Stretch Of Road Research Articles

Integrated geophysical investigation of the causes of road pavement failure along Ibadan-Lagos dual-carriage, Southwestern, Nigeria

An integrated geophysical study has been conducted in a segment of Ibadan- Lagos Dual-carriage road to examine the geological factors responsible for highway failure. Schlumberger Vertical Electrical Sounding (VES) and Very Low Frequency Electromagnetic Method (VLF-EM) to evaluate the subsurface integrity, mapping out the subsurface structural features within the sub-grade soil and delineating the bedrock relief as a means of establishing the causes of road pavement failure of 1300 m stretch of road from Ibadan axis. Results from VLF-EM showed the presence of near surface linear geologic structures from the surface to a depth of 15 m which suggests probable conductive zones that have devastating effects to the foundation of the road pavement (g1, g2 and g3). VES results showed the presence of four geologic layers while fractured basement were observed with resistivity value generally less than 100 Ωm which indicates the presence of the water table. The unstable segment is characterized by low resistivity of the near surface materials and shallowness of the aquifer zone on which the road pavement was constructed. The failure of the road is caused mainly by geologic sequence and structures such as clayey subgrade soil under the road pavement and some suspected geological features such as faults and fractures. Keywords: Lithologic contacts, aquifferous zone, geoelectric section, linear contact, sub-grade soil

Comparative study of dynamic wireless charging of electric vehicles in motorway, highway and urban stretches

Electric vehicles are the most promising sustainable transport technology for solving problems linked to the internal combustion engine vehicles. Wireless charging reduce the main problems associated with electric vehicles, driving range, charging time and size and cost of the battery. Inductive power transfer is the most promising technology for dynamic wireless charging of electric vehicles, which can be used to supply the motors and charge the battery while moving. This paper presents a comparative study of a dynamic wireless power transfer system for charging electric vehicles driving on three stretches of traffic road (motorway, highway and urban stretch) in Cádiz (Spain). The study analyses the electricity consumption demanded by the dynamic wireless power transfer system and the battery state-of-charge of the electric vehicles that travel the stretch to evaluate the increase of autonomy, the length of the stretch or speed of the vehicle for achieving a specific increase of state-of-charge. The results show a great dependence on stretch of road, with large fluctuations in the urban stretch and more stability in the highway and motorway. This study could help to design stretches of roads with dynamic wireless power transfer and to quantify the power and energy demanded by the system.

Platoon Merging Distance Prediction using a Neural Network Vehicle Speed Model

Heavy-duty vehicle platooning has been an important research topic in recent years. By driving closely together, the vehicles save fuel by reducing total air drag and utilize the road more efciently Often the heavy-duty vehicles will catch-up in order to platoon while driving on the common stretch of road, and in this case, a good prediction of when the platoon merging will take place is required in order to make predictions on overall fuel savings and to automatically control the velocity prior to the merge. The vehicle speed prior to platoon merging is mostly infuenced by the road grade and by the local trafc condition. In this paper, we examine the infuence of road grade and propose a method for predicting platoon merge distance using vehicle speed prediction based on road grade. The proposed method is evaluated using experimental data from platoon merging test runs done on a highway with varying level of trafc. It is shown that under reasonable conditions, the error in the merge distance prediction is smaller than 8%.

How to define the accident risk level of car drivers by combining objective and subjective measures of driving style

Perceived risk can be defined as the expectation of being involved in a traffic accident. Traffic risk perception is often subjectively evaluated being risk perception as highly individual, and depending on experiences with accidents. For this reason, a subjective measure of risk level can be useful. On the other hand, accident risk level can be measured also through objective measures, consisting in kinematic parameters defining the driving style. At this aim, it is very important to analyse instantaneous and geo-referenced travelling kinematic parameters of the vehicle recorded by real tests on the road.The aim of this paper is to identify the accident risk level of each driver based on a methodology combining both subjective and objective parameters. Specifically, by using the proposed methodology the risk can be measured immediately by using only the kinematic parameters adopted when driving; we defined three levels of risk of being involved in a road accident (low, medium, and high risk). We retain that our research can give a contribution in terms of improvement of road safety, because the distorted perception of risk level is one of the main causes of road accidents. Very often, drivers are not aware of the risk taking; therefore, it is necessary to raise the awareness of drivers to have safer driving. The proposed method can be useful for informing the driver on the level of risk he/she assumes, so that he/she can take the necessary precautions next time that will cover that stretch of road.

Mechanistic-based comparisons for freeze-thaw performance of stabilized unpaved roads

Unpaved roads in seasonally frozen regions are frequently subjected to frost boils and other freeze-thaw related damage. In this study, a range of several promising stabilization technologies selected based on a comprehensive literature review were evaluated for their ability to improve the freeze-thaw performance of unpaved roads under the same set of geological, climate, and traffic conditions. A total of 17 test sections were constructed using nine geomaterials, three chemical stabilizers, and three types of geosynthetics over a 3.2km stretch of unpaved road. Visual inspections and extensive dynamic cone penetrometer (DCP) and falling weight deflectometer (FWD) tests were conducted over two seasonal freeze-thaw periods to compare the surface performance and mechanical properties of the various test sections. A weather station and subgrade temperature sensors were installed to monitor the depth and duration of soil freezing, and to determine the critical thaw-weakening periods during which to conduct field tests. The test results revealed that sections with macadam stone base (MSB) layers yielded the best freeze-thaw performance in terms of elastic modulus among all the stabilization methods examined. Multiple regression analyses of measurements taken after thawing showed that the aggregate layer modulus had a statistically greater influence on the overall composite modulus of the MSB sections, but the modulus of the underlying weaker subgrade layer had a greater influence in the sections without MSB layers. The field test results also demonstrated that the stiffness and strength of underlying subgrade layer in the MSB sections were improved due to the benefits offered by the MSB layers.

#boulietacks

Since early 2014 small carpet tacks have been persistently dropped on an undulating stretch of road in Melbourne, Australia—ostensibly targeting road cyclists. No one knows where they come from. And yet the recurring presence of these rough-hewn iron nails continue to cause serious injury, property damage and nuisance to those who use this space, all the while flummoxing law enforcement and road maintenance authorities. Our aim in this paper is to follow the interfaces between tack and tyre, finger and phone, image and social media platform, to produce a detailed account of how these mediations are materialised and mobilised politically. Here, we use mobile interfaces to think through the complexity of embodied and deeply material uses of urban space as we narrate the ways in which groups become politically organised through various media. In this dispatch, we trace the development and deployment of a hashtag—#boulietacks—as a means of following this particular Antipodean enigma through the social media and digital communications platforms. Spread on roads and between living people in the city, tacks shape different kinds of political action in response to the anonymous and asymmetrical introduction of hazards into an urban environment customarily adopted for use in road cycling—the lifeless tacks mobilise a lively politics between urban modes of existence.

Spatiotemporal Traffic State Prediction Based on Discriminatively Pre-trained Deep Neural Networks

The availability of traffic data and computational advances now make it possible to build data-driven models that capture the evolution of the state of traffic along modeled stretches of road. These models are used for short-time prediction so that transportation facilities can be operated in an efficient way that guarantees a high level of service. In this paper, we adopted a state-of-the-art machine learning deep neural network and the divide-and-conquer approach to model large road stretches. The proposed approach is expected to be a tool used in daily routines to enhance proactive decision support systems. The proposed approach maintains spatiotemporal correlations between contiguous road segments and is suitable for practical applications because it divides the large prediction problem into a set of smaller overlapping problems. These smaller problems can be solved in a reasonable time using a medium configuration PC. The proposed approach was used to model 21.1- and 30.7-mile stretches of highway along I-15 and I-66, respectively. The resulting predictions were better than predictions obtained using partial least squares regression.

Ireland’s Decade of Conflict 1913–23 (IV)

Studies • volume 106 • number 422 221 Ireland’s Decade of Conflict 1913–23 (IV) Sean Brophy Women and the independence movement The narrative of events in the movement to Irish independence is largely concerned with men: poets, soldiers and politicians. This is odd, given that the Fenian manifesto of 1867 and the Proclamation of the Irish Republic in 1916 espoused gender equality. Moreover, despite the fact that women over thirty only got the right to vote in 1918, many women participated in all phases of the movement. In its cultural phase, the so-called Irish Revival, we encounter the pioneering contribution of the writer and historian Emily Lawless. She wrote on the famines of 1846 and 1847 and the social conditions of rural Ireland in the run up to the first Home Rule Bill. It is arguable that her rhetoric and forensic attention to detail made more impact on William Gladstone than had Daniel O’Connell in his day on Robert Peel. She uses the idea of a Famine road to capture images of a county inspector in Galway picking up 150 bodies of families who had just lain down and died on a single stretch of road. Her prose is heartbreaking: Think of the separate hell gone through by each individual father and mother of all that starving multitude. And when all hope was over, that end that must have been so welcome, because there were none left to live for, think of the lying down to watch the vanishing away of this familiar green landscape in the last grey mists of death.1 Lady Gregory and Maud Gonne Lady Augusta Gregory was another major figure in the Irish Literary Revival who was determined to show her compatriots how they could find their own voice and shed their mask of what O’Connell might have described as cowering people, acting their part as quarrelsome, vulgar, rollicking buffoons to entertain their imperial masters. Her most notable contributions were her play Cathleen Ní Houlihan, first produced in collaboration with WB Yeats in 1902, and the foundation of the Abbey Theatre in 1905. Gregory blended ideas from the United Irishmen of 1798, the Fenians of Ireland’s Decade of Conflict 1913–23 (IV) 222 Studies • volume 106 • number 422 1867 and a non-materialist Celtic spirituality in her play, an allegory in which Ireland features as an old woman, who inspires heroic male figures. The first production, with Maud Gonne as the old woman, was a great success. Gonne herself had founded Inighinidhe na hÉireann (Daughters of Ireland) in 1900 to raise the consciousness and cultural ideals of young women towards complete independence of Ireland. As early as 1902 we see that the seeds of revolution were being sown by her and Lady Gregory. Cathleen Ní Houlihan represents the Irish nation. The character Michael questions her about what hope she has to hold on to and she replies, ‘The hope of getting my beautiful fields back again: the hope of putting the strangers out of my house’. How will she do that? Michael, who epitomises the young men who will eventually fight in the failed Rising of 1916 and what followed, asked. The Old Woman speaks of ‘the good friends who will help me’. Now she must go to meet them. ‘I will go with you’, Michael says.2 Kathleen Lynn Almost 100 women served alongside the men during the Easter Rising, in medical, catering and military roles. Some went on to participate in the political phase that followed. Kathleen Lynn, for example, was active in the women’s suffrage movement and the 1913 labour troubles. She was chief medical officer to the Irish CitizenArmy at the time of the Rising and secondin -command to Sean Connolly of the garrison in City Hall. She took over command after he was shot and led her volunteers until they were ordered to surrender. After the Rising she was jailed in England and, on her return home, became vice-president of the executive of Sinn Féin and was elected a Sinn Féin TD in 1923 but did not take her seat because of her opposition to the Treaty. Aside from politics, she...

Mechanistic-based comparisons of stabilised base and granular surface layers of low-volume roads

ABSTRACTGranular surface and base layers of low-volume roads (LVRs) are frequently subjected to severe damage that adversely affects safety and requires regular repair and maintenance. Various stabilisation methods have been evaluated for mitigating damage and improving serviceability of LVR systems. However, few well-documented comparisons exist of the field mechanical performance, durability and construction costs of different stabilisation methods under the same set of geological, climate, and traffic conditions. Therefore, the present study was conducted to identify the most effective and economical among several stabilisation methods for repairing or reconstructing granular surface and base layers of LVRs. In this study, a range of promising technologies from a comprehensive literature review was selected and examined using field demonstration sections. A total of nine geomaterials, three chemical stabilisers, and three types of geosynthetics were used to construct various test sections over a 3.22 km stretch of granular-surfaced road. Extensive falling weight deflectometer (FWD) and dynamic cone penetrometer tests were performed to evaluate the multilayered elastic moduli and strengths of the various sections. This paper details the design and construction of each test section, compares the as-constructed mechanistic performance of all test sections, and assesses stiffness changes of several sections one year after construction. To provide a statistical basis for the comparisons, a pairwise multiple-comparison procedure applied for unequal sample sizes and variances and the paired t-test were used to analyse the FWD test results, demonstrating that the performance measures of the various sections were significantly different.

Mercury and other trace metals in the seasonal snowpack across the subarctic taiga-tundra ecotone, Northwest Territories, Canada

In Canada's Northwest Territories, mining for base metals and diamonds are vital economic activities which carry risks of adverse environmental impacts. To gather baseline geochemical data against which the impact of future mining activities may be measured, a survey of trace metal concentrations in snow was carried out in 2012 along a 285-km stretch of winter mining road crossing the taiga-tundra ecotone between latitudes 62.8 and 65.5° N. The distribution of 17 elements, including mercury (Hg), was measured and mapped. Results indicate that road traffic along the winter road has only a modest impact on the metal content of the nearby tundra-taiga snowpack, and that this impact is largely due to the mobilization of soil dust and associated elements. However, some enrichment of As, Pb, Sr and Zn in snow was detected near former gold mine sites, likely reflecting the windborne dispersion of contaminated soils. The Hg concentrations in snow across the study area were generally low (≤3.01 ng L−1), and did not covary with any other metals, which suggests atmospheric deposition from distant/diffuse sources. An analysis of air back-trajectories pointed to the most likely distant (>103 km) anthropogenic source regions being eastern Asia or Russia. Using Hg data from the present survey and another source, in combination with gridded maps of snowpack water equivalent, we calculated the potential flux of atmospherically-derived Hg that could be released by spring snowmelt into the Mackenzie River to be in the order of ∼195–404 kg a−1, which may represent a substantial fraction of the estimated total Hg discharge to the Beaufort Sea.

Safety audit for weaving maneuver: A driver simulation safety analysis

ABSTRACTWeaving lanes are designed to ensure the crossing of two or more traffic streams traveling in the same direction along stretch of road without the aid of traffic control devices. Weaving lanes assume a key role in roundabouts characterized by wide inscribed circle diameter, where the weaving maneuver represents a crucial aspect for safety. This is confirmed by several findings that demonstrate as the weaving maneuver is one of the most difficult operation to analyze in terms of road safety. Many studies report that the combination between the length of weaving lanes and the traffic volume is a key factor to explain high accident rate along interchange zones. Bearing in mind this facet, this article proposes an analysis of driver behavior on different weaving lanes in various traffic conditions performed on an interactive driving simulator. Different lengths of weaving lane combined with different traffic flow conditions were simulated, and the different drivers' performance have been analyzed. A risk assessment has been conducted by analyzing driver's behavior as a function of driver's risk perception. It has been observed that the increase of weaving lane length is effective only when the traffic flow conditions exceed a certain threshold.

Real-Time (Vision-Based) Road Sign Recognition Using an Artificial Neural Network.

Road sign recognition is a driver support function that can be used to notify and warn the driver by showing the restrictions that may be effective on the current stretch of road. Examples for such regulations are ‘traffic light ahead’ or ‘pedestrian crossing’ indications. The present investigation targets the recognition of Malaysian road and traffic signs in real-time. Real-time video is taken by a digital camera from a moving vehicle and real world road signs are then extracted using vision-only information. The system is based on two stages, one performs the detection and another one is for recognition. In the first stage, a hybrid color segmentation algorithm has been developed and tested. In the second stage, an introduced robust custom feature extraction method is used for the first time in a road sign recognition approach. Finally, a multilayer artificial neural network (ANN) has been created to recognize and interpret various road signs. It is robust because it has been tested on both standard and non-standard road signs with significant recognition accuracy. This proposed system achieved an average of 99.90% accuracy with 99.90% of sensitivity, 99.90% of specificity, 99.90% of f-measure, and 0.001 of false positive rate (FPR) with 0.3 s computational time. This low FPR can increase the system stability and dependability in real-time applications.

SigVox – A 3D feature matching algorithm for automatic street object recognition in mobile laser scanning point clouds

Urban road environments contain a variety of objects including different types of lamp poles and traffic signs. Its monitoring is traditionally conducted by visual inspection, which is time consuming and expensive. Mobile laser scanning (MLS) systems sample the road environment efficiently by acquiring large and accurate point clouds. This work proposes a methodology for urban road object recognition from MLS point clouds. The proposed method uses, for the first time, shape descriptors of complete objects to match repetitive objects in large point clouds. To do so, a novel 3D multi-scale shape descriptor is introduced, that is embedded in a workflow that efficiently and automatically identifies different types of lamp poles and traffic signs. The workflow starts by tiling the raw point clouds along the scanning trajectory and by identifying non-ground points. After voxelization of the non-ground points, connected voxels are clustered to form candidate objects. For automatic recognition of lamp poles and street signs, a 3D significant eigenvector based shape descriptor using voxels (SigVox) is introduced. The 3D SigVox descriptor is constructed by first subdividing the points with an octree into several levels. Next, significant eigenvectors of the points in each voxel are determined by principal component analysis (PCA) and mapped onto the appropriate triangle of a sphere approximating icosahedron. This step is repeated for different scales. By determining the similarity of 3D SigVox descriptors between candidate point clusters and training objects, street furniture is automatically identified. The feasibility and quality of the proposed method is verified on two point clouds obtained in opposite direction of a stretch of road of 4km. 6 types of lamp pole and 4 types of road sign were selected as objects of interest. Ground truth validation showed that the overall accuracy of the ∼170 automatically recognized objects is approximately 95%. The results demonstrate that the proposed method is able to recognize street furniture in a practical scenario. Remaining difficult cases are touching objects, like a lamp pole close to a tree.

GIS-based predictive models for regional-scale landslide susceptibility assessment and risk mapping along road corridors

ABSTRACTIn this paper, a study aimed to assess the landslide susceptibility at a regional scale for the wide provincial territory of Matera (Basilicata region, southern Italy) and the relative risk along the main road corridors distributed in this area is presented. A heuristic-bivariate statistical predictive model was performed to assess and map the landslide susceptibility in the study area by using a polynomial function of eight predisposing factors, weighted according to their influence on the instability process. The resulting susceptibility map was successively used for assessing the landslide risk along the provincial road network. The importance of these roads, representing the main network connecting the urban centres, derives from the absence of an efficient integrated transportation system through the entire regional territory. The landslide risk was evaluated through a matricial approach, which has allowed to define the risk levels (low, medium and high) along road stretches by overlapping the consequences and hazard maps, by combining their corresponding classes in a matrix and by associating to each combination a risk level. The resulting landslide risk map provides support information for decision-making and for identifying the priorities for the design of appropriate mitigation plans.

Identification of rules induced through decision tree algorithm for detection of traffic accidents with victims: A study case from Brazil

As traffic demand continues to increase and in the face of limited possibilities to expand the road infrastructure, various attempts are being made to make road traffic safer. In order to decrease the number of traffic accidents, it is required knowledge of its causes, so that actions are taken to avoid them. This is possible through collection and management of the available information on traffic accidents. Thus, policies are needed to identify and manage all available information relating to traffic accidents. This study aims to identify rules induced by Decision Tree algorithms (DT) for detecting traffic accidents with victims in a road stretch from accidents records, as well as probable causes of the occurrence and type of accident. Data are from a road stretch of the Régis Bittencourt (highway BR-116) between km 509 to km 519 in the period 2012–2014, located in São Paulo, Brazil. Through the main results obtained, it can be concluded that the CART algorithm of the Decision Tree is a useful tool in identifying potential sites of accidents with victims. In this case, the two most important variables to identify the severity of accidents were the accident type and the accident cause.

Stations of the Cross

Stations of the Cross1 Roger D. Hodge (bio) I was wandering through downtown El Paso, not far from the old neighborhood of Chihuahuita, when I saw the white van. It was parked in the shade, under a tree, and spray painted across the side was the word yahweh. I parked and walked over. Two people were sitting inside, a black man and a white woman. Their son was asleep in the back. I asked about the words on their van. They told me to read the other side, so I walked around that way. yahweh said: give me your hands!! exo chap 20. The handles of the van's doors formed exclamation points. They were travelers, coming from California and heading back toward Ohio. We talked about God for a little while, and I had a hard time following what the man was saying. I asked them what they thought about the whole border situation. The man looked at me and said he didn't want to go all Nazi or anything, but it wasn't anything a few machine guns couldn't take care of. He wasn't talking about the drug smugglers. [End Page 371] And God said, Make an altar of earth for me and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, your sheep and goats and your cattle. Wherever I cause my name to be honored, I will come to you and bless you. If you make an altar of stones for me, do not build it with dressed stones, for you will defile it if you use a tool on it. And do not go up to my altar on steps, or your private parts may be exposed. Later that day I met Rudy Garcia for the first time. He gave me a tour of his mountain shrine, a very high altar indeed. I came back a few months later, on the last Saturday in October 2011, the day before the annual pilgrimage of Mt. Cristo Rey, a mountain straddling the Mexican border just west of El Paso, crowned with a forty-two-foot-high statue of Jesus standing before his cross. Up to thirty thousand pilgrims were expected on Sunday, and preparations were under way. Garcia, a longtime member of the Mt. Cristo Rey Restoration Committee, had invited me to spend the night on the summit with him to guard against the depredations of what he called "the Satanics from Juárez." No barrier other than the mountain itself would protect us from the most dangerous city on earth. I arrived shortly before ten a.m. after driving west through El Paso alongside the Rio Grande on Paisano Drive, a stretch of road that only a decade before had been subject to cross-border bandit attacks, past a weedy, dilapidated park commemorating the spot where in 1598 Don Juan de Oñate forded the river with his colonists and his army and his priests to give El Paso its name, past the remaining buildings of Old Fort Bliss, now converted into seedy apartment buildings. An enormous smokestack displaying the word "asarco" dominated the view, not quite rivaled by the novelty of the fifteen-foot-high Homeland Security border fence looming over the roadway. Eventually, after crossing the Rio Grande into the state [End Page 372] of New Mexico, I turned off the macadam onto a gravel road that led through the bleak and blasted landscape of a defunct silica mine where paleontologists study lithified dinosaur remains. The winding road led me across the tracks of the Union Pacific Railroad and up to the base of my destination, the jagged Cristo Rey pluton, an igneous intrusion exposed by eons of erosion, jutting upward from its ancient cradle in the sediment of shallow seas. I left my rental car along the edge of an empty parking area and walked up toward a rock, cement, and galvanized-steel shelter surrounded by human figures. It was already getting hot. Jeeps and pickups drove this way and that. Fine powdery dust billowed and hung in the air. Several ranks of blue portable toilets stood off to the side, and the doors of storage sheds and containers...

The Research of Driver Distraction by Visual Smog on Selected Road Stretch in Slovakia

Driver distraction is one of the most common cause of traffic accidents in all countries. The previous research has shown that digital billboards can take the driver attention for more than one second. Therefore, the aim of the article is to research how can visual smog influence the driver behaviour. The road stretch in Žilina has been chosen for measuring the driver distraction by visual smog next to the road. The analysis of visual smog and traffic accidents on the selected road is included in article. Eye tracking glasses has been used to scan the gaze of driver eye. Part of the experiment was EEG device, used to record brainwave data during the testing of impact of visual smog to driver. The results regarding of driver gaze at visual smog are awful considering that the average dwell time of one billboard was more than a half second. On the other side, the average dwell time of traffic sign was only 0,2 second. In generally we can state that visual smog can influence the driver behaviour which can lead to traffic accident. For all that it is necessary to reduce the increased number of visual smog next to the road which can lead to fewer traffic accidents.

Mitigation reduces road mortality of a threatened rattlesnake

Context Reducing road mortality is essential to reptile conservation in regions with dense road networks. The Georgian Bay, Ontario population of the eastern massasauga rattlesnake (Sistrurus catenatus) is designated as Threatened, in part because of high road mortality. In Killbear Provincial Park, four ecopassages and barrier fencing were constructed along three busy park roads to reduce road mortality of massasaugas. Aim Although mitigation of road mortality has been widely recommended and in some instances implemented for reptiles, effectiveness of mitigation efforts is often inadequately evaluated. The goals of our study were to use long-term data to quantify the effectiveness of ecopassages and barrier fencing in reducing massasauga fatalities on roads, and to evaluate the potential of these structures to serve as movement corridors for individual snakes. Methods We used five approaches to assess the overall efficacy of mitigation efforts: (1) comparison of pre- and post-mitigation road mortality; (2) camera traps in ecopassages to document massasauga and predator presence; (3) automated tag readers in ecopassage entrances to detect PIT-tagged individuals; (4) an experiment to assess massasauga willingness to enter and travel through ecopassages; and (5) measurement of temperature fluctuations in ecopassages to assess thermal suitability for massasaugas. Key results We found a significant decrease in road mortality of massasaugas on stretches of park roads associated with ecopassages and barrier fencing post construction. Automated tag readers and cameras detected the presence of massasaugas and other animals within the ecopassages, and experimental data showed that massasaugas willingly entered, and in some cases crossed through, ecopassages. Conclusion Our evaluation of mitigation structures determined that they successfully reduce road mortality and provide potential movement corridors between bisected habitats, provided that intense maintenance of the fencing is conducted yearly. We also demonstrated the need to utilise a combination of multiple post-monitoring methods to effectively evaluate mitigation structures. Implications This study provides a template for construction of similar mitigation in other key locations where reptile road mortality occurs.

METAL BOWLS FROM A MEDIEVAL CEMETERY AT RUSENIKHA

Unusual bowls, one intact and three fragmented, from a medieval Mari cemetery at Rusenikha, in the Nizhny Novgorod Region, are described. Based on coins, the cemetery dates to the 11th century. Results of the chemical analysis of the metal are presented. The bowls are made of “white bronze” and are decorated with a geometric pattern on the inside. Similar items are rather frequent in medieval (9th–11th century) Mari cemeteries (Veselovo, Dubovsky, Nizhnyaya Strelka), and isolated finds are known on the Oka and Middle Volga. Numerous parallels relate to Western Siberia, most notably to the Ob Basin, among works of the 10th–11th century toreutic art of Eastern Iran and Southwestern Central Asia. Certain features of the Rusenikha bowls offer a deeper view of the technology, decoration, and features of individual artistic style. It has also become possible to specify the date of those vessels and places of their manufacture. The routes whereby they were imported to the Middle Volga might have varied, but the principal one, passing across Volga Bulgaria, had been taken by Ibn Fadlan in the early 10th century. This stretch of the Great Silk Road connecting East and West was especially important from the 9th to the mid-11th century, when the Kipchak-Cuman tribes established hegemony in the Eastern European steppes.

A Novel Approach for Identification and Ranking of Road Traffic Accident Hotspots

Road Traffic Accidents (RTA) are known to be one of the main causes of fatalities worldwide. One usef ul approach to improve road safety is through the identification of RT A hotspots along a road, so they can be prioritised and treated. This paper introduces an approach based on Geographical Information System (GI S) to identify and prioritise RTA hotspots along a road network using historical RTA data. One particular urban road in Brunei with a historically high rate of RT As, Jalan Gadong, was selected as a case study. Five years of historical RTA data were acquired from the relevant authorities and input into a GIS database. GI S analysis was then used to identify the spatial extension of the RT A hotspots. The RT A hotspots were ranked according to three different schemes: frequency, severity and socio-economic impact of RTAs. A composite ranking scheme was also developed to combine these schemes; this enabled the prioritisation and development of intervention and maintenance programmes of the identified RTA hotspots. A visualisation method of the RTA spatial distribution within each identified RTA hotspot was also developed to determine the most risky road stretches within each hotspot, which is important for treatment prioritisation when limited resources are available.