Intercity Roads Research Articles

DETERMINING OF LANE CAPACITY OF INTERCITY ROADS AND URBAN STREETS

The capacity of intercity roads and urban streets is an important basic input required for planning, analysis and operation of roadway systems. It is used when choosing rational options in organizing traffic and for solving other issues concerning intercity roads and urban streets development planning. There are many mathematical models for calculating lane capacity but they are not an actual assessment of transport facilities that can be used in relevant traffic calculations. Goal. It is required to develop a new effective method which is based on objective characteristics of the traffic flow with obvious assumptions and provides an opportunity for enough accurate and indisputable forecasting of capacity on the benchmark lane. Methodology. The goal can be achieved by abandoning attempts to obtain the exact point value in favor of an interval assessment of lane capacity. At the same time, the basis should be drivers’ decision-making regarding the car speed and the distance from the vehicle ahead in dense traffic flow. Then the distance from the vehicle ahead is random while the car speed can be viewed as an argument of distribution function moments of random distance. Results. The received interval assessment of the lane capacity has wide possibilities for tuning to real parameters of the traffic and can take into account peculiarities of an operation of each separate road lane and its role in the transport system. Originality. The new method of the interval assessment of road lane capacity which is based on random distances between vehicles in the traffic is developed. Practical value. The developed method creates opportunities for determining not only the interval, but also an accurate estimation of the lane capacity when specifying the parameters of the standard traffic.

Intelligent prioritization of public transport on intercity roads

Intelligent Transport Systems tools and equipment are built still not very often out of cities. It seems, that simple accommodation on traffic lights is the higher level of ITS there. This situation will evolve in the near future. What is important, dynamic developing of intelligent priority systems does not have to be limited only to cities or urban areas.

Application of machine learning methods for traffic signs recognition

This paper focuses on solving a relevant and pressing safety issue on intercity roads. Two approaches were considered for solving the problem of traffic signs recognition; the approaches involved neural networks to analyze images obtained from a camera in the real-time mode. The first approach is based on a sequential image processing. At the initial stage, with the help of color filters and morphological operations (dilatation and erosion), the area containing the traffic sign is located on the image, then the selected and scaled fragment of the image is analyzed using a feedforward neural network to determine the meaning of the found traffic sign. Learning of the neural network in this approach is carried out using a backpropagation method. The second approach involves convolution neural networks at both stages, i.e. when searching and selecting the area of the image containing the traffic sign, and when determining its meaning. Learning of the neural network in the second approach is carried out using the intersection over union function and a loss function. For neural networks to learn and the proposed algorithms to be tested, a series of videos from a dash cam were used that were shot under various weather and illumination conditions. As a result, the proposed approaches for traffic signs recognition were analyzed and compared by key indicators such as recognition rate percentage and the complexity of neural networks’ learning process.

MODEL OF DETERMINING THE PEDESTRIANS’ DELAY IN THE CROSSING OF STREETS AND ROADS OUTSIDE THE PEDESTRIAN CROSSING

The rational organization of the junction of the transport and pedestrian flows on the urban streets and intercity roads based on the criterion of traffic participant’s summary time consumption for overcoming the conflict area is substantiated. The analytical model of pedestrian’s delay while crossing the urban street or intercity road without the designated pedestrian crossing is described

Analysis of potential diverted of passenger car to the new toll road (case study: Cileunyi – Sumedang, West Java)

This study aims to determine of potential of passenger car divert from national road to on-construction Cisumdawu Toll Road. The study was conducted by traffic count survey and followed by a roadside interview survey. Stated Preference method was used in order to analyse trip forecasting value. Mode choice model of new trip mode plans (Cisumdawu Toll Road) and current intercity road for Cileunyi – Sumedang is (UJT–UJR) = 0.1079–0.507726x1–0.8953764x2, while Sumedang – Cileunyi is (UJT–UJR) = 0.0790–0.301341x1–0.548446x2. Multiple linear regression analysis was used to obtain the forecasting of private vehicle that diverts to the new toll road (Cisumdawu Toll Road). Trip characteristics such as trip origin and destination, types of trips, occupations, salary, and others become a motive for respondents to choose a new trip mode. Results of the new trip mode forecasting that prefer to divert to the toll road in terms of the value of cost and time for Cileunyi – Sumedang are 74.11% and 86.62% respectively, while for Sumedang – Cileunyi are 69.60% and 76.48% respectively. These results are relatively high compare to toll planning document. The impact of this results can be determined such as lower overall fuel consumption, lower pollution and more important is the maintenance cost of national road will be decrease.

Risk factors for Newcastle disease in broiler farms in Israel

Following a large outbreak of Newcastle disease (ND) in Israel, a cross-sectional study was conducted in the broilers sector. The aim of the study was to find geographical and farm related risk factors for ND. Information was available on 96% of the broiler farms in Israel. Of these, farms diagnosed with ND in the years 2010–2012 were compared with the other farms. Risk factors for ND were analyzed, using Generalized Estimating Equation models. Six variables were found to be associated with the risk for ND outbreak: a distance of less than 300m from another farm (OR=1.77, 95% CI 1.07–2.93), a distance of less than 6000m from a national border (OR=2.00, 95% CI 1.22–3.30), farm location in the Ha’amakim district (OR=2.46, 95% CI 1.32–4.61), village type: a Moshav (village) vs. Kibbutz (Cooperative village) (OR=1.96, 95% CI 1.04–3.70), and carcass disposal in an uncovered bin (OR=1.96, 95% CI 1.18–3.26). A distance of less than 800m from an inter-city road was found to be a protective factor (OR=0.60, 95% CI 0.37–0.98). The results of this study provide information that may be used to improve surveillance and control of ND.

Methodology for Simulating Heterogeneous Traffic Flow at Intercity Roads in Developing Countries: A Case Study of University Road in Peshawar

Urban traffic congestion is one of the major problems of the developing countries. In routine practice, traffic managers use their knowledge and exposure to address this urban mobility menace. This heuristic approach based on individual experience results in inconsistency causing further delays and an increase in travel time. The aim of this research is to incorporate urban mobility dynamics of the developing countries in a microsimulator for real-time decision making. A pilot-scale research was conducted in Peshawar, one of the ten largest cities of Pakistan. Traffic volume, travel time, vehicle specifications and geometry parameters were determined in the field as input for the microsimulation model. Calibration and validation of the model were done, and results of traffic volume and travel time were compared with actual field data and statistical similarity confirmed through paired t-test. The analysis of queue delay, travel time and traffic flow indicates that in most of the cases congestion was found near the intersections and U-turns which was verified from the field data as well. The options of a roundabout and a flyover were assumed in the analysis; resultant queue delay and travel time decreased. With the provision of the roundabout and flyover, the capacity of traffic flow was also improved.

Estimating traffic volumes on intercity road locations using roadway attributes, socioeconomic features and other work-related activity characteristics

Traffic volume data are key inputs to many applications in highway design and planning. But these data are collected in only a limited number of road locations due to the cost involved. This paper presents an approach for estimating daily and hourly traffic volumes on intercity road locations combining clustering and regression modelling techniques. With the aim of applying the procedure to any road location, it proposes the use of roadway attributes and socioeconomic characteristics of nearby cities as explanatory variables, together with a set of previously discovered patterns with the hourly traffic percent distribution. Test results show that the proposed approach significantly produces accurate estimates of daily volumes for most locations. The accuracy at hourly level is a bit more reduced but, for periods when traffic is significant, more than half of the estimates are within 20% of absolute percentage error. Moreover, the main peak period is approximately identified for most cases. These findings together with its great applicability make this approach attractive for planners when no traffic data are available and an estimate is helpful.

Spatial characteristics of urinary BTEX concentrations in the general population

Benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, o-, m-, and p-xylenes (BTEX) are ubiquitous outdoor and indoor air pollutants associated with both environmental and health effects. The objective of this exploratory study was to determine the magnitude and variability of urinary BTEX levels among residents of two areas located in the same city (Nicosia, Cyprus). The two areas differed with respect to their proximity to an industrial cluster and an intercity-highway. First morning urine voids were collected during a random campaign from selected households in the two urban areas (n = 48). Urinary BTEX measurements were obtained using headspace solid phase micro extraction coupled with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. The majority of participants were females (65%) and non-smokers (85%) with a mean age of 49 years. Median urinary BTEX levels were: 118 ng L−1, 124 ng L−1, 9 ng L−1, 29 ng L−1 and 28 ng L−1 for benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, (p + m)-xylene and o-xylene, respectively. With the exception of benzene, participants from area 2 (closer to the industrial cluster and an intercity road than area 1) had significantly (p < 0.05) higher urinary BTEX levels than those from area 1 (regression analysis). The residence location (in area 2) was the sole significant (p < 0.05) predictor of urinary BTEX levels after adjusting for sex, smoking, age, body mass index, and educational level. This observational study showed differences in BTEX exposures between two urban areas of the same city. This baseline BTEX dataset may prove useful for future activities of natural gas extraction and handling nearby urban settings.

Speed Distributional Trends on Two-lane Roads with Mixed Traffic under Heavy Flow

The present paper describes a method of modelling speed data on two-lane roads under heavy flow when traffic is heterogeneous in character. The effect of heterogeneity in traffic mix results in deviation of speed distribution model from normal distribution. This effect further exaggerates particularly at heavy flow because of frequent interaction of vehicles in the traffic stream. Thus, there is a need to develop a method of modelling speeds on these roads at such flow condition. On the basis of field data collected on a major intercity road in India, the present study made it evident that skewness of speed data is significantly high under heavy flow situation. This attributes to the fact that majority of vehicles in the traffic stream are entrapped inside platoons and their speed is influenced greatly. The present study, accordingly, examined the distribution of these data and concluded that their logarithmic transformation reasonably satisfies the normality assumption while modelling in terms of goodness-of-fit.

Studying real traffic and mobility scenarios for a Smart City using a new monitoring and tracking system

This paper presents a novel mobility monitoring system and some of its applications to address problems that would be solved in a Smart City, such as the optimization of traffic flows in terms of trip-time and security (Smart Traffic), and the improvement of security or energetic issues inside buildings. The system tracks the movement of people and vehicles monitoring the radioelectric space, catching the WiFi and Bluetooth signals emitted by personal (smartphones) or on-board (hands-free) devices. A study has been conducted in four different real scenarios, i.e. with real data gathered by the system: two related with people’s mobility (a public building and a discotheque); and two focused in traffic tracking (urban and intercity roads). The analysis has consisted on the application of different data mining techniques to extract useful knowledge, traffic forecasting methods to perform accurate predictions, and statistical analyses to model and validate the system reliability (comparing to other real data sources). The obtained results show the viability and utility of the system in all the cases, along with some of its multiple applications for solving different issues in a city.

The Social Determinants of Risky Driving on the Intercity Roads of Tehran Province, Iran: A Case-Cohort Study

Background Traffic accidents are the major cause of injuries that endanger the lives of many people annually. It seems that studying the factors and grounds of this type of event including risky driving contributes to the identification of groups at risk and development of preventive programs. Objectives Given the importance of this issue, we decided to conduct a study to examine the social factors of risky driving. Methods The present study was implemented based on a case-cohort design. The target community was all the drivers who drove on the intercity roads of Tehran Province. Each driver with and without a history of being guilty in a car accident leading to injury or death during the last 5 years was assigned to the case and control groups, respectively. The questionnaires were completed through a review of documents and interview within the groups. In the analytical analysis, a chi-square test and, if necessary, the odds ratio and confidence intervals were used to determine the relationship between the variables. In each case, the necessary investigation of confounding or interacting variables was performed using regression models and the final model of the factors affecting a risky driving was extracted. Results From a total of 990 drivers studied, 54 cases (5.5%) were females and 936 (94.5%) were males. The mean and SD of the drivers’ ages were 39.4 and 11.8 years, respectively. People with a driving job, chronic disease, poor socio-economic status, having only a family dispute, without a religious attitude, and under medical supervision (all with P < 0.001), secondary education (P = 0.01), women (P = 0.01), using drugs (P = 0.03) were found to have a greater history of road traffic injuries or deaths. Conclusions This study showed that gender, education level, occupation, socioeconomic status, medical care, health condition, lifestyle, family conflict, drug abuse history, and religious attitudes are the major social factors of risky driving on the intercity roads of Tehran Province.

A study of traffic accidents in Spanish intercity roads by means of feature vectors

Frequently, road traffic accidents are modelled as discrete and independent random and rare events, which pos sess a low probability of occurrence through time. Nevertheless, in order to study each accident individually it is necessary to obtain details of a number of characteristics that surround it, which may be correlated with each other. In this article, we propose to associate the probability of occurrence of an accident with a large number of features such as weather conditions, incidents caused by the start and end of a roadwork, geographical location of speed control radars, roadway infrastructure, etc. The influence of these features is significant and should be taken into account when proposing measures to help alleviate these undesirable events. The big data methods employed to extract the variables or features allow us to compose a series of vectors that will serve as a basis to study road accident distributions.

Development of traffic stream characteristics models for intercity roads in Egypt

Literatures revealed that there are no accurate models that describe the relationship between traffic steam parameters on intercity roads in Egypt. Therefore, the main objective of this research was to develop these relationships. Traffic data of flow rate, speed, and density were collected from three study sections in Cairo-Ismailia desert road and Cairo-Suez desert road, using video-based measurement technique. Traffic data were collected during typical weekdays and weekend. Samples were recorded in different times of the day to represent all conditions of traffic flow on the selected road sections. Using the collected traffic data, the traffic stream models were obtained. Different types of single and multi-regime models have been checked. Two criteria have been flowed to differentiate between these models: statistical tests and logic of the output parameters. Based on these tests, three-regime statistical models were found the best models to describe the relationships among the different traffic stream characteristics. Analysis of these models showed that, the jam and optimum densities are 167.77 and 61.72pcu/km/lane respectively. The free-flow and optimum speeds are 109.58 and 28.08km/h respectively, and the lane capacity is about 1732.9pcu/h/lane.

Comparison of slope stabilization methods by three-dimensional finite element analysis

Man-made factors take an important place in the formation of landslides besides the natural events. Road constructions, establishing new residential areas and interfering natural drainage systems are some of the common reasons that cause landslides. A slope on an intercity road construction site in the western Black Sea region, Turkey, is selected for this study due to the presence of small-scale soil movements, rock falls, tension cracks and occurrence of landslides in the neighborhood. The study area is investigated at three different profiles based on the topography. Slope stability analyses are carried out on these profiles by three-dimensional finite element analyses. As the results of analysis critic levels of the factor of safety and the high soil movements are estimated for one of the profiles. There are a couple of methods developed to prevent potential landslides, ceasing soil movements and securing the construction zones. Stabilizing slopes with piles are widely being used to enhance slope stability of landslide-prone areas. In this study, the behavior of stabilizing piles with and without lateral support is investigated. The bending moments and shear forces of piles and the maximum soil displacements are estimated to evaluate the performance of pile-stabilized slopes. Slope angle reduction is being performed as a remediation option, and an optimal solution is proposed after comparing the result of the analyses.

Seat belt use among car drivers in Iranian safe communities: An observational study

ABSTRACTObjective: The number of road traffic injuries and fatalities in Iran is high. The aim of the present study was to investigate the rate of drivers' seat belt use and a number of related factors in Kashmar, Bardaskan, and Khalilabad (Iranian Safe Communities).Methods: In 2014, driver observations were made at 48 road sites on intercity roads, main streets, side streets, and rural roads in these 3 cities.Results: A total of 10,255 vehicles were observed, with the overall rate of seat belt use being 51.8%. The rates in Kashmar, Bardaskan, and Khalilabad were 51.4, 56.3, and 47.7%, respectively. In Kashmar, the odds of seat belt use were higher among drivers who were female, older, and taxi drivers. Higher use was also found during the afternoon, and lower use was observed on rural roads. In Khalilabad the odds of seat belt use were higher among females, older drivers, taxis, and private car drivers. Seat belt use was also higher on weekends and during the morning but was significantly lower on rural roads. Similarly, in Bardaskan the odds of using a seat belt were higher among females, older drivers, taxis, and private car drivers. Seat belt use was also higher during the afternoon but was significantly lower on rural roads, in comparison to main streets and intercity roads.Conclusions: The rate of seat belt use in these 3 cities was found to be low, despite these cities being designated as International Safe Communities. Therefore, seat belt promotion programs, tougher regulations, stronger enforcement, public awareness campaigns, and more research are needed to promote seat belt use in these Iranian cities.

Passenger Car Unit of Vehicles on Undivided Intercity Roads in India

The majority of the roads in India are of single-lane or two-lane width. Due to budget constrains sometimes these roads are constructed with one and a half lane width (5.5 m) and is called intermediate-lane road with traffic moving on both directions. To simplify the analysis of mixed traffic on such roads, different types of vehicles are converted into equivalent number of passenger cars by using Passenger Car Unit (PCU). In the present study, an attempt is made to study the effect of the carriageway width on PCU of different vehicle categories. Data are collected at ten sections of intercity roads in different states in India. The results show that PCU value for a vehicle type varies with traffic volume and composition on the road and the carriageway width of the road being used. For example the average PCU for a big car varies from 1.46 to 1.59 on two-lane roads, 1.23 to 1.55 on intermediate roads and 1.58 on single-lane roads. All these results are discussed in this paper.

Geospatial Database Design for China – Kazakhstan Tourism Resource Information System

This paper discusses the design method to construct the geospatial database for the China - Kazakhstan tourism resources information system, especially focuses on the design of the relational database structure for transportation network analysis. By expressing the logical structure of graph theory as four relational database tables, i.e. junction table, edge table, junction-edge connectivity table, and turning table, this topological structure can effectively express urban roads and inter-city roads within a relatively larger area and build complicated road networks, and it also can be applied to the shortest path analysis on different spatial scales.

Fractionation of Ni, Cr and Cu from Soil by Sequential Extraction Procedure and Determination by Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectrometry

Five-step sequential extractions were employed to fractionation of Ni, Cr and Cu in soil polluted by anthropogenic activities and determine the mobility of the metals. Twelve samples were collected on an agricultural area that was located near an airport and intercity roads in Elazig-Turkey. Exchangeable, organically bounded, carbonate bounded, adsorbed species on Fe and Mn oxides and residual species (except silicates) of Ni, Cr and Cu were extracted into solution by using CaCl2, Na4P2O7, Na2EDTA, NH2OH–HCl and HNO3–H2O2, respectively. Mobile metal concentrations in fractions and total recoverable in soils were determined by using inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES). Total recoverable Ni, Cr and Cu concentrations were in the range of 40–119, 45–126 and 23–72 mg kg−1, respectively. It was observed that total concentrations of metals in some of the samples were higher than the permitted values. The sum of the mobile percentages of metals was found to be lower than 50%. The Ni, Cr and Cu percentages for exchangeable species are in the ranges of 0.18–1.64, 0.03–0.59 and 0.42–2.53%, respectively.

English

Intercity roads potentially offer a high availability of easily accessible food and could therefore be expected to represent a preferential area for synanthropic bird foraging. As a consequence, a road-network could act as an invasion corridor for non-native urban birds. This study is a first approximation to verify such pattern of spread, by determining if foraging is actually the main activity carried out along intercity roads. With this aim, during the spring of 2011 we surveyed 200 points along the New Zealand intercity road-network, carrying out observations on four invasive synanthropic bird species (Eurasian house sparrow Passer domesticus, Eurasian blackbird Turdus merula, Eurasian starling Sturnus vulgarisand Indian myna Acridotheres tristis). For every species we also investigated: food preferences, the possibility that certain road features could affect the occurrence of feeding activity along roads, and foraging micro-habitat selection along roads. Predominant observed behaviors related to feeding activity, with differences concerning species-specific foraging strategies. Sparrows were mainly observed feeding on small-sized items (such as seeds and invertebrates), while both starlings and mynas showed more generalist feeding habits. These three species were mostly observed along the side of the lane, in contrast with blackbirds, mainly detected preying on invertebrates along the mown grassy verges of the road. Similarly to urban areas, intercity roads provide easily accessible food, available for all the study species. We propose a road-mediated invasion pattern for synanthropic birds, and encourage future studies to optimize management strategies, and targeting intercity roads as the most suitable control areas to prevent spread.