Passenger Seat Research Articles

Modeling and control of a nonlinear half-vehicle suspension system: a hybrid fuzzy logic approach

Modeling and control of vehicle suspension system are high noteworthy from safety to comfort. In this paper, an analytical nonlinear half-vehicle model which is included quadratic tire stiffness, cubic suspension stiffness, and coulomb friction is derived based on fundamental physics. A hybrid fuzzy logic approach which combines fuzzy logic and PID controllers is designed for reducing the vibration levels of passenger seat and vehicle body. Performances of designed controllers have been evaluated by numerical simulations. Comparisons with classical PID control, Fuzzy Logic Control (FLC) and Hybrid Fuzzy-PID control (HFPID) have also been provided. Results of numerical simulations are evaluated in terms of time histories of displacement and acceleration responses and ride index comparison. A good performance for the Hybrid Fuzzy-PID controller with coupled rules (HFPIDCR) is achieved in simulation studies despite the nonlinearities.

Bilateral ureteropelvic disruption following blunt abdominal trauma: Case report

BackgroundUreteral injury occurs in less than 1% of blunt abdominal trauma cases, partly because the ureters are relatively well protected in the retroperitoneum. Bilateral ureteral injury is extremely rare, with only 10 previously reported cases. Diagnosis may be delayed if ureteric injury is not suspected, and delay of 36 hours or longer has been observed in more than 50% of patients with ureteric injury following abdominal trauma, leading to increased morbidity.Case presentationA 29-year-old man was involved in a highway motor vehicle collision and was ejected from the front passenger seat even though wearing a seatbelt. He was in a preshock state at the scene of the accident. An intravenous line and left thoracic drain were inserted, and he was transported to our hospital by helicopter. Whole-body, contrast-enhanced computed tomography (CT) scan showed left diaphragmatic disruption, splenic injury, and a grade I injury to the left kidney with a retroperitoneal haematoma. He underwent emergency laparotomy. The left diaphragmatic and splenic injuries were repaired. Although a retroperitoneal haematoma was observed, his renal injury was treated conservatively because the haematoma was not expanding. In the intensive care unit, the patient's haemodynamic state was stable, but there was no urinary output for 9 hours after surgery. Anuresis prompted a review of the abdominal x-ray which had been performed after the contrast-enhanced CT. Leakage of contrast material from the ureteropelvic junctions was detected, and review of the repeat CT scan revealed contrast retention in the perirenal retroperitoneum bilaterally. He underwent cystoscopy and bilateral retrograde pyelography, which showed bilateral complete ureteral disruption, preventing placement of ureteral stents. Diagnostic laparotomy revealed complete disruption of the ureteropelvic junctions bilaterally. Double-J ureteral stents were placed bilaterally and ureteropelvic anastomoses were performed. The patient's postoperative progress was satisfactory and he was discharged on the 23rd day.ConclusionDiagnosis of ureteral injury was delayed, although delayed phase contrast-enhanced CT and abdominal x-rays performed after CT revealed the diagnosis early. Prompt detection and early repair prevented permanent renal damage and the necessity for nephrectomy.

Stereovision-based real-time occupant classification system for advanced airbag systems

Occupant classification in a passenger seat is one of the critical components for any advanced airbag system. Many automotive electronic suppliers and engineers predict that the camera will be the next generation sensor for active and passive safety systems because it has several advantages compared to other sensors. The present paper describes a stereovision-based occupant classification system (OCS) and intelligent algorithm with embedded system by which triggering of the airbag deployment can be controlled. The system consists of a pair of stereo cameras and dual Digital Signal Processor (DSP): the first DSP is for the stereo matching processing, and the second is for occupant classification. The results show that the reaches 97%, and the processing time is 960 ms. Such performance indicates that the feasibility of the system as an embedded OCS is high.

Effect of Secondhand Smoke on Occupancy of Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptors in Brain

Despite progress in tobacco control, secondhand smoke (SHS) exposure remains prevalent worldwide and is implicated in the initiation and maintenance of cigarette smoking. To determine whether moderate SHS exposure results in brain α(4)β(2)* nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) occupancy. Positron emission tomography scanning and the radiotracer 2-[18F]fluoro-3-(2(S)azetidinylmethoxy) pyridine (also known as 2-[(18)F]fluoro-A-85380, or 2-FA) were used to determine α(4)β(2)* nAChR occupancy from SHS exposure in 24 young adult participants (11 moderately dependent cigarette smokers and 13 nonsmokers). Participants underwent two bolus-plus-continuous-infusion 2-FA positron emission tomography scanning sessions during which they sat in the passenger's seat of a car for 1 hour and either were exposed to moderate SHS or had no SHS exposure. The study took place at an academic positron emission tomography center. Main Outcome Measure Changes induced by SHS in 2-FA specific binding volume of distribution as a measure of α(4)β(2)* nAChR occupancy. An overall multivariate analysis of variance using specific binding volume of distribution values revealed a significant main effect of condition (SHS vs control) (F(1,22)=42.5, P<.001) but no between-group (smoker vs nonsmoker) effect. Exposure to SHS led to a mean 19% occupancy of brain α(4)β(2)* nAChRs (1-sample t test, 2-tailed, P<.001). Smokers had both a mean 23% increase in craving with SHS exposure and a correlation between thalamic α(4)β(2)* nAChR occupancy and craving alleviation with subsequent cigarette smoking (Spearman ρ=-0.74, P=.01). Nicotine from SHS exposure results in substantial brain α(4)β(2)* nAChR occupancy in smokers and nonsmokers. Study findings suggest that such exposure delivers a priming dose of nicotine to the brain that contributes to continued cigarette use in smokers. This study has implications for both biological research into the link between SHS exposure and cigarette use and public policy regarding the need to limit SHS exposure in cars and other enclosed spaces.

60 GHz WLAN applications and implementation aspects

Various wireless applications are currently under development for the unlicensed 60 GHz band. This paper describes three examples with different system requirements. The first two are point-to-multipoint wireless networks (in an airplane and in a car) and the third one is a short range point-to-point connection. Special requirements of the applications are a high number of users for the point-to-multipoint connection and a high data rate of 10 Gbit/s for the point-to-point connection system. Implementation aspects are pointed out, which are important to demonstrate the functionality of the system in a relevant environment and are key aspects to develop the related products. For example, integration aspects of the antenna into an airplane passenger seat and the receiver concept of the radio frequency-(RF) front-end to reducing the power consumption at ultrahigh data rates are described. Additionally, to determine the geometrical system architecture, ray-tracing simulations inside an aircraft and inside a car were performed.

Retinal dialysis and detachment in a child after airbag deployment

A variety of airbag-associated ocular injuries have been reported in children sitting in the front passenger seat during automobile collisions. These injuries range from corneal abrasions to traumatic hyphema with secondary glaucoma and cataract. We report the case of a 5-year-old boy who experienced retinal dialysis and detachment associated with airbag deployment. The patient recovered 20/20 visual acuity after cryopexy and placement of a radial sponge.

Two Hauntings, and: Dead Poet in the Passenger Seat

Two Hauntings, and: Dead Poet in the Passenger Seat Lesley Wheeler (bio) Two Hauntings It's mostly slag, the geologist says. He squintsat each chunk of my dead grandmother's rockcollection, then up at me to see if my feelingsare hurt. Glass, leftover. He tries the amberlump with his pocketknife, to see it break,I guess. Some copper ore, too, and basalt.Could be from anywhere. Her motives unclear. Somebody's with you now. The medium pointsat my sister, on a ghost tour with a packof college friends. She had just started thinkingof our other grandmother. The memories made her somber:a family row, some pills not swallowed, a stroke.She wants you to know that it was an accident.She misses you all. My sister phones me in tears. I miss her too, but I knew her grief. What hurtsis the story lost in the rubble. That vitreous trace. [End Page 74] Dead Poet in the Passenger Seat Dickinson flickers beside me,a sepia projectionin too few frames per second—an analog broadcast, broken as trees break light. Discrete, despitethe slant-rhyme of us. She's dazedby the persistence of her signal,but grows sharp as she plays with the radio knobs. She asks how I dreamand conjure while I drivethis carriage at such shuddering speed.Observes that I'm not alive to the blurred show at the roadside—plungeof hawk for carrion,stems staggering under seed. She warns,slow down. I carry on about parallel routes, the mapI might have used. Her imagegoes snowy, faintly doubled. I askif she regrets her fine-stitched silences. Thinking of words, she slantsforward, as if against wind,and wrings her hands. She says, oh, yes,I do. Too many friends were ghosts, or I a ghost to them.But glancing at her eyesjust for one attentive moment,I glimpse the no, joyous, [End Page 75] the banked-up fire of her bound-up hair.Her dash protracts—each inky linesizzles like a telephone wire.Connected the old way. Alone. [End Page 76] Lesley Wheeler Lesley Wheeler's newest collection, Heterotopia, won the Barrow Street Press Poetry Prize. Her previous books include Heathen (C&R) and Voicing American Poetry (Cornell); her poems appear in Poetry, Blackbird, Slate, and other journals. Copyright © 2011 University of Nebraska Press

Tracks and Traces: How the Mobile Phone ‘Fixed’ Driving

How we understand and use of personal technologies is flavoured by historical, cultural and geographical factors. A case in point is the nexus formed by the private car, the mobile phone and one of the arenas in which these devices are used, our urban streets. Our experience of urban streets seems to be simultaneously familiar but anonymous, boring but dangerous, local but networked to national and international communications and transportation grids. Designed for vehicles, pedestrians seem reduced to trespassers when they venture between the curbs. Meanwhile, drivers experience urban streets as if they were a metaphorical desert. The interior of contemporary car, enriched with communications and media devices including radio and CD player, assuages the experience of driving through urban streets. More recently, the mobile phone has found its niche on the 'passenger seat' by our side. Other networked, data-rich devices are also finding their place on our consoles. Driver experience has become ameliorated - and even mediated - by personal media and communication technology. The mobile phone has become central to the suite of media and communications technologies in car interiors. Cars and phones are seen as personal technologies; unlike public telecommunications and transportation systems such as the telegraph, we psychologize their significance, and withdraw, through their use, from collective engagement. The psychologization of private car and mobile phone has the effect of separating us from the public, urban street and 'immunizing' us from its threats. In particular, the mobile phone distracts us from the materiality and territoriality of urban streets, sometimes with unfortunate results. Alternative ways of conceptualizing these personal technologies, reflected in new designs, reconciles communication and transportation and decreases the dangers that currently characterize their combination.

Vibrations control of light rail transportation vehicle via PID type fuzzy controller using parameters adaptive method

In this study, a conventional PID type fuzzy controller and parameter adaptive fuzzy controller are designed to control vibrations actively of a light rail transport vehicle which modeled as 6 degree-of-freedom system and compared performances of these two controllers. Rail vehicle model consists of a passenger seat and its suspension system, vehicle body, bogie, primary and secondary suspensions and wheels. The similarity between mathematical model and real system is shown by comparing uncontrolled simulation results and vibration measurements. For carrying a comfortable travel, rail vehicle body and passenger seat vibrations are minimized by adding a controller between rail vehicle body and bogie in the model of this system. To control vibrations actively, a PID type fuzzy controller which is obtained by combining fuzzy PI and fuzzy PD controllers is preferred because of its robust character and superior performance. The PID type fuzzy controller using parameter adaptive method is designed by tuning the parameters online. Also, obtaining higher performance from this controller is studied.

Differences in Nighttime Luminance of Work Zone Drums with and without Steady-Burn Warning Lights

Research was performed to explore the differences in the nighttime luminance of drums, with and without steady-burn warning lights, that are used in work zones to channelize traffic. Two evaluations were performed: one in the field, which included luminance measurements of 372 drums in 15 freeway work zones throughout Michigan, and another, controlled evaluation, which included luminance measurements of 24 common drum scenarios in a vacant parking lot. Drums with and without steady-burn lights were considered in both evaluations. All luminance measurements were performed from the passenger seat of a vehicle under low-beam headlamp illumination. The results of the controlled evaluation showed that the addition of a steady-burn warning light increased the average luminance of drums with high-intensity sheeting by 0.165 candelas per square meter (cd/m2) (2.6%). The added light increased the average luminance of drums with microprismatic sheeting by 0.50 cd/m2 (3.9%). Similar results were obtained during the field evaluation. It was concluded that drums with high-intensity sheeting and without steady-burn warning lights typically provided adequate levels of nighttime luminance when viewed from a vehicle under low-beam headlamp illumination. If additional nighttime brightness was desired, however, microprismatic sheeting offered far greater luminance than a steady-burn warning light.

An ergonomic case study on the interior customisation of Fast Response Cars (FRCs) based on vehicle adaptation

This paper discusses the interior customisation of two Police Fast Response Cars (FRCs), namely Volvo V70 Station Wagon and Mitsubishi Space Wagon, from an ergonomic design perspective. Customisation of the front areas addressed the interaction among the electronic communication devices, front-passenger and driver, whereas the retrieval and storage of equipment and tools were explored in the rear interiors. Concerning the rear interior space, the Mitsubishi performed better than the Volvo. A three-layered design improved accessibility of equipment. The installation of on-board computer facilities, secure placement under extreme driving conditions was suggested near the centre console at the front passenger seat.

I'm OK, You're OK

I'm OK, You're OK Daniel Mueller (bio) When I opened the passenger door of his Plymouth station wagon, the clown in the driver's seat turned to me. "Tell me you aren't going to murder me," he said. "OK," I said. "Now that we have that settled," he said, "you might as well stow your pack in the back." With an oversized prosthetic thumb he signaled over his polka-dotted shoulder. His other hand rested firmly on the steering wheel. Back then I was afraid of no one. I was twenty, had dropped out of college and was hitchhiking to Alaska to make my fortune seining salmon, though I knew next to nothing about it. Earlier in the day, my mother had dropped [End Page 30] [Begin Page 32] me off on an I-94 entrance ramp thirty miles north of the Twin Cities and sped away in her Volvo sedan, hurling gravel behind her. Neither she nor my father wanted me to go, and they had tried to dissuade me from leaving by imagining all sorts of gruesome scenarios. What if someone put a gun to my head? What if I was in a car with jerry-rigged locks? What if I was picked up by an Ed Gein who could see me only as bowls and lampshades and furniture upholstery? Always the what-ifs returned to Ed Gein. My father, an M.D., had grown up forty miles north of Ed's hometown of Plainfield, Wisconsin, and from this believed he'd acquired unique insight into the workings of Ed's brain. I went to school with guys just like Ed. A guy like Ed will stop at nothing. You know this, right? "Feel free to rearrange my stuff," said the clown. "I know it's a mess back there." The backseat was folded down, the cargo area heaped with the props of his trade. Balloon pumps, squirting cameras and hula hoops. Devil sticks, dove pans and linking silks. Blooming bouquets, wilting carnations and spinning plates. Beneath all the novelties and gags, which I swept gently to the side, lay flat cardboard boxes containing electrical fuses of various types and ratings. As I climbed in next to him on the passenger seat, the clown said, "Gig in Fargo. Kid's seventh birthday party." I pulled the passenger door shut. "Cool," I said. "You like clowns?" he asked as we gathered speed on the shoulder, then merged with the northwest-bound traffic. "You find them entertaining, do you?" "Not especially," I replied, which brought a chuckle from him. "You're not alone, buddy. And that's coming from someone who subsidizes his income handily by performing as one. Why, you wouldn't believe how many parents tell me, usually as they're cutting my check, mind you, how creepy my performance was. But they don't know creepy. I know creepy." "What's creepy?" I asked. "You wanna know what's creepy? What's really creepy?" With the same rubber thumb, which had been molded to appear infected with a dark red abscess to the right of the nail, he pointed at his forehead, painted white to an orange wig that gave one the impression of a scalp on fire. "What's going on in here, behind the makeup, behind the flesh and bone." He turned to me and improvised the snarl of a cornered cat, though his pair of dimples and heart-shaped smile remained as fixed as his round, red nose. "Scaring you yet?" [End Page 32] "You don't scare me," I said. "Not even an itty-bity bit?" "Sorry," I said. "Be a tough guy, then," he said. "See if I care." Earlier in the day I'd been picked up by a divorce attorney on a Kawasaki KZ650 and a soybean farmer in a '57 pickup. The former had taken me sixty miles, the latter a mere twenty-three, though the amount of time I'd spent with each seemed about the same. The divorce attorney had treated me to a hamburger, fries and Coke at a Dairy Queen buffered on three sides by a granite quarry, and as he told...

Technology Tips: Investigating the Mathematics of Center-Pivot Irrigation

Flying across the United States on a sunny day, airline passengers in window seats may have noticed the seemingly endless fields of bright green circles dotting the landscape in parts of the West and Midwest. These circular fields are the result of a technology called fixed-length, center-pivot irrigation, in which a wheeled scaffolding of pipe, sometimes up to a half mile in length, rotates around a fixed point that is connected to a water source. Plots of land are seldom, if ever, circular. Usually, they are square, rectangular, or irregularly shaped. However, because farming is a profession that often has a low margin of profit, farmers must use their valuable resources as efficiently as possible. Hence, the issue is how to maximize the packing of these circles within the existing geographic constraints of terrain features, roads, rivers, and land boundaries.

Focus on Seat Belt Use in China

Objective: To explain low seat belt use prevalence results of observation and interview surveys in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, and Zhoushan, Zhejiang Province, and to extend knowledge on associated seat belt use determinants. Method: Ten focus groups comprising professional, owner, and taxi drivers; passengers; van drivers (Nanjing); or police (Zhoushan) were conducted to capture a range of experiences, attitudes, and opinions. Results: There was common agreement in all focus groups on the need to use seat belts on highways in the front seat but not to use in the rear seat regardless of road type. Participants generally agreed with the apparent practice of fines for drivers and warnings for front seat passengers, especially on highways. Lack of seat belt comfort was elaborated on. Professional and taxi drivers were inconvenienced by the effort involved for short trips to put on seat belts and discomfort was greater for those who did not have or could not afford to operate air conditioning. There was lack of agreement on the need to use seat belts in the city areas. Crash video clips on the nonuse of seat belts were judged by participants as potentially effective for promotion of seat belt use, especially if scenarios were associated with relatively low speeds. Conclusions: The benefits of seat belt use for all seating positions and at low and medium speeds and awareness of passenger seat belt responsibility need to be promoted. Enforcement should be applied more consistently.

Driving from the Passenger Seat

Why is it that it takes the big events to capture our attention? Many times, similar events go on daily, just not on the grand scale, and we never pay attention to the impact they may have. The example I would cite is the recorded deadliest plane crash in history, the Tenerife Airport Disaster of 1977. Although the experts have come up with an exhaustive list of possible contributing factors, the one variable that stands out for me is the role of the copilot. What if the second in command understood the value of their position in the passenger seat and voiced their concern to the captain? Would the course of this event be altered? My story is not unique, but the message is.

Chromosome Segregation: Taking the Passenger Seat

The chromosomal passenger complex (CPC) is a major regulator of mitotic andmeiotic chromosome segregation. Three recent papers now elucidate the mechanisms that determine the localization of the CPC to the inner centromere.

군(軍) 건설장비 소음의 전달 및 감쇠특성에 관한 연구

In case of the construction equipment using by the military camp, such equipments are different from those equipments using at general construction site, of which muffler(silencer) is attached at the passenger seat side, since such equipments are obsoleted, it is great part that a considerably loud noises are continuously diffusing. When working, such noise can be influenced a lot of effects to those working soldiers nearby the equipment, and though it is really terrible loud noise as much as can arise a civil complaints by neighboring civilians, but because its specialty of the military, it is real state that there are many difficulties in establishing an effective soundproof countermeasure due to study shortage and lack of the relevant material regarding to military construction equipment. Accordingly, this study has ever grasped the characteristics of noise by its each frequencies and by distances about those 9 kinds of construction equipments using chiefly by the military camp. As the result, it was known that the military construction equipment is generating the loud noise which can influence bad effect to the workers, and such high sound pressure level of low frequency band can harm even to far distance.

Apartheid at the Edges

Apartheid at the Edges Derek Cohen (bio) July 1963. My mother is sitting at the wheel of her car at the main entrance to the fortresslike Pretoria Central Prison. She has just delivered four or five hot meals and various necessities to political prisoners who have been jailed under the Ninety-Day Detention Act (i.e., no charges have been laid; suspicion of subversive activity is enough to get you imprisoned). The glowering warder standing at the gate resembles a pile of rocks. It has been his responsibility to take the parcels from my mother and to see that they are delivered. To him political prisoners are all the same: they’re all communists: komunisse, he calls them in Afrikaans, a contemptuous hiss at the end of the word that shows his teeth and conveys his anger at those who wish to undermine apartheid and destroy white civilization. He resents having to serve my mother, in his mind also a kommunis, and then he has to carry her deliveries to the prisoners who are no better than filth anyway. So he doesn’t just dislike her; he despises her personally, viscerally. He makes no attempt to disguise his feelings. Without speaking, he narrows his eyes and waves a thick menacing forefinger at my mother, who does her best to ignore him. She is afraid of this man, but she takes it as a given that he will threaten her, and she will do her best to ignore him and take away his pleasure in being feared. She is afraid of the violence of his manner when he points his finger or mutters loudly, seeming to breathe physical menace. He is one of the large majority of white people who profoundly believe in apartheid and who would mow down its detractors without a second thought. These true believers are a legion of white men and women, mostly Afrikaners, who see opponents of apartheid as a satanic force—an enemy to their way of life and their future. And of course they are right. My mother is their enemy; she would like to see apartheid burnt to the ground. But there is no meeting of minds in these encounters of competing ideologies. Hatred and rage lie between the contending parties, and now apartheid is in the catbird seat. Suddenly a black man in a prison suit of loosely fitting khaki [End Page 542] shorts and striped red-and-khaki shirt comes tearing past the car. Seconds later, in the rear-view mirror, my mother sees a white policeman in hot pursuit. Instead of running past the car, the policeman leaps into the passenger seat and hollers at my mother to follow the prisoner: “Volg daardie kaffer!” (Follow that nigger!) he bellows at her. The key is in the ignition. My mother turns it, but not hard enough to start the car. As she intends, the car coughs and dies. She seems to try again, disguising her motive with determined facial expressions to the contrary. The car splutters again, and again refuses to start. By this time the prisoner is out of sight and the policeman is out of patience. He jumps from the car with a curse and continues his pursuit on foot. The warder meanwhile has hardly moved. His physique tells you that chasing speedy criminals on foot is not his line of work. He has shouted after the escapee, but he has not shifted from his position. The scene over, he turns back into the prison. The street is quiet. There is a yell from one of the prison cells above, and a woman’s arm emerges through a barred window and waves at my mother, who looks for the source of the voice. She finds it, waves back, and starts her car. As she is about to drive off, the burly warder reappears. Pointing threateningly at my mother, he speaks, warning her of serious consequences if she ever again communicates with the prisoners by word or wave. My mother drives off, only to return the next day with her parcels. The waving arm between the prison bars belongs to Ruth Slovo, imprisoned without specific charges in Pretoria Central during...

Parental Awareness and Perception for Correct Use of Child Occupant Restraints in Korea

Objective: To determine the rate of correct use of child occupant restraints (CORs) and to evaluate the parental awareness and perception associated with the use of CORs. Methods: A cross-sectional survey using self-report questionnaires was performed at 10 different hospitals. A total of 1573 parents and 2209 of their children 6 years of age or younger were studied. Results: The overall percentage of parents using CORs or adult seat belt was 57.7 percent. However, only 44.4 percent of those parents, which corresponds to 25.6 percent of all parents recruited, were correctly using the restraints for their children. The overall percentage of children using CORs or adult seat belt was 53 percent. However, the percentage of children correctly using the restraints was 14.3 percent for infants (<12 months of age), 42 percent for children one years old, 43.8 percent for children 2 years old, 28.7 percent for children 3 years old, 18.9 percent for children 4 years old, 13.9 percent for children 5 years old, and 10.5 percent for children 6 years old. The logistic regression analysis revealed that the mother's level of education, number of children in each household, child's age when parents started to use the CORs, and parental awareness about the fine for violation of car seat laws were the most influential variables associated with the correct use of CORs. The rates of correct use of CORs and parental preferences about CORs, respectively, differed by ages of their children. Most parents showed a negative perception of placing children in the front passenger seat. However, many parents were prematurely using adult seat belts for children without realizing the risk of injury. Conclusion: More aggressive educational campaigns and increased enforcement of the car seat laws are needed to improve the awareness of parents on the efficacy of CORs.

Solving a real-world train-unit assignment problem

We face a real-world train-unit assignment problem for an operator running trains in a regional area. Given a set of timetabled train trips, each with a required number of passenger seats, and a set of train units, each with a given number of available seats, the problem calls for an assignment of the train units to the trips, possibly combining more than one train unit for a given trip, that fulfills the seat requests. With respect to analogous case studies previously faced in the literature, ours is characterized by the fairly large number of distinct train-unit types available (in addition to the fairly large number of trips to be covered). As a result, although there is a wide margin of improvement over the solution used by the practitioners (as our results show), even only finding a solution of the same value is challenging in practice. We present a successful heuristic approach, based on an ILP formulation in which the seat requirement constraints are stated in a “strong” form, derived from the description of the convex hull of the variant of the knapsack polytope arising when the sum of the variables is restricted not to exceed two. Computational results on real-world instances are reported, showing the effectiveness of the proposed approach.