Highway Passenger Transport Research Articles

Highway Passenger Transport Development Strategy with the Competition of High-Speed Railway

With the rapid development of high-speed passenger railway and inter-city railway, highway passenger transport is facing an unprecedented competition and pressure. The impact of high-speed railway on highway passenger transport has been analysis and the transport characteristics of high-speed railway are compared with the highways’. On the basis of the travel choice behavior of passengers analysis, the systematized countermeasures of highway passenger transport are put forward including precise orientation, strengthen marketing enhancement, technical support, resource integration, brand service and government help.

Network Optimization of RPTB Express based on Ant Colony Algorithm

As a sub-business of highway passenger transport, road passenger transport based express (RPTB) has obtained good benefits through relying on passenger transport. However, direct delivery restricts the capacity and structure of its transport network. In order to enhance the network capacity, improve network structure and strengthen the advantage of its timeliness, this paper proposes an idea of transfer delivery. Based on the idea, the paper optimizes the network structure of the RPTB express with the aim to minimize the transport time. Since the optimization model is a transport network design problem with a time window, the traditional algorithm cannot be used to solve the model. Thus, a heuristic algorithm – ant colony algorithm is used. Numerical examples indicate that the optimized transport network can save time and enhance the capacity of the RPTB express.

Experimental Research on the Impact of Driving Time on Commercial Driver’s Driving Ability

An investigation focusing on fatigue driving in road safety was performed using the methodologies of human factors and experimental psychology. Commercial drivers of highway passenger transport were chosen as the study objects and experiment of a block design is schemed according to the difference in driving time. After the collection of 99 driver’s experiment data based on devices, the influence of driving time on driver’s driving ability was analyzed using F and H test in statistics. The results show that after 8 to 12 hours of driving, degradation of driver’s ability of reaction and concentration is significant, but degradation of driver’s ability of cognition and operation is not significant; the change of driver’s feeling of fatigue is not significant as driving time increased.

Alternative methods for estimating full marginal costs of highway transportation

This paper presents various methods of estimating the full marginal cost (FMC) of highway passenger transportation. First, the computation of FMC is performed using the marginal cost functions, most of which were developed by Ozbay et al. [Ozbay, K., Bartin, B., Berechman, J., 2001. Estimation and evaluation of full marginal costs of highway transportation in New Jersey. Journal of Transportation and Statistics 4 (1)]. FMC is defined and calculated as “total cost per trip” as explained in this paper. However, in multiple origin-destination and multiple route highway networks, the practical application of the network-wide FMC concept is complicated. These issues are addressed in detail in this paper. Therefore, in the second method, a multiple route based FMC approach is proposed for a given origin-destination pair in the network. It is observed that the marginal values of different paths vary as much as 28%. Third, a comparison of FMC estimation results of two distinct measurement tools is presented. The FMC estimation is performed between a selected OD pair using the static transportation planning software output (TransCAD). The same analysis is repeated using the stochastic traffic simulation software output (PARAMICS). The differences in FMC values estimated by static transportation planning software and microscopic traffic simulation software are discussed.

The “Human Element” in Commercial Motor Vehicle Safety

Highway freight and passenger transportation are vital contributors to national economic health and productivity. Although there has been considerable research into the design and operation of the highway system and the vehicles that use it, there has been relatively little concentrated research concerning the truck and bus driver – the human element responsible for moving the freight and passengers safely. The Federal Highway Administration's Office of Motor Carriers has developed a comprehensive multi-year plan to address the issues of driver proficiency, medical qualifications, and fitness for duty. The core of this plan will be a series of high-quality and scientifically sound research projects. The results of these projects will form the basis for regulatory changes that will be more technically defensible, better reflect the realities of the operating environments, and, to the extent possible, be based on performance standards.