Road Trail Research Articles

Gasoline powertrain solutions with ultra low tailpipe emissions

The introduction of Euro 6d legislation brought into law the regulation of particulate number and nitrous-oxide emissions under road-driving conditions. In line with these regulations, driving conditions involving highly dynamic, low ambient temperatures, and high vehicle loads are to be given particular attention. This leads to new challenges to the gasoline engine, the mixture preparation, and the exhaust-gas treatment. In the past, refinements made to the fuel-injection system have already resulted in significant progress being made in the reduction of particulate emissions. Supplemented by a latest-generation particulate filter, particulate emissions are now being continuously decreased. Gaseous emissions are reduced by combining innovative measures inside the engine itself with effective exhaust-gas treatment. The target of this investigation is the evaluation of innovative emission reduction measures in a demonstrator vehicle with a gasoline powertrain. For lower engine out emissions a fast heated air-fuel-ratio-sensor, new injection system with higher pressure, enhanced injection strategy with up to 7 injections per stroke, optimized calibration has been implemented. A gasoline particle filter, higher precious metal load of the three-way-catalyst, a second three-way-catalyst in underbody position and a burner for fast heat up of the exhaust system, leads to higher efficiency of the exhaust aftertreatment system. Among the development, particular emphasis is placed on minimizing the share of emissions during cold starts and the engine's warming-up phase. Emissions produced during the phase when engine and exhaust system are cold, are crucial to the total emissions during a trip. Innovative approaches, such as an expanded hybrid operating strategy and catalyst heating systems, are also assessed. The full integration of all emissions measures and precise adaptation in the interaction among these will open up further potential for reduction. The equipped with the measures pointed above can achieve values for particulate number and gaseous emissions amounting around 20% of the figures demanded by law. This low level of emissions achieved was confirmed and validated through challenging test cycles on a dynamometer at low temperatures and additionally in comprehensive road trails. The influence of such vehicles on air quality becomes negligible. True to its motto of “technology invented for life”, BOSCH is endeavoring to spur these developments on.

Crowdsourcing from the True crowd: Device, vehicle, road-surface and driving independent road profiling from smartphone sensors

Existing smartphone-based systems for detection of road surface events such as speed-breakers, potholes, broken road patches, etc. have been developed primarily for the use in four-wheeler vehicles such as cars with perfect driving maneuvers over a road with occasional irregularities. However, our experiments on a 673 km road trail in a suburban city of India, where an overall road condition is poor, show that such event detection accuracy drops to less than 80% for speed-breakers and less than 70% for potholes, when the crowdsourcing data is collected from different vehicles such as two-wheeler (bike or scooty), three-wheeler (auto-rickshaw) or four-wheeler (car) or with different smartphones kept at different positions (in-pocket, in-dashboard, vehicle-mounted).The aim of this work is to develop a system that detects three road events — speed-breakers, potholes and broken road patches, with improved accuracy even under varying conditions and rough roads. The proposed RoadSurP system works in two phases. The first phase runs in a smartphone and identifies the candidate signatures for road anomalies using robust auto-orientation and auto-tune thresholding algorithms to make it almost invariant of position, placement, vehicle, and smartphone type. The second phase works in a server and uses a decision tree based classifier to reduce the false-negative and false-positive instances caused due to the impact of different driving maneuvers, vehicle suspensions, etc. Finally, we apply a k-medoids clustering to geo-localize detected events from multiple trails over a map service. RoadSurP is implemented as an Android application, and tested over a 26 km road using five two-wheeler, seven three-wheeler and three four-wheeler vehicles with six different smartphone types under varying placement and position of the smartphones. After being thoroughly trained, the mean accuracy of RoadSurP is found to be 98% for speed-breakers and 92% for potholes over a smooth road (a road with occasional irregularities) and 92% for speed-breakers and 90% for potholes over the rough road. The developed application can be used as an effective crowdsourcing system for road quality monitoring.

The feasibility study of bridge construction plan in Digoel River Province of Papua

The planning of the bridge construction in Digoel river that connects the western part with the eastern part of Boven Digoel in Papua Province is part of the development program as stipulated in PP No 78 Tahun 2014 about” Acceleration of development in underdeveloped regions”. The land, river, and air transport systems that connect between regions in Boven Digoel are very difficult to be reached, also to extreme weather and climate conditions make the transportation cost expensive. One of the efforts to overcome these problems is to build road and bridge infrastructure. To support the implementation of infrastructure development in the district of Boven Digoel, a feasibility study of road and bridge planning is required. It refers to the guidelines Pd T-19-2005-B (Studi Kelayakan Proyek Jalan dan Jembatan). A feasibility study was undertaken to analyze in more detail some of the proposed road trace alternatives. Based on the feasibility study results, two alternatives of road trails connecting the western and eastern part of Boven Digoel of Papua Province are chosen. The bridge plans were made across the Digoel river. Bridge construction on alternative road trails connecting Kampung Ampera with Tanah Merah is considered to be more effective and efficient because it is safer from river scouring hazard. The bridge length is made longer than the width of the Digoel river, considering the rapid changes of the channel size. From the results of field measurement analysis, the average speed of the movement of the horizontal river flow direction is (80-180) x10(-4) meters/day so that in the 50-year period, the movement speed of the horizontal river flow path becomes (160 - 3200) meters. Based on Kun Qarshov method, the movement of the river flow for 50 years at the location of the bridge connecting Tanah Merah through Ampera Village is 311.64 meters so that the optimum bridge length at the location is designed 600 meters.

Risk management among mountain bikers in selected clubs in Malaysia

Mountain biking is the best pedal sport on road and off road trails. The element of adventure in this sport make many people like to join this challenging sports. This study examined the risk among mountain bikers in selected clubs in Malaysia. The main objective of this study is to reveal injuries among mountain bikers during their cycling session. All data in this study will be shown descriptively. Survey forms were distributed via active cycling clubs in Perak states. The respondents need to testify their previous injuries during their previous activities. The data shows the age of the mountain bikers, their experiences and abilities. From a total of 225, only 192 repondents experienced and had an injury during the activities. The result showed only 43.2% seeked medical attention and went to the hospital or clinic after experiencing an injury. Mountain biking activities require the cyclist to be physically and mentally fit and the equipment, which is the bike itself. Best practice and proper skill trainingshelp them to avoid accident during the activities. The new discipline called ‘down hill’ is getting more popular and can be one of the future studies because this new discipline is more risky.

WHEEL SLIP DURING WOOD EXTRACTION

UDK: 630*31:630*36
 In the paper is conducted comparison of the wheel slip of the two different skidders in the equal conditions of extraction (equal loads and slopes of the tractor road and skid trail). The first skidder in the research is ECOTRAC 120 V of the Croatian manufacturer Hittner d.o.o. with the mechanical transmission and the other skidder is of the Slovenian manufacture WOODY 110 with the hydrostatic transmission. 
 Wheel slip of the skidder during the research is determined on the basis of the number of wheel rotations. Distance travelled is calculated from the multiplied number of rotations of the fifth wheel and its circumference.
 During the extraction downhill, the wheel slip is negative. Generally, it could be said that, in the same conditions during the extraction uphill, wheel slip is increased with the increase of load weight and during the extraction downhill are less negative values of slip with the increase of the load weight. 
 By comparing the wheel slip at the researched skidders are established the advantages of the hydrostatic mechanic transmission during the wood extraction uphill. But, during the extraction downhill, with the mechanic transmission are achieved less wheel slips.

Road vanishing point detection using weber adaptive local filter and salient‐block‐wise weighted soft voting

In this study, a novel and efficient technique is proposed for road vanishing point detection in challenging scenes. Currently, most existing texture‐based methods detect the vanishing point using pixel wise texture orientation estimation and voting map generation, which suffers from high computational complexity. Since only road trails (e.g. road edges, ruts, and tire tracks) would contribute informative votes to vanishing point detection, the Weber adaptive local filter is proposed to distinguish road trails from background noise, which is envisioned to reduce the workload and to eliminate uninformative votes introduced by the background noise. Furthermore, instead of using the conventional pixel‐wise voting scheme, the salient‐block‐wise weighted soft voting is developed to eliminate most of the noise votes introduced by incorrectly estimated pixel‐wise texture orientations, and to further reduce the computation time of voting stage as well. The experimental results on the benchmark dataset demonstrate that the proposed method shows superior performance. The authors’ method is about ten times faster in detection speed and outperforms by 3.6% in detection accuracy, when compared with a well‐known state‐of‐the‐art approach.

Indian Forts and Religious Icons: The Buffalo Road (Qoq’aalx ‘Iskit) Trail Before and After the Lewis and Clark Expedition

The Buffalo Road Trail was used for centuries by Columbia Plateau Indians to access buffalo hunting grounds east of the Continental Divide. Peeled trees, rock cairns, and unique stone features represent archaeological signatures of the trail’s antiquity and demonstrate its extensive use. Ancient trails linked pre-contact camps and settlements and allowed for the diffusion of a variety of cultural items. From a landscape perspective, trails provide information relative to pre-contact travel, subsistence, trade, and warfare. Although significant to the indigenous people in the region, this and other trails were also used by European and American groups colonizing the American West over the past several centuries. Captain Meriwether Lewis, Jesuit missionary, Nicolas Point, and General John Gibbon were among those who traveled this well worn Indian road. Archaeological studies, oral histories and ethnographic and historical information underscore the importance of the trail to pre-contact, protohistoric, and historic people.

King Jeong-Jo’ Hyun-Ryung-Won visiting-road and that’ character

King Jeong-Jo visited once per every years after developed land for Hyun-Ryung-Won(顯隆園). He makes use of four routes. That are dduksom-Ro(纛島路), Gwachon-Ro(果川路), Siheung-Ro(始興路). And 1797’ road trail Gimpo Zang-Reung(章陵), Bupyeong, Ansan etc. 1799’ road trail Tai-jong(太宗) Hun-Reung(獻陵). It is message ‘Chusung(追崇)’ and ‘abdication of the throne(禪位)’.BR He’s visiting-road played a new attempt to the various side. He started daybreak. According to King’s road was made clear by many torchlights. And then People self recognized majesty of a Royal family, also a King’s diligent image. In the vicinity of Jeong-Jo’s routes, irrigation facilities was made. Many people settled roadside of the Jeong-Jo’s routes. And Jeong-Jo installed many bridges on the visiting road. So time of going from Seoul to Suwon was shorter than before.

Virginia Tech Forest Road and Bladed Skid Trail Cost Estimation Method

Virginia Tech Forest Road and Bladed Skid Trail Cost Estimation Method

Driver visual allocation and the introduction of intelligent transport systems

The introduction of intelligent transport systems may affect the driver's ability safely to control the vehicle by distracting him/her from the roadway. These systems must therefore be evaluated to ascertain whether they impose an unreasonable demand on the driver. This paper discusses issues surrounding the use of visual allocation measures for the evaluation of driver information systems in a road trail setting. It explores their value in differentiating between different levels of imposed visual demand. An investigation was made of the visual demand and subjective mental workload resulting from the use of a congestion warning device, an in-car entertainment system and driving without these (the control). The results of the study suggest that the congestion warning device imposed significantly greater visual demand and subjective mental workload than either the in-car entertainment system or the control condition. Difficulties in comparing empirical data with other reported work are highlighted.

HIGH RISK OUTDOOR ATHLETIC ACTIVITIES MOUNTAIN BIKING, ROCK CLIMBING, BACK COUNTRY SKIING, AND KAYAKING 1365

An increasing number of people are participating in high risk outdoor athletic activities. Mountain bikes can be found in any bike shop, and off road trails, races and tours are common. Rock climbing has moved from a somewhat obscure activity with few participants, to the fitness arena where thousands of people can practice climbing a wall in a health club or outdoor equipment store before attempting the real thing. Likewise, back country skiing has become the latest challenge to many nordic enthusiasts. Kayaking is an increasingly popular and exciting way to explore the waterways. All these activities create new challenges and hazards for the outdoor athlete. They require specialized skills and equipment. These activities also place the participant at risk for unique injuries. Most of these adrenaline-addicted athletes are well aware of the risks they take, yet continue to participate. It takes a certain type of person to climb a 1000 foot cliff, bike at high speed down a mountain, tackle raging rapids or hike up the side of a glacier in order to ski down. As these activities become more popular, it is essential that physicians, trainers and therapists have an understanding of the basics of these sports, the skills they demand, the injuries these athletes face, and the reasons why these often daring individuals chose to participate in high risk sports.

The Topia Road: A Trans-Sierran Trail of Colonial Mexico

FIG. i-Colonial roads in western Mexico. Key: I, West Coast-Interior Plateau connections; 2, West Coast Road (from C. 0. Sauer: Road to Cibola, Ibero-Americana, 3, Berkeley, I932); 3, Western Interior Plateau Road; 4, connections northward from Guadalajara. The Sierra Madre Occidental presents one of the most formidable obstacles to land transportation in Mexico. Throughout its length of 750 miles, from a point near the United StatesMexico boundary in the north to the Santiago River in the south, no railroad, auto road, or cart trail has ever traversed this barrier. Since colonial days only a few pack trails across the Sierra have served as direct lines of land contact between the Pacific coastal areas and the interior plateau of northern Mexico. The Sierra Madre is a plateau, I00 to I50 miles wide, with a steep western escarpment. It represents the higher western edge of the great Mexican plateau. Outflows of Tertiary extrusives, accompanied by uplift, have raised the Sierra to a general altitude of 8ooo feet above the sea, and some I500 to 2000 feet above the adjacent parts of the interior plateau; only isolated sections reach altitudes above I0,000 feet. The eastern part is characterized by a slightly rolling surface dotted with mountain meadows occupying the shallow north-northwest-south-southeast structural depressions. This part presents few difficulties to land transportation. To the west, however, the headward erosion of the streams flowing to the Pacific has cut deep box canyons into some parts of the plateau surface. These precipitous canyons, 8oo to I000 feet deep, are more numerous near the western edge of the highlands and impose serious handicaps on even mule transport. However, the most formidable barrier is the steep western escarpment, known as the barrancas. Scores of large westward-flowing streams have frayed this escarpment with enormous canyons, or barrancas, 2000 to 3000 feet deep, producing some of the most rugged terrain in Mexico. Pack trails must follow either the 406