Group Of Passengers Research Articles

Development of proposals for increasing the profitability of passenger rail transportation in Ukraine

The current state of passenger rail transportation in Ukraine is investigated to identify the factors of increasing the profitability of the sector. The analysis of the occupancy of passenger cars on various traffic routes of trains and estimation of the passenger number on local and through traffic routes depending on their range are performed. The direct relationship between these indicators used to determine the required amount of the rolling stock is revealed. The approach to determining the potential users of transport products of rail transportation with the help of the cluster analysis method is proposed. This approach is based on identifying the cluster (group) of potential passengers of certain types of rail cars by virtue of the analysis of passenger traffic on different routes using the agglomerative hierarchical classification algorithm. The proposals for improving the financial condition of the sector through the introduction of the transport product of passenger transportation in special passenger cars, including the traffic organization of commercial and special trains, provision of additional transport services, namely using passenger cars as a transport means or a "hotel on wheels", using the enhanced-comfort rolling stock for passenger groups, reducing the rail travel duration due to combining movement and rest, setting tariffs for transportation of passenger groups based on the profit rate are submitted. The cost and quality factors of development of the system of additional transport services on rail transport of Ukraine, with the rail transport acting as a transport mode to deliver passengers to their destinations or as an object of interest for tourists are formulated.

Conflicting Views of Landscape in John Steinbeck's Literary West

Abstract In the epilogue to John Steinbeck's The Pastures of Heaven, a sightseeing bus carries a group of passengers above the Salinas Valley to gaze on the pastoral scene. The view of the valley below affords contrasting perspectives regarding the future development of the landscape and thus reflects explicitly on conflicts portrayed throughout stories within the main text. One tourist sees the development of economic modernity and prophesizes an encroaching capitalist system that would destroy the environment for the pursuit of economic gain. Another onlooker imagines the continuation of a pastoral way of life, of local communities living in concert with the landscape. According to Sara Blair's theory of cultural geography, localities become “specific places … where individuals negotiate definitively social relations” such as between these global and regional forces (545). In Pastures, this clash of the regional and global affects characters living in the quiet agricultural community as they suffer under the pressure of the encroaching economic perspective brought into the valley by the Munroe family. As in Cannery Row, Steinbeck portrays individuals struggling against the pressures of global capitalization in regional landscapes. This paper will explore how small groups of misfit communities in Steinbeck's works attempt to survive apart from greater economic forces impinging on them. Steinbeck reveals that individuals who come to uphold regional values that protect the environment against economic exploitation serve as the antidote to encroaching global forces and exemplify a potential way to navigate conflicting economic perspectives.

Threat of death and autobiographical memory: a study of passengers from Flight AT236.

We investigated autobiographical memory in a group of passengers onboard a trans-Atlantic flight that nearly ditched at sea. The consistency of traumatic exposure across passengers, some of whom developed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), provided a unique opportunity to assess verified memory for life-threatening trauma. Using the Autobiographical Interview, which separates episodic from non-episodic details, passengers and healthy controls (HCs) recalled three events: the airline disaster (or a highly negative event for HCs), the September 11, 2001 attacks, and a non-emotional event. All passengers showed robust mnemonic enhancement for episodic details of the airline disaster. Although neither richness nor accuracy of traumatic recollection was related to PTSD, production of non-episodic details for traumatic and non-traumatic events was elevated in PTSD passengers. These findings indicate a robust mnemonic enhancement for trauma that is not specific to PTSD. Rather, PTSD is associated with altered cognitive control operations that affect autobiographical memory in general.

Incorporation of customer satisfaction in public transport contracts – A preliminary analysis

The design of public transport contracts provides an opportunity to define service quality standards to which an operator can be held accountable. While the specification of service quality standards is a common practice, the relationships between the specifications and customer satisfaction are often methodologically unclear. Based on a South African case study, the paper uses data collected from a group of passengers who have personal cars but choose to use public transport, and a control group of passengers who only use their cars, in the same corridor as the user group, to estimate a service quality conjoint model. The model is used to evaluate the effect of different public transport service packages, defined in terms of different combinations of service attributes, on passenger satisfaction. The paper confirms the need to classify service attributes in terms of their relative impact on passenger satisfaction, at the service design stages, where performance in respect of some attributes has a disproportionate impact on satisfaction, especially where public transport is competing directly with private transport. Practical applications and limitations of the methodology are also discussed.

Multihomed SIP‐based network mobility for the scheduled public transit service

ABSTRACTNetwork mobility (NEMO) enables a group of nodes to connect to the back‐end infrastructure during the movement. Because a vehicle must provide passengers good enough transmission quality, various access techniques, for example, 3 G/3.5 G, Wi‐Fi or dedicated short range communication, can be simultaneously equipped to aggregate bandwidth and tolerate link failure. This paper extends the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)‐based NEMO framework to support multihoming. First, IEEE 802.21 Media Independent Handover (MIH) is integrated to manage multiple egress interfaces in an on‐board unit (OBU). Second, a dynamic synchronization mechanism using the SIP SUBSCRIBE and NOTIFY methods is proposed to manage multiple OBUs in a vehicle. Furthermore, the framework is applied to public transportation systems, for example, bus, train, or mass rapid transit. Passengers may need to transit several times during their journeys. The transit behavior must induce a flood of signaling messages for location update. In this paper, the SIP REFER method is exploited to reduce signaling messages while a group of passengers have scheduled their transit in advance. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

P1-388 Transmission of pandemic influenza a (H1N1) on a passenger aircraft

IntroductionScreening for influenza in arriving airline passengers and follow-up of people seated near passengers with suspected infection was used in New Zealand during the containment stage of the H1N1 pandemic...

An Analysis of the Relationship between Passenger Loyalty and Consumer Buying Behavior for Network and Low-Cost Carriers

AbstractThis essay investigates passenger loyalty and consumer buying behavior within the airline industry using an Internet-based survey approach. Four hundred and seven air travelers from network and low-cost carriers are segmented into Dick and Basu’s (1994) loyalty groups (“Loyal,” “Latent Loyalty,” “Spurious Loyalty,” and “No Loyalty”), derived from their relative attitude and repeat patronage toward the airline that they used the most. To investigate the significance of the relationships between the loyalty groups and passengers’ individual characteristics, an evaluation of purchasing criteria within loyalty groups was conducted. Frequent-flier program (FFPs) and range of destinations were found to be the product variables rated highest among the most frequent travelers from network carriers. Passengers of low-cost carriers rated price, schedule, and airport location most highly. The results show that network carriers can develop a sizable group of loyal passengers. These airlines also have a substantial group of passengers who display latent loyalty that may be converted into fully loyal passengers by better meeting their needs. In comparison, very few travelers displayed any level of loyalty to their most-used low-cost carrier.

Investigating Consistency in Transit Passenger Arrivals

Waiting for public transit is recognized as being more onerous than travel time itself. Previous research established that transit passengers in one group “target” their arrival at a time shortly before the service is scheduled. Another group of passengers, seemingly unaffected by timetable schedules, arrives randomly. The time of day plus transit service characteristics, such as headway and reliability, affects the split of passengers between these groups. Little is known about the longitudinal aspects of the nonrandom arrival behavior. This paper assesses the day-to-day consistency of transit users’ arrival behavior by analyzing the longitudinal automated fare collection system data for heavy rail services in Melbourne, Australia. It makes further distinctions between transit users that have until now been categorized into random or nonrandom arrival behavior. Four archetypal arrival behaviors are derived. Consistency of arrival behavior is quantified and investigated. Heterogeneity is an overriding feature of transit commuters’ longitudinal behavior. Transit users exhibiting a greater amount of consistency are found to arrive closer to the transit's timetabled time, use fewer scheduled services, and travel earlier in the peak. A systematic difference in arrival behavior is found for users of a terminus station.

SEATING POSITION, SEAT BELT WEARING, AND THE CONSEQUENCES IN FACIAL FRACTURES IN CAR OCCUPANTS

Trauma caused by traffic accidents is among the main etiologies involved in the occurrence of facial fractures throughout the world. However, the trauma mechanisms involved are different according to the location where the study was performed, due to different conditions of development, legislation, and culture. A retrospective study was done between February 2001 and July 2006, with the purpose of determining the epidemiology and the mechanisms involved in the occurrence of facial fractures among car occupants in the metropolitan area of São Paulo. Data were collected from 297 patients admitted with facial fractures to the emergency room of the Hospital das Clínicas, São Paulo University Medical School. Within this period, 151 individuals had been involved in traffic accidents, among which 56 (37.08%) were inside passenger cars. These were grouped based on the seating position that they were occupying at the time of the accident and the wearing of seat belts. Data concerning the number and location of fracture lines were obtained from the different groups, and a fracture/patient index (F/P I) was calculated to compare and make reference to the impact energy among these groups, for subsequent analysis and discussion. 323 fracture lines occurred among 56 patients who were car occupants. By applying the F/P I, we obtained higher values in the group of rear-seat passengers who were not wearing seat belts (7.23 fractures per patient), followed by the group of drivers not wearing seat belts (6.33 fractures per patient), the group of front-seat passengers not wearing seat belts (5.58 fractures per patient), the group of drivers wearing seat belts (5.54 fractures per patient) and, finally, the group of front-seat passengers wearing seat belts (4.00 fractures per patient). None of the rear-seat passengers was wearing seat belts. The data collected indicate that the driver position shows a high incidence of facial fractures, not being effectively protected by the seat belt, although the wearing of seat belts seems to have a protective role against the occurrence of facial fractures in front-seat passengers. It was not possible to evaluate the wearing of seat belts among rear-seat passengers, even though the high incidence of fractures in this group showed its high susceptibility to the occurrence of facial fractures, which highlights the need of taking protective measures against this situation.

Lampedusa in Focus: Migrants Caught between the Libyan Desert and the Deep Sea

It is the last day of August and at the airport of Lampedusa, a small Italian island situated south of Sicily, yet another deportation of ‘undocumented’ migrants is taking place. The incident appears as wrapped in the mantel of ordinariness that exacerbates even more the violence of the event. Two planes parked approximately 20m away from each other are waiting for passengers. A group of tourists pours out of the airport building and strolls towards the airplane of AirOne, an Italian tourist carrier. The adjacent plane of AirAdriatic, a private Croatian air company, is boarded by a group of passengers walking in a fixed formation behind each other. Four police officers (one officer in the back, one in front and two on the side of the row) wearing civilian clothes and large black protection gloves lead the group of 10 migrants from the detention camp to the airplane. The distance between the AirAdriatic plane and the detention camp is rather short. In fact, the plane is parked only 15m or so away from the barbed wire that separates the runway from the camp. Migrants boarding the plane are dressed the same: they wear dark blue sports trousers with a matching jacket and carry a white plastic shopping bag. Seven groups of 10 men are lead to the plane. Behind the barbed wire there are several hundreds of migrants seated in small groups on the soil. When the plane takes off most of them are on their feet, waving.

Unexplained Sudden Death and the Likelihood of Drug Abuse

The common history of drug abuse in adults with an undetermined cause of death has led us to hypothesize that chronic drug abuse increases the risk of sudden death. To begin evaluating this hypothesis, we conducted a retrospective case-control study of 61 decedents whose cause of death remained undetermined following autopsy matched one to one to a control group of pedestrians or passengers killed in motor vehicle collisions. In 21 pairs, the case subject had evidence of drug abuse but the control did not, and in 5 cases the reverse was true. Analysis showed that individuals with an undetermined cause of death are 4.2 times more likely to have evidence of drug abuse than are victims of a motor vehicle collision.

Searching efficient plans for emergency rescue through simulation: the case of a metro fire

In this paper we present the way we modelled and simulated a metro system in the case of a tunnel fire, and discuss the ways this simulation may support the search for efficient rescue plans. The metro system was modelled as a complex adaptive system, comprising four interacting and co-evolving subsystems: (i) the fire and the released smoke, (ii) the group of passengers, (iii) the technological system, and (iv) the metro personnel. Based on this model, an agent-based simulation was developed. This simulation provides an appropriate dynamic representation of the designer’s problem space, enabling him (i) to apprehend the critical dependencies and invariants of the system under consideration, (ii) to identify the features that should characterise the designed emergency rescue plans, and (iii) to assess their efficiency. To demonstrate the usefulness of the adopted approach for the design of an efficient emergency rescue plan, the results of two experiments exploring alternative sequences of the metro personnel’s actions under different circumstances are presented.

Off-Airport Passenger Check-in Facilities at Satellite Terminals: A Review

In many regions, satellite (i.e., remote, off-airport) terminals that provide baggage check-in and baggage claim would provide several advantages to air travelers, including the ability to avoid parking at the airport or asking a relative or friend to drive to the airport, once to drop off and once to pick up the passengers; congested airline ticket counters and long lines at the skycap podiums; and traffic congestion on the way to the airport and at the airport curbsides. In some regions, such as Boston and Los Angeles, the benefits of satellite terminals have already been demonstrated, even though these terminals currently do not provide baggage check-in or baggage claim. In the United States, satellite terminals that provide baggage check-in and baggage claim serve only passengers traveling on a single airline or a distinct group of airline passengers (e.g., only passengers disembarking a cruise ship). However, baggage check-in and baggage claim for the general public is provided at several satellite terminals that serve overseas airports. The two most significant challenges to be overcome are satisfying FAA security requirements and justifying to airlines that the benefits of providing baggage check-in and baggage claim at a satellite terminal outweigh the associated costs.

An Evaluation of the Signposting System in Large Subway Station

The purpose of this study was to objectively evaluate the signposting system within the Metro Center subway station of the WMATA (Washington Metro Area Transit Authority). The approach taken was: first, to estimate the prevalence of passenger behaviors indicative of deficiencies in wayfinding; second, to evaluate the adequacy of the signposting within various decision areas of the station; and finally, to evaluate the individual components of the signage system. The first objective was addressed by observing 507 passengers selected via a pseudo-random sampling technique. From this sample an overview of traffic patterns was developed and it was determined that roughly 7% of these passengers followed a route that did not comply with the directions provided by the stations sign posting system. It was further found that an additional 2% asked for direction. These figures were combined with data provided by the WMATA to project that 6,000 to 7,000 of the passengers disembarking a train within Metro Center will evidence some form of inefficient wayfinding behavior each day. To address the second question portions of the randomly sampled data were combined with data gathered from a selectively sampled group of passengers operationally defined as needing wayfinding assistance (n = 359). This data was analyzed to determine the relative difficulty that information needy passengers had in finding their way through the various areas of the station. The final objective was addressed by comparing individual components of the signage system to current human factors guidelines.

Plasma catecholamines in some airline passengers

Assuming that the act of flying may provoke mental stress and increments in plasma catecholamines, in-flight plasma catecholamines were compared in two groups of passengers: a group of ordinary passengers (Group 1, n = 15) and a group of passengers who had just completed a cognitive, behavioural treatment programme against flight phobia (Group 2, n = 13). No difference in catecholamines was observed between the groups. However, 10 of the subjects in Group 1 and 12 of the subjects in Group 2 had in-flight plasma adrenaline higher than the highest mean +2 SD (above 0.40 nmol/l) of resting plasma adrenaline observed in healthy subjects in a long series of studies previously or simultaneously done in our laboratory. Subjects in Group 2 (n = 12) showed an average decrease of 50% from in-flight to post-flight plasma adrenaline. Plasma noradrenaline values were not elevated compared to normal resting levels, but an average reduction of 24% was observed between in-flight and post-flight in Group 2. We could not detect any difference between passengers treated for flight phobia and ordinary passengers. However, in-flight plasma catecholamines, particularly adrenaline, seem to be elevated in some airline passengers of various backgrounds. The most plausible explanation seems to be the discomfort and fear some people feel when flying; however, we cannot exclude that the physiological act of flying per se increased plasma catecholamines. Relatively larger variations in plasma adrenaline compared to noradrenaline may favour the first of these two possible explanations.

Survey of factors influencing injury among riders involved in motorized two-wheeler accidents in India: a prospective study of 302 cases.

Two-wheeler trauma in developing countries differs in some respects when compared to that in developed countries. A total of 302 cases involved in motorcycle, scooter, and moped accidents were analyzed. There were 201 drivers and 101 passengers. Injury severity scores (ISS), overall number of wounds, and number of fractures were studied. Motorcycle riders had a significantly higher ISS than did scooter riders. Persons involved in collisions with other powered vehicles had 36% more fractures and higher ISS than those involved in accidents where no collision occurred with a powered vehicle. Female passengers, sitting sideways, and involved in collisions, sustained fewer injuries than did a comparable group of male passengers who sat astride; the ISS of female passengers was also lower. Helmet users had a much lower incidence and severity of head injury than riders who did not use helmets. Turbans appeared to offer partial protection from head injury.

XXI.—Flying-fish flight, and an unfixed law of nature

THE controversy amongst naturalists as to whether flying-fish do or do not flap their wings in flight has become so one-sided as almost to represent extinction as a controversy. It is desirable, if possible, to revive it a little, by carrying the argument into new ground: first, because the one side which is at present believed in would appear to be the wrong one; and, secondly, because it seems to have escaped the notice of the other that this is capable of proof. The arguments, if they may be so called, hitherto in use are simple assertion and denial, and may be summed up into:Flying-fish do fly, moving their wings with extreme rapidity. I have carefully and frequently watched them and there can be no doubt whatever about it. And the converse: Flying-fish do not flap their wings, but use them as aeroplanes, like swallows when in skimming or sailing flight. I have carefully and frequently watched them, and there can be no doubt whatever about it. Somewhat similar remarks will be heard in any ordinary group of ship's passengers watching the fish. Some will insist that they see the wings flapping, and some will aver that they are quite still.