Groups Of Car Drivers Research Articles

Does the joint implementation of hard and soft transportation policies lead to travel behavior change? An experimental analysis

Over the last few decades, there has been a growing interest in a variety of travel demand management strategies, both hard and soft, aimed at persuading people to reduce their car use. However, only few studies employed predictive models to assess the effectiveness of soft interventions and understand the impact of both objective and socio-psychological variables on changes in travel behavior. Additionally, though a combination of hard and soft measures is recognized as achieving the best results in reducing car use, few studies differentiate between the effects of the two types. The aim of this work is to quantify the effect of a combination of hard (introduction of a new light railway line) and soft measures (Personalized Travel Plan program) among a group of car drivers in the metropolitan area of Cagliari (Sardinia, Italy). We used data collected before and after the implementation of a Personalized Travel Plan program, where a control group was identified to disentangle the effect of the hard from the soft measure. We specified and estimated an Integrated Choice and Laten Variable (ICLV) model to assess the effect of both objective characteristics and some socio-psychological variables on the choice to use a new light railway service or not. Model results point out that people who lived along the light rail corridor and received and read their Personalized Travel Plan were more likely to switch from car to the light rail. Furthermore, we found that the parameters associated with the psycho-social variables Attachment to the car and Dislike of public transport have a negative influence on the probability to use the new travel alternative. At the same time, our findings on the effect of the soft measure need to be interpreted with some caution as its impact on choice probability was mitigated by travel distance and psycho-social variables.

Structure of long bone fractures of lower limbs at a car injury

The most traumatized body region in road traffic accidents is the lower extremities, however, the structure of fractures has not been adequately studied. Objective: to study the structure of long bones fractures of the lower extremities in various nonlethal car injuries. Material and methods. The research material was 116 reports of primary forensic medical examinations of victims with fractures of the femur and/or shin bones resulting from a car injury. When studying the frequency of damage to various areas of the body and the frequency of fractures of long bones of the lower extremities, it was taken into account that 28 victims with polytrauma had multiple injuries, and thus 116 patients revealed 232 injuries of various areas of the body and 138 fractures of long bones of the lower legs. Research methods — retrospective analysis, descriptive statistics. Results. The main contingent of those injuries in the car accident was car drivers (8.5%) and pedestrians (47.3 %) aged 31–50 years. In the general group, the shin (37.9 %), thigh (21.6 %), head (13.8 %) were most injured areas, in the group of car drivers — neck, thigh, chest, shin, in the group of passengers — head, shin and thigh; pedestrians — shin, thigh, head. Due to the predominance of anterior (41.4 %) and anterolateral collisions of a moving car in the group as a whole, in cases of the of pedestrians injuries as well as in cases of in-cabin injuries, the presence of bumper fractures of the lower leg bones, as well as fractures of the femur of various localization, was observed. Conclusions. According to the initial forensic medical examination, a collision of a moving car with a pedestrian (78.4 %) and a collision of moving vehicles (21.6 %) were observed in the structure of non-lethal car accidents. In this case, diaphyseal fractures of the femur (29.8 %) and the shin bones (47.1 %) in the general group and in the group of pedestrians (20.4 and 40.7 %, respectively) predominated. Fractures of the femur of various localization were most often detected also in the in-cabin injuries (50.0 % of the total number of fractures in drivers and passengers).

Consumer preferences for public charging infrastructure for electric vehicles

The lack of public charging infrastructure is often referred to as an important barrier to the diffusion of electric vehicles. As the construction of charging stations is a costly endeavour, the question arises as to how maximum benefit for potential users can be achieved with limited resources. Therefore, our analysis deals with the factors that influence the attractiveness of public charging infrastructure from the perspective of potential users. Our analysis is based on the assessments of 1003 German car drivers on possible future charging infrastructure systems with different configurations regarding spatial coverage, charging duration and usage costs. We examined the preferences with regard to these features using a rating-based conjoint analysis. We also looked into the question of whether groups of car drivers can be identified that are characterised by specific preference constellations with regard to these features. Our key finding is that the majority of car drivers are unwilling to pay a basic fee for the possibility of using public charging infrastructure. Nevertheless, there are subgroups that value the public charging infrastructure more than other car drivers. In addition to implications for possible business models, this result indicates that public charging infrastructure could be important for attracting other target groups to electromobility besides classic early adopters of electric vehicles. Furthermore, our analysis shows that the charging duration at charging stations in cities and along the highway has a strong influence on the evaluation of the public charging infrastructure. The spatial coverage with charging stations in cities and along the highway, on the other hand, has a weaker influence. A central conclusion from this is that the existence of fast-charging stations should be prioritized over a close-meshed coverage with charging points when the charging infrastructure is expanded.

A Psychological Approach to Demand Forecasting: A Measure of Potential User in Bus Service

A recent trend in transport demand modeling with a focus on potential users emphasizes the understanding on the human decision-making process. Among various theories about the process, loyalty-based theory has the closest relationship with the concept of potential users. However, conventional loyalty frameworks are insufficient for demand modeling. To address the issue, the present study proposed a psychological demand model based on a loyalty framework considering both service-quality-related and non-service-quality-related factors. The proposed model is able to quantify potential users and to measure maximum values of bus patronage respect to different service scenarios. Based on the proposed model, an increase of 18.05% on the group of car drivers could be expected to be at the highest priority for pushing up bus patronage in term of improving service quality. In contrast, a little increase was found on the group of non-car drivers with only 3.81% even if an ideal service was provided.

The adoption behaviours of freeway electronic toll collection: A latent class modelling approach

This study develops an electronic toll collection (ETC) disaggregate choice model based on a large-scale questionnaire survey of car drivers in Taiwan. To acknowledge the difference in preferences among car drivers, the latent class logit model is used to classify respondents into different groups without subjective segmentation. The estimation results show that six groups of car drivers are optimally distinguished. The price of an e-pass and the discount for ETC tolls are identified as the two most important factors affecting ETC adoption. The study also finds that significant differences in adoption behaviours exist among groups. Effective marketing strategies for different groups are then proposed accordingly.

Why are the ‘safest’ norms, attitudes and types of behaviour not typical for the safest drivers?

One of the paradoxes in road safety research is that middle‐aged male drivers have the lowest risk of all age/gender groups of car drivers, in spite of the fact that they speed more, overtake more and are less oriented towards safety than other groups of car drivers. The paper presents a theory of driver motivation where it is assumed that drivers generally try to maintain a speed they enjoy, and accordingly try to avoid obstacles that force them to choose another (lower) speed. The main argument in the paper is that drivers who enjoy a somewhat faster speed than the average driver will relatively more often be obstructed by other road users, and accordingly be more concerned with predicting other road users’ behaviour than the average driver. Although this preoccupation with predicting other road users’ behaviour is primarily motivated by these drivers’ goal of maintaining a desired speed, it is argued that the information they obtain in order to reach their goal has safety as a by‐product. The theory is tested with data from a survey on driver behaviour and self‐reported accidents.