Areas with Financial Constraints

Logic is devised for a needs test for new general-purpose lane (GPL) highway capacity in urban areas that have limited funding available for new infrastructure investments. GPL capacity is defined as mixed-flow lanes on which both single-occupant and high-occupancy vehicles are permitted. Methodologies to apply the needs test and to evaluate the options in urban areas facing limitations on new GPL capacity are developed. A case study is used to demonstrate the methodologies to evaluate the air quality and cost-effectiveness impacts of transportation system alternatives, illustrating how planners may develop the type of information that policy makers will need to help them make informed decisions about long-term options.

An activity network approach to introducing alternative transportation systems

This paper investigates an incremental, cost-effective transition process from an existing transportation system to some improved system. The goal of the process is to speed introduction and transition, compared to gradual evolutionary change, by identifying technologies and feasible pathways. A graphical technique is outlined that combines engineering benefit/cost analysis and precedence diagrams from project management. The approach defines and evaluates potential technologies and relationships among the technologies. The introduction of each technology can be broken into development, implementation, and market growth activities, which are represented on activity networks along with activities for other related technologies. The resulting activity networks can be used to plan and evaluate transition pathways. A market range can be calculated for each technology, based on expected benefits and costs, showing when the technology should be deployed and when it should be replaced. Since each activity has associated time, cost, and resource estimates for completion, scaled activity networks can also be drawn. The most useful diagrams are two-dimensional, with time on the horizontal axis and market level on the vertical axis. These scaled precedence activity network (SPAN) diagrams show the market range for each technology and how soon each technology can be deployed. Logical strategies for introduction, which span the expected market range by using a combination of several technologies, can then be identified from the SPAN diagrams. These deployment strategies, selected by matching the level of deployment of technologies with the market level, provide a means of reducing the investment risk of introducing alternative systems.

Around the Block: Urban Models with a Street Grid

Models of urban residential structure usually assume that transportation costs are a function of straight-line distance from the central business district (CBD), which is equivalent to assuming an infinite number of radial streets. This paper presents and expands existing work on urban models with an alternative transportation system, namely a dense network of vertical and horizontal streets, that is, a street grid. Several models are examined, including some with a finite number of radial commuting arteries and one with a discrete suburban worksite. Switching to a Street grid alters only one parameter in the equations of a standard urban model, but alters urban population and leads to strikingly different spatial patterns. This last result implies that the appropriate explanatory variable for estimating density functions and rent gradients is not distance from the CBD but is instead total transportation cost.

Traffic impact analysis of tourism development

This paper develops a mathematical modeling framework for analyzing the traffic impacts of proposed tourism facilities. The estimation procedures make it possible to quantify traffic impacts in terms of the projected increase in total network travel time/cost that would result from the development of new facilities. The projected increase in travel cost provides a measure of the “true” traffic impacts born by residents and tourists and can be used by policymakers in deciding upon transportation system alternatives and/or imposing additional impact fees upon tourism developers.

A Huge Capacity Small Time Loss Transportation System for Conurbation with Group Operation of Cars and Honeycomb Network.

This thesis proposes an alternative transportation system for conurbation like Greater Tokyo, assuming off-line stations and automated car operation.This system is characterized by group operation of cars, honeycomb network, and pre-assigned operation. It has traffic capacity sufficient to carry all the passengers seated, that are now packed standing in trains. It saves passengers time loss. Finally, the system can be constructed in less space than the present railway network as far as Tokyo downtown area is concerned.Group operation of cars shortens the time that passengers must spend when traveling by this system. Several cars operate synchronously to keep time loss short; 5 minutes in peak hours.Honeycomb network reduces system space. It covers downtown area. Compared with orthogonal lattice network for a commonly given maximum distance to nearest station, honeycomb network has 10% shorter guideway. Total length of guideway in the downtown area is 404km in this system, which is 74% of that of the present railway.Pre-assigned operation ensures traffic capacity sufficient for all the passengers travelling in the conurbation. The system has traffic capacity of 114 thousand passengers/h/direction per suburb-todowntown line.

The Edmonton LRT: An Appropriate Choice?

In this paper, it is suggested that three major factors have contributed to the City of Edmonton's decision to extend its light rail transit (LRT) system: the Province of Alberta's use of specific non-matching grants and specific close-ended matching transportation grants, population growth projections made in 1981, and the lack of formal cost-benefit analysis. A review of the City of Edmonton's analysis of the costs and benefits of LRT, along with data on modal splits, population densities, and air pollution, suggest that alternative transportation systems (e.g., express buses) are likely to achieve the City's public transit objectives at a lower cost. It is recommended that the Province of Alberta revise its transportation grant program and that the City of Edmonton undertake a formal cost-benefit analysis of LRT.

Capitalism, Socialism, and Urban Transportation Policies and Travel Behavior in the East and West

Abstract Urban transportation systems in the Soviet Union, Europe, and North America are very different. The dominance of public transport in the Soviet Union contrasts strikingly with the almost exclusive reliance on the automobile in the United States. European countries lie between these two extremes, with the capitalist countries of Western Europe much less auto-oriented than the United States, but more auto-oriented than the socialist countries of Eastern Europe. Although some of this variation can be attributed to differences among countries in per capita income and resource availability, much of the variation is due to public policy. Governments in virtually all countries have expressed their preferences in urban transportation by differentially subsidizing and taxing the various modes of transportation, and also by promoting or discouraging the types of land use and urban development that depend on and foster alternative transportation systems. Socialist governments have strongly supported public ...

Satellite reliability requirements: Effect of transportation system, sparing and maintenance strategies

Mission requirements are frequently specified in terms of required sensor availability over a specified mission duration. Availability is the probability that at least a specified number of sensors will be operational when required. The objective is to design, develop and select that system which minimizes the present value of life cycle cost (and risk) and satisfies mission requirements, including sensor availability. Since sensor availability is a function of overall satellite configuration (including redundancy), sparing and maintenance strategies, and transportation system reliability, standdown time when failures occur, and availability, it is necessary to consider the many complex interrelationships that exist when configuring a satellite. In fact, satellite design characteristics should be established by considering the interactions of satellite configuration, sparing and maintenance and transportation system alternatives. This paper deals with the effect that alternative sparing and maintenance strategies and transportation systems have on the requirements that must be imposed upon satellite subsystem reliability. The Satellite Cost and Availability Model, SATCAV (which is used to perform the analysis) is briefly described and examples are presented that indicate the influence that transportation choice, sparing and maintenance strategies have on the requirements that must be imposed on satellite design parameters in order to meet availability constraints. Typical relationships are developed between availability and life cycle cost as a function of sparing strategy, transportation system and satellite reliability characteristics, and other pertinent parameters.

Eliminating rank reversal in multicriteria analysis of urban transportation system alternatives

AbstractThis note shows how to eliminate rank reversal in practical applications of TODIM, a method for multicriteria ranking of projects. A technique for eliminating rank reversal is then utilized in applications of both TODIM and AHP to the same data base. A comparison of results suggests that those two alternative methods tend to lead to the same results.

Modelling interdependencies among urban transportation system alternatives within a multicriteria ranking framework

AbstractThis paper presents a technique for ranking interrelated urban transportation system alternatives under multiple criteria. The technique allows dealing with alternatives which are interdependent according to at least one major attribute. This feature is virtually nonexistant in the vast majority of multicriteria ranking methods which essentially consider a set of independent alternatives. A numerical example is included in the paper.

Comparing two methods for multicriteria ranking of urban transportation system alternatives

AbstractThis note shows a numerical comparison of TODIM and ELECTRE II, two alternative methods for multicriteria ranking of projects. Ranks obtained from both methods are compared at a level of significance of 0.01. The results suggest a practical advantage of TODIM over ELECTRE II.

Multicriteria ranking of urban transportation system alternatives

AbstractThis paper presents the fundamentals of a new method to rank urban transportation system alternatives, taking into consideration multiple criteria. Those criteria can be quantifiable or not. The new method is founded on Utility Theory and it makes use of absolute weighting and pairwise comparisons. It has important practical advantages over other existing methods, the most important among those advantages being its capability to be understood and accepted by professionals and by the public. A numerical example is included in the paper.

Simulation in Marine Transportation System

This paper describes a computer simulation model as an essential technique to examine alternative marine transportation systems. A two-port system with a two-deck roll-on/roll-off (RO/RO) ship has been taken for the study to represent a short sea transportation system. All operating variables, including those which exhibit random variation in the RO/RO transportation system, have been incorporated. Productivity data for varying number of tugmasters and for alternative internal access options have been obtained partly from physical observation and partly from the output of a simplified mathematical model. A simple economic model has been incorporated to enable the total model to produce the relevant output for the alternatives. The model also produces as output various histograms for some of the operational indices of interest. In the absence of enough real-life data for comparison, some of the results have been verified through the opinion of experts. It was found that such simulation studies are useful and indeed practical tools for the analysis of complex marine transportation systems.

Comparison of alternative concepts for lunar surface transportation

The lunar surface transportation system is a key element in lunar development. The decision which means of conveyance should be preferred depends on a lot of influencing factors such as transportation requirements, physical boundary conditions and economics. Starting with a systematic approach to define and structure the problem, a model to compare alternative transportation systems has been built. From the pool of possible means of conveyance, chemical rockets, electric cars, maglev-trains and mass-drivers have been chosen as candidates for investigation. With these candidates five different surface transportation systems were defined. For a reference lunar development scenario the systems were compared on the basis of a cost-to-benefit ratio. Preliminary results indicate that under the assumption that LH2 could be produced on lunar surface, LOX/LH2 propulsed “Hoppers” seem very attractive up to medium transportation demands. For large amounts of bulk cargo, mass driver transportation seems to have advantages, and electric cars should be used for all transportation tasks if the transportation demand is high. Maglev-trains seem to be competitive only for very large transportation demand and long life cycles.

Flow Optimization on a Transportation Network

A demonstration is presented of the Out-of-Kilter Algorithm's usefulness for network flow optimization and transportation planning. Guidelines in the form of input parameters are given for applying the algorithm to solve several well-known transportation and network problems. An example application of the algorithm to a limestone-distribution network is then presented. The method is applied to investigate impacts of alternative improvements to the present limestone transport-distribution system in the Tiete River Valley, Sao Paulo, Brazil. Two alternative transportation systems are investigated, a truck system and an intermodal truck-barge system. Assigned flows and optimal transportation costs are obtained for each case. A sensitivity analysis is applied, iteratively, to locate and size transshipment terminals.

Effects of subways on urban form and structure

A general equilibrium model was built which shows how the locations of employment and residences are related to alternative transportation systems. The model was applied to different size cities. The analysis suggests that the construction of a subway system will not necessarily result in the revitalization of the Central Business District (CBD) or in the reversing of the trend toward suburbanization. Although land rent is generally higher in the city without subway systems than in the city with subway systems, the steeper rent gradient at the peripheries of the former, along with other findings, suggest that the rate of suburbanization of the city without subway systems is not significantly higher than of the city with subway systems.