National Transition Research Articles

Strategizing the National Economy during a Period of Burgeoning Technological Sovereignty

Topicality. The growing instability of economic systems, the transition of the global market space from a stationary state to a large extent during an extraordinary period are accompanied by an intensification of interregional and international competition for resources and factors of expanded reproduction. This is associated with such significant structural changes and transformations that they actualize the search and justification of new strategic vectors of socio-economic development of national economies for the period of “post-normality” and a longer extraordinary period. It is the application of an effective strategizing methodology that allows the developers of any strategy to focus on the search for new strategic opportunities and breakthrough transformations, focuses on determining and choosing the right and long-term vector of development of the strategizing object. The authors emphasize that “new horizons” strategies or innovative development strategies based on technological competitive advantages are the most effective, which, in the context of limited access to imports of high-tech developments and the impossibility of their cross-border transfer, in particular to Russia, forms a predominant focus on the avant-garde domestic technological developments in the justification of strategic priorities. This causes the activation of processes to form the national economy technological sovereignty and emphasizes its strategic importance. Aim. Determine the basic directions of strategizing the national economy during a period of burgeoning technological sovereignty. Tasks. Designate the strategic role of scientific and industrial sectors in the process of national economy transition to technological independence, formulate the financial and the human resources development aspects of strategizing the national economy during a period of burgeoning technological sovereignty. Methods. The scientific research is based on the general theory of Strategy and strategizing methodology developed by the Center for Strategic Research at the Institute of Mathematical Research of Complex Systems and the Economic and Financial Strategy Department at Moscow School of Economics at Lomonosov Moscow State University with the leadership of Foreign Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, professor Vladimir L. Kvint. Results. The authors have shown the relationship between strategizing and the processes of formation the national economy technological sovereignty, clarified the role of industrial strategizing in the national economy during a period of burgeoning technological sovereignty, formulated key aspects of the financial strategy and the labor potential development strategy of the national economy during a period of burgeoning technological sovereignty. Conclusions. The process of forming the national economy during a period of burgeoning technological sovereignty must comply with the strategizing methodology, follow the long-term regulated stages and methodological principles for the development and implementation of an appropriate national strategy for the transition to technological independence. Particular attention should be paid to industrial and financial strategizing of the transition to technological independence and strategizing the labor potential development of the national economy during a period of burgeoning technological sovereignty.

Digital platforms for Renewable Energy Communities projects: an overview.

The European Union energy policy agenda of achieving the transition to carbon neutrality has been established by an important legislative package called “Clean Energy for all Europeans”. A novel approach introduced was to put the citizen at the center of the energy transition. On one side, by powering his freedom of action and, on the other side, by asking him an exceptional engagement in energy consumption reduction activities and in participating in the investments for new distributed Renewable Energy Sources (RES) power plants. The Renewable Energy Communities (REC) is the policy framework used to implement this strategy introduced by the Renewable Energy Directive Recast (RED II). In particular, RECs promote citizen’s active role by encouraging energy consumption reduction and energy demand flexibility while reducing the Not In My Bachyard (NIMBY) effect towards RES. Each member state is transposing the RED II directive, adapting it to national legislation and energy transition strategy. Pioneers countries like Italy have already started the experimentation of this framework and developing the first pilot projects. The citizens’ interest and their will to participate in REC projects indicate the need for supporting tools guiding them along all the project development stages: “design”, “creation”, and “operation”. This work presents three categories of supporting digital tools and platforms required to develop REC projects: Commercial, EU Founded and Freeware. We analyzed 30 tools, evaluating the services provided in each of the different stages of REC project implementation.

Strategies for the symbiotic development of renewable power and nuclear power under the ‘Renewable Energy 3020’ policy in South Korea: Part II. Technical solutions for expanding renewable power generation

In recent years, the Korean government has recently implemented the ‘Renewable Energy 3020’ policy to substantially expand renewable energy without the inclusion of nuclear and coal-fired power plants. This study analyzes the changing conditions of the national power system on the assumption that ‘Renewable Energy 3020’ policy achieves the goal of the expansion of renewable energy generation to 20% by 2030. Korean government needs to consider the effects of technological innovation, changes in market, and the possibility of social consensus deduction. The Wien Automatic System Planning (WASP) model was used to verify the implementation of the long-term power development plan within specified constraints. The extension methodology of renewable power equipment was verified using the WASP model, which provides the basis for the application of scientific logic and suggestion to drive the national energy transition policy efficiently. Currently, technological and economic uncertainties related to nuclear and renewable power generation need to be investigated. Thereafter, energy transition needs to be examined to promote an alternative energy policy considering the technological innovation and the social consensus. The national energy transition policy will likely succeed, if based on the accurate technical planning and evaluation of the symbiotic strategies for nuclear and renewable power generation.

Transit GIS Applications in Fairfax County, Virginia

The Fairfax County Department of Transportation (DOT) manages a fixed-route bus system (the Fairfax Connector) that encompasses 58 routes. To better support the planning, operation, and marketing of this bus system, the Fairfax County DOT and the Fairfax County Department of Information Technology formed a team to develop a pilot project of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) transit applications. These applications would serve as a demonstration to facilitate automation, analysis, accessing, and plotting of transit data. To be successful, the applications had to be cost effective and match users’ technical needs with their abilities.Paramount to the success of this project was having a transit database capable of supporting all the applications identified by the development team. The database had to handle problems such as bus stops serving more than one route and routing varying by time of day. To effectively model the bus routes in GIS, each path had to be uniquely identified even though the same route could travel on different paths. Dynamic segmentation of ARC/INFO v.7.1 was used to develop the route database. A bus stop database, in the format of ARC/INFO coverage, was then related to the route coverage.More than 15 applications were identified for three areas of transit management: planning, operation, and marketing. Planning applications focused on transit service improvement and route restructuring. They included routing adjustment, route demographic and land-use analysis, and reporting of statistics required by the National Transit Database. Operation applications were designed for daily service monitoring and consisted of route running times, loading at bus stops, and emergency service. Marketing applications emphasized functions for public outreach, which included creating specialized route and stop maps and publishing route information on the Internet. Most end-user applications were built in ArcVìew 3.0 using Avenue and Dialog Designer. Some applications were built with ESRIs Map Objects (MO) and Map Objects Internet Map Server.

Increasing Transit Ridership: A Survey of Successful Transit Systems in the 1990s

This study examines trends in public transit ridership in the United States during the 1990s. Specifically, it focuses on agencies that increased ridership during the latter half of the decade. While transit ridership increased steadily by 13 percent nationwide between 1995 and 1999, not all systems experienced ridership growth equally. Some agencies increased ridership dramatically, some did so only minimally, and still others lost riders. What sets these agencies apart from one another? What explains the uneven growth in ridership?To examine these questions, we conducted a nationwide survey of transit agencies that added riders during the late 1990s. Specifically, transit general managers or their designees were asked about the factors they deemed important for ridership growth in their systems. We gathered information about specific transit planning efforts and programs that are not available from aggregate data sources, like the National Transit Database (NTD). This article reports the results of this survey and documents recent planning efforts of successful transit systems. We found that:1Service improvements and advertising/information programs are perceived by transit managers to have increased patronage, though opinions varied widely on how significantly such changes affected ridership.2While the literature generally suggests that fare changes affect ridership less than service improvements, universal fare coverage programs are widely perceived to have positively influenced ridership by the systems that implemented such programs.3Three factors outside of the control of transit managers and planners (population growth, economic/employment growth, and worsening traffic congestion) are frequently cited as significantly causing patronage to climb.

The Modern Streetcar in the U.S.: An Examination of Its Ridership, Performance, and Function as a Public Transportation Mode

Seven U.S. cities reported operating streetcar service to the National Transit Database in 2012, and many other cities are building or planning streetcar investments. Yet despite the increased popularity of streetcar investments, there is a lack of information about how these investments function as transportation modes, as opposed to urban development tools. This paper examines the streetcar as a public transit mode by examining ridership, service, service productivity, cost effectiveness, and other indicators of the streetcar’s performance and function in the carriage of transit passengers. There is considerable variation in all of these measures, with the variability a function of the different environments in which streetcars operate, the different roles they play in the local transit system, and differences in the operating characteristics of the streetcars themselves. Among the cases, Portland’s streetcar emerges as a strong performer, Little Rock’s and Tampa’s streetcars as relatively poor performers, and the other streetcars have mixed performance results.

Current Transition Practice for Primary Immunodeficiencies and Autoinflammatory Diseases in Europe: a RITA-ERN Survey

BackgroundDue to the absence of curative treatments for inborn errors of immunity (IEI), children born with IEI require long-term follow-up for disease manifestations and related complications that occur over the lifespan. Effective transition from pediatric to adult services is known to significantly improve adherence to treatment and long-term outcomes. It is currently not known what transition services are available for young people with IEI in Europe.ObjectiveTo understand the prevalence and practice of transition services in Europe for young people with IEI, encompassing both primary immunodeficiencies (PID) and systemic autoinflammatory disorders (AID).MethodsA survey was generated by the European Reference Network on immunodeficiency, autoinflammatory, and autoimmune diseases Transition Working Group and electronically circulated, through professional networks, to pediatric centers across Europe looking after children with IEI.ResultsSeventy-six responses were received from 52 centers, in 45 cities across 17 different countries. All services transitioned patients to adult services, mainly to specialist PID or AID centers, typically transferring up to ten patients to adult care each year. The transition process started at a median age of 16–18 years with transfer to the adult center occurring at a median age of 18–20 years. 75% of PID and 68% of AID centers held at least one joint appointment with pediatric and adult services prior to the transfer of care. Approximately 75% of PID and AID services reported having a defined transition process, but few centers reported national disease-specific transition guidelines to refer to.ConclusionsTransition services for children with IEI in Europe are available in many countries but lack standardized guidelines to promote best practice.

The Efficiency of Sampling Techniques for NTD Reporting

This paper examines the minimum sample size required by each of six sampling techniques for estimating annual passenger miles traveled to meet the Federal Transit Administration’s 95% confidence and 10% precision levels for the National Transit Database. It first describes these sampling techniques in non-technical terms and hypothesizes how they are expected to compare in their minimum sample sizes. It then determines the minimum sample size for 83 actual sample datasets that cover 6 modes and 65 transit agencies. Finally, it summarizes the results in minimum sample size to compare the relative efficiency of these sampling techniques. The potential for improved efficiency from using these sampling techniques is great, but the exact degree of improvement depends highly on individual agencies, modes, and services.

Does Government Structure Matter? A Comparative Analysis of Urban Bus Transit Efficiency

As public transit becomes more and more important to our economy, it is imperative that we understand which governing system achieves optimal efficiency. Following up on the work of Perry and Babitsky (1986), we quantitatively test whether certain forms of public governance are more efficient administrators of bus service. We utilize 2004 data from the National Transit Association database and control for federal funding, whether services are contracted out, region, population density, whether the system has a fixed guideway, the presence of local dedicated funding, and the ratio of local to federal funding. We find that special-purpose governments are more likely than general-purpose governments (cities and counties) to operate more efficiently. We also discovered that governments that contract out for some or all of their bus services are also more likely to be efficient than those public agencies that directly operate all of their services.

System for Transit Performance Analysis Using the National Transit Database

The National Transit Database (NTD) includes comprehensive data on transit organization characteristics, vehicle fleet characteristics, revenues and subsidies, operating and maintenance costs, vehicle fleet reliability and inventory, services consumed and supplied, and safety and security. Some of these data have been used extensively to derive values for transit performance measures and have become the sole source of standardized and comprehensive data for use by all constituencies of the U.S. transit industry. An important application of NTD data has been in trend analysis, which requires multiple years of data. However, accessing NTD data, especially for multiple years, has not been an easy process. One reason is because the data were collected and distributed annually in separate files. This paper introduces a web-based system that integrates over 20 years of NTD data and provides user-friendly tools designed to facilitate the access and analysis of transit performance data.

Developing a Method for Assessing National Demand-Response Transit Level of Service

Demand-response transit service is a major source of mobility for older adults and people with disabilities in both urban and rural areas in United States. Federal Transit Administration (FTA) grant programs under sections 5307, 5310, and 5311 all have components designed to increase the availability of paratransit or demand-response transit service. However, there is little information in the National Transit Database (NTD) or elsewhere about the extent of demand-response transit service coverage across the country. The lack of data makes it a challenge to identify gaps in service and unmet needs. The primary objective of this study was to fill the data gaps to the available NTD database to effectively determine the demand-response transit level of service. This study also developed a priority ranking procedure to identify where the greatest needs for service improvements exist in a state.

A Cautionary Tale of Two Streetcars: Little Rock’s River Rail and Tampa’s TECO Line

Planners and policymakers in dozens of U.S. cities are considering making streetcar investments in the hope of promoting economic development, encouraging tourism, carrying transit riders, and/or achieving a host of other local objectives. Most observers look to Portland, Oregon, as a model of successful streetcar development, but this paper considers the experiences of two less successful communities, Little Rock, Arkansas, and Tampa, Florida. Using a combination of key informant interviews and local and national transit data, the authors assess the goals of streetcar implementation and the performance of the streetcars in these two cities, seeking to understand the reasons for their performance and identify lessons for other communities.

From Policy and Response to System Design and Operations: Inter-Governmental Transit Security Planning in the U.S.

The events of September 11th, 2001, brought the issue of transportation security and terrorism to the forefront of civil society. Transit security is especially challenging because of the nature of transit systems as open and accessible public places and the need to keep these systems running quickly and efficiently; transit officials cannot employ many of the security strategies used in aviation security. This paper examines the recent developments in transit security planning in the U.S. using two sources of data: 1) interviews with officials from federal agencies, a national transit industry organization, and local transit agencies, and 2) a nationwide survey of transit operators. The findings show that transit security remains a major concern for operators who must work to balance security needs with operations and management goals. Interagency coordination has become a crucial element of security planning. In addition, environmental design and public outreach and education—two strategies that received much less attention pre-September 11th—have emerged as much more important in transit security planning.

Benchmarking Transit Research in the United States

The national transit research program in the United States commands fewer resources than research on other surface transportation modes. In real dollars, expenditures on the national transit research program declined over the past six years. While the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, and Efficient Transportation Equity Act of 2005 reverses this trend by increasing transit research funding over the next five fiscal years, transit research funding still lags aviation, highways, and railroads. The low priority assigned transit research at the national level is also prevalent at the state, transit industry, and university levels.In an effort to focus resources on the transit industry’s most pressing needs, the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) has adopted a strategic transit research plan that sets forth five goals: provide leadership, increase ridership, improve operating and capital efficiency, improve safety and emergency preparedness, and protect the environment and promote energy independence. FTA charts strategies to achieve these goals but must do so with most of its research budget earmarked to specific projects. Technology issues dominate the national transit research program.

Trends in Transit Bus Accidents and Promising Collision Countermeasures

This article presents information on bus collisions from the National Transit Database (NTD) and discusses implications of the findings on the design of transit collision warning systems. A total of 2,405 major transit bus collisions were reported in 2002 and 2003 that resulted in more than $15 million in property damage, 145 fatalities, and more than 8,000 injuries. According to the NTD, front and angle transit collisions yielded higher fatality and injury rates and property damage costs compared to rear collisions. Most major bus collisions occurred in benign conditions such as clear weather and on dry roads. Therefore, emphasis should be placed on developing a warning system with the capability of continuously monitoring the bus surroundings and providing timely alerts to transit operators about crash threats in front and on either side of the bus.

A Guide to Customized Sampling Plans for National Transit Database Reporting

For estimating the system total unlinked passenger trips and passenger miles of a fixed-route bus system for the National Transit Database (NTD), the sampling plans approved by the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) may either oversample or do not yield FTA’s required confidence and precision levels for the specific conditions of a transit agency. This guide helps transit agencies avoid these problems by developing sampling plans customized to their fixed-route bus services. Detailed steps are provided to calculate the statistical variation in passenger miles and unlinked passenger trips and the correlation between them. The sampling plans that transit agencies develop using this guide maintain the main features of the original FTA plans. More important, transit agencies can easily use this guide to develop customized sampling plans in an Excel environment using three existing pieces of information: an NTD sample that they have collected with their current FTA approved sampling plan; annual days of service; and daily total number of one-way bus trips.This guide complements FTA Circular C2710.1A in that transit agencies first select one of their own sampling plans that best meets their staffing needs, and then follow the procedures in the circular on sampling and collecting field data. Transit agencies should be able to use this guide and the related calculations as an approval of a qualified statistician as required by the current NTD reporting manuals.

Optimal Allocation of Enterprise Resources Based on the Intelligent Algorithm from the Perspective of Multidimensional Dynamic Innovation.

Faced with the upsurge of digital technology, many small and medium-sized startups are aware of the opportunities and challenges it brings and are actively responding to digital transformation. Digital transformation is a type of strategic change with certain risks. On the one hand, this requires business leaders to have a sense of change, and on the other hand, it also requires certain resources to be invested. As a result, in the real world, not all small and medium-sized entrepreneurial firms have the ability or inclination to implement digital transformation. SMEs' digital transformation has become a key factor in promoting the national economy's transition from new and old kinetic energy and providing new prospects for development of small and medium firms. As a starting point, this study devises an index system for assessing the digital maturity of small and medium-sized businesses. Based on the AHP method in the multicriteria framework, a hierarchical structure is established for each index, a three-layer basic framework is established, and the weight of the evaluation index is calculated. Second, this work establishes a BP network model for digital transformation maturity assessment of startups based on AHP and establishes a three-layer BP network structure. This work aims to optimize BP network using the improved ISFLA algorithm. It improves the adaptive step size update formula in the SFLA algorithm by using the mutation operator and improves the evolution method of the worst individual of the frog to the simultaneous evolution of multiple poor individuals. The constructed ISFLA-BP algorithm is then used to evaluate the digital transformation maturity of small and medium-sized startups. Finally, systematic and comprehensive experiments are carried out to verify superiority as well as feasibility of the method.

The role of family social capital in school-to-work transitions of young adults in Germany

The school-to-work transition (STWT) represents a challenge for many young people in Germany today. Previous studies have particularly focused on the influence of adolescents' socio-demographic background as well as national institutions and transition regimes. However, qualitative studies have shown that in addition to these factors, adolescents' and young adults' social environment, especially their parental relationships, may also contribute to a more or less promising STWT. Despite these findings, such factors have so far only played a minor role in quantitative research on young people's STWT trajectories. Our aim is to explain STWTs through young people's social embeddedness, assuming that the difficult transition into working life is also shaped by the young people's family context. To achieve this objective, data on the first cohort (birth cohorts 1991–1993) of the German Family Panel (pairfam) are analysed. A sequence and cluster analysis were conducted on these data, which yielded seven transition patterns. In accordance with the structure of the German labour market, these patterns can be described as more linear transitions or non-standard transitions. Multinomial logistic regressions reveal that in addition to parental financial and human capital, indicators of the family's social capital (family structure, parent-child communication as well as emotional security) are decisive for a successful STWT.

Polluting characteristics, sources, cancer risk, and cellular toxicity of PAHs bound in atmospheric particulates sampled from an economic transformation demonstration area of Dongguan in the Pearl River Delta, China

The Songshan Lake Science and Technology Industrial Park is a national economic transition demonstration area, which centers at a traditional industrial region, in Dongguan, China. We were interested in the involved atmospheric particulates-bound PAHs regarding their sources, cancer risk, and related cellular toxicity for those in other areas under comparable conditions. In this study, the daily concentrations of TSP, PM10, and PM2.5 were averaged 127.95, 95.91, and 67.62 μg/m3, and the bound PAHs were averaged 1.31, 1.22, and 0.77 ng/m3 in summer and 12.72, 20.51 and 40.27 ng/m3 in winter, respectively. The dominant PAHs were those with 5–6 rings, and 4–6 rings in summer and winter, respectively. The incremental lifetime cancer risk (ILCR) (90th percentile probability) of total PAHs was above 1.00E-06 in each age group, particularly high in adolescents. Sensitivity analysis indicated that slope factor and body weight had greater impact than exposure duration and inhalation rate on the ILCR. Moreover, treatment of human bronchial epithelial BEAS-2B cells with mixed five indicative PAHs increased the formation of ROS, DNA damage (elevation in γ-H2AX), and protein levels of CAR, PXR, CYP1A1, 1A2, 1B1, while reduced the AhR protein, with the winter mixture more potent than summer. For the sources of PAHs, the stable carbon isotope ratio analysis and diagnostic ratios consistently pointed to petroleum and fossil fuel combustion as major sources. In conclusion, our findings suggest that particulates-bound PAHs deserve serious concerns for a cancer risk in such environment, and the development of new power sources for reducing fossil fuel combustion is highly encouraged.

Recommendation of a New Transit Performance Measure in the National Transit Database

Recommendation of a New Transit Performance Measure in the National Transit Database