Road Research Articles

Urban Transport Policies and Net Zero Emissions in the European Union

This review discusses the role of road transport policies in achieving the European Union's ambitious zero-emission target for the transportation sector by 2050 and provides an overview of the empirical literature that studies the effectiveness of urban transport policies. The analysis is divided into two parts. First, we study policies that are relevant in the transitional phase from internal combustion engine vehicles to battery electric vehicles (BEVs), then we discuss policies that will remain relevant as we switch entirely to BEVs. In the best-case scenario, the transition can be driven by fuel taxes, but in case fuel taxes are not feasible or acceptable, a combination of penalties for buying polluting vehicles and subsidies for scrappage of such vehicles might be the best compromise. In the long run, road space will be increasingly at a premium, and to ensure its efficient use, increasingly sophisticated road-pricing policies will be needed.

Performance of industrial fly ash based stabilized mine haul roads under seasonal moisture changes

Mine haul roads play an important role in the mining industry. They are often designed as unsealed roads, which are frequently damaged due to seasonal moisture variation, especially when the subgrade soil is expansive clay. In this study, the performance of mine haul roads built on expansive clay soil is investigated for seasonal moisture variation using experimental and numerical investigations. Shrinkage, swelling, soil water characteristics curve (SWCC) tests, and direct shear testing were first performed to assess the hydraulic and shear performance of the control and municipal solid waste incineration (MSWI) fly ash-treated soils. The swelling reduced from 1.95 to 1.02, while the shrinkage reduced from 3.4% to 1.84% after the addition of 20% MSWI fly ash. SWCC results showed that the MSWI fly ash addition reduces the void spaces and increases residual saturation. The consolidation settlement reduced by 50% after adding 20% MSWI fly ash. The cohesion of both soil and MSWI fly ash-treated samples exhibited a bell-shaped trend with moisture increase, in contrast to friction angles which decreased with increasing saturation levels. 3D numerical models were used to predict the performance of control soil and MSWI stabilized mining haul roads using the experimental test data. The control pavement experienced increased settlement and rutting as saturation levels increased. The behaviour of the stabilized pavement differed, with the model having a 20% degree of saturation showing the least deformation due to increased stiffness from high suction. Overall, this study highlights the benefits of MSWI fly ash-based soil stabilization in improving the performance of mine haul roads under seasonal moisture changes. The findings emphasize the importance of considering the degree of saturation and stabilization techniques in pavement design to mitigate settlement and enhance overall performance.

Beyond Conventional Monitoring: A Semantic Segmentation Approach to Quantifying Traffic-Induced Dust on Unsealed Roads.

Road dust is a mixture of fine and coarse particles released into the air due to an external force, such as tire-ground friction or wind, which is harmful to human health when inhaled. Continuous dust emission from the road surfaces is detrimental to the road itself and the road users. Due to this, multiple dust monitoring and control techniques are currently adopted in the world. The current dust monitoring methods require expensive equipment and expertise. This study introduces a novel pragmatic and robust approach to quantifying traffic-induced road dust using a deep learning method called semantic segmentation. Based on the authors' previous works, the best-performing semantic segmentation machine learning models were selected and used to identify dust in an image pixel-wise. The total number of dust pixels was then correlated with real-world dust measurements obtained from a research-grade dust monitor. Our method shows that semantic segmentation can be adopted to quantify traffic-induced dust reasonably. Over 90% of the predictions from both correlations fall in true positive quadrant, indicating that when dust concentrations are below the threshold, the segmentation can accurately predict them. The results were validated and extended for real-time application. Our code implementation is publicly available.

In-vehicle battery capacity fade: A follow-up study on six European regions

This work presents a follow up of previous case studies from the authors on the estimation of the in-vehicle battery capacity fade with performance-based models of Lithium-ion batteries applied to real-world vehicles’ activity data. The mobility pattern database is significantly enlarged compared to previous works from the authors, encompassing now six European regions, including 508,609 private vehicles which corresponds to 1.78 billion GPS records, 9.1 million trips and parking events and a total driven distance of 106.1 million kilometres. The capacity fade is derived at given years and mileage thresholds under different driving and recharging scenarios, supporting the concept of setting minimum performance requirements for traction batteries in future road transport policies. The vast majority of the considered scenarios do not lead to a battery capacity drop below 80% of its nominal value in less than five calendar years or 100,000 driven kilometres and below 70% in less than 8 years or 160,000 driven kilometres. The results of this work contributed to inform the new UN ECE Global Technical Regulation No. 22 on in-vehicle battery durability.

Road Recognition and Lane Detection using Deep Learning

An autonomous vehicle needs to be familiar with its surroundings. The safety of thetransportation system is greatly enhanced by advanced driving assistance systems (ADASs). Road detectionis one of the steps that a driving car must do. Is it possible for a computer to recognize a road in a singlephotograph for this purpose? This question is addressed using the lane detecting techniques. Roads andlanes are tough for machine learning to differentiate because of training a machine to recognize a road.Over the past few decades, a number of lane identification technologies have been created and integratedinto various autonomous cars. It is still very difficult to create lane recognition technology that caneffectively identify a road lane in a range of road conditions. This research provides a composite approachfor road detection from image processing using convolutional neural networks by testing 150 photographsthat include a road, jungle, muddy road, and barriers. It will decide if an image contains a road or not. Inthis essay, we first establish whether a road exists. The second step is to find a lane on the finished road.The benefit of the proposed technology is that if there is a road, the automobile can continue to moveforward; otherwise, it will stop.

Tire and Engine Sources Contribution to Vehicle Interior Noise and Vibration Exposure Levels

The main objective of the research presented in this paper is to enhance driver-passengers comfort of a vehicle that in turn leads to better vehicle safety and stability. The focus was put on studying the interior vibration and noise contributions originated from tire-road and engine-transmission subsystems, due to their significant impact on the dynamic performance of the vehicle. The noise and vibration measurements were recorded at the driver’s head position and on the driver legs room. Furthermore, the influence of different tire types and road surface textures on the vehicle interior noise and vibration were considered. The results indicate that the widely used conventional engine mounts and tires in commercial vehicles cannot fulfill the conflicting requirements for the best isolation concerning both road surface and engine-transmission induced excitations. The values of driver’s head position sound pressure level and floor vibration acceleration broadband averages originate for engine-transmission are lower than that for tire-road interaction. Furthermore, the values of RMS, crest factor, kurtosis and IRI for the vehicle waveform were estimated for vehicle speeds, tire types and road surface textures. Moreover, the percentage contribution for both interior noise and vibration originated from tire-road interaction is higher than the one from vehicle engine-transmission system in all the vehicle speed range, tire type and road surface texture considered.

Factors associated with driver injury severity of motor vehicle crashes on sealed and unsealed pavements: Random parameter model with heterogeneity in means and variances

The effect of sealed or unsealed road pavements on motorist’s injury severities has not been extensively explored. This study collected a four-year crash dataset (2015–2018) from South Australia to explore this issue. The data shows 3,812 and 1,086 crashes at sealed and unsealed pavement surfaces, respectively, during those years. This study examines the consequence of sealed and unsealed pavements on driver injury severity outcomes of motor vehicle crashes. A mixed logit model was developed by accounting for heterogeneity in means and variances of the random parameters. The variables were distributed among several categories: driver, temporal, spatial, roadway characteristics, crash type, vehicle type, and vehicle movement. Four random parameters were observed in the sealed model, whereas five parameters were in the unsealed one. Moreover, the sealed pavements model showed substantial heterogeneity in means of four of the random parameters, while the unsealed pavements model has some heterogeneity in both means and variances of some of the random parameters. Marginal effect results indicate that two indicator variables have enlarged the likelihood of driver severe injury consequences in sealed, alcohol involvement and posted speed limit > 100 km/hr. Additionally, four other significant variables sustain the probability of severe injury outcomes at unsealed pavement like male drivers, middle-aged drivers, rollover crash types, and crashes at straight roads. Based on these variables, various countermeasures were recommended to enhance the safety of both types of pavements.

A benchmark dataset for binary segmentation and quantification of dust emissions from unsealed roads

The generation of reference data for machine learning models is challenging for dust emissions due to perpetually dynamic environmental conditions. We generated a new vision dataset with the goal of advancing semantic segmentation to identify and quantify vehicle-induced dust clouds from images. We conducted field experiments on 10 unsealed road segments with different types of road surface materials in varying climatic conditions to capture vehicle-induced road dust. A direct single-lens reflex (DSLR) camera was used to capture the dust clouds generated due to a utility vehicle travelling at different speeds. A research-grade dust monitor was used to measure the dust emissions due to traffic. A total of ~210,000 images were photographed and refined to obtain ~7,000 images. These images were manually annotated to generate masks for dust segmentation. The baseline performance of a truncated sample of ~900 images from the dataset is evaluated for U-Net architecture.

Sustainable advanced roads that absorb tonnes of CO2 annually and become more resistant using Olivine

Greenhouse gases, which mostly come from burning fossil fuels, are accumulating every day in the atmosphere and changing the climate around the world. New Zealand’s average annual temperature has risen by 1.13 degrees Celsius from 1909 to 2019 [1]. As a result, the level of sea is rising and adverse changes such as extreme rainfall, drought, increasing hunger and poor nutrition are beginning to emerge. Statistics show that the transport sector produces a considerable amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually. In New Zealand, road transport made up 43% of gross CO2 emission in 2018 and improving the engine technology was not effective [1]. Olivine is an easily accessible mineral that is found all over the earth’s mantle. Under natural conditions, 1 kg of Olivine can absorb about 1 kg of CO2 [2]. For optimal absorption, Olivine stone needs to be pulverised. Magnesium silicate in the stone reacts with water and CO2 to form bicarbonate that captures CO2 in a solid form. In addition to taking up CO2, Olivine has the potential to stabilise the soil sustainably through alkaline activation. New Zealand has 83,000 km of local roads and 11,000 km of state highways that have the potential to sequester CO2 not only in roads but also in the roadside area. Initial calculations show that the unsealed roads of New Zealand have the potential to absorb about 100,000 tonnes of CO2 annually. This study is a review paper that summarizes the recent progress in the field of sustainable roads. This presentation aims to evaluate the feasibility of using Olivine in road construction to stabilise the soil and calculate the potential of CO2 absorption in New Zealand to take a step toward the Climate Change Response (Zero-Carbon) Amendment Act 2019 and considerations concerning kaitiakitanga (guardianship).

Cost–benefit analysis of road-transport policy options to combat air pollution in Turkey

Cost–benefit analysis of road-transport policy options to combat air pollution in Turkey

A review on soil stabilisation of unsealed road pavements from an Australian perspective

Unsealed roads are the backbone for many countries’ growth and development. Given low traffic volumes, economic considerations cannot justify higher class paved roads, as a result, are prone to distress. Research studies have shown that the targeted application of additives and specific techniques to unsealed pavements can improve its engineering and geotechnical properties. This paper covers a comprehensive up to date literature review of various techniques for improving unsealed road durability. The literature is categorised based on non-chemical and chemical additive techniques. These techniques are reviewed and discussed to provide a critical overview of the stabilisation mechanisms, properties, performance, durability, and suitability in unsealed roads. This review highlights the shift towards sustainable stabilisation without considerable impact to current unsealed pavement practices, but at the effect of a sound understanding of stabilisation approaches and longterm performance data. The review captures the current state-of-knowledge in the field of unsealed road pavements.

ROLES OF ROAD TRANSPORT POLICY ON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENTIN FEDERAL CAPITAL TERRITORY ABUJA, NIGERIA: STAKEHOLDERS PERCEPTION

Transport policies arise because of the importance of virtually every aspects of global economic, social, and political exercise. Transport is seen as key mechanism for promotion, development and shaping of national economy. The purpose of this research is to study the roles of road transport policy on economic development in Federal Capital Territory Abuja, Nigeria: Stakeholders Perception. The study employed both primary and secondary as data sources. The valid respondents for the analysis was 160. Five Likert-scale type questionnaires were used for collecting data. The analysis was conducted with the aid of Microsoft Excel and IBM statistical package for social science (SPSS) Version 26. Purposive sampling technique was used to select 5 Directors for interviews from the Federal Capital Territory Transport Secretariat who are the custodian of road transport policy. Secondary sources were obtained wholly from published materials and official Government documents and files. Federal Capital Territory Transport Secretariat, The National Planning Commission, Federal Ministry of Transport, and its Parastatals, and the Bureau for Public Enterprises were the main sources of data. The finding from the document review and interview reveals that lacks of full implementation, funding constraints, corruption and enactments of institutional framework that will give investors’ confidence to invest in roads are factors affecting the road transport policy. The interviewees agreed that policies of road transportation enhance economic development by providing easy access to the workplace, schools, and markets. However, finding from the questionnaires result reveals that, road infrastructures and safety were positively and significantly related with economic development. The study concluded that government should expediate action to establish institutional framework that will not only execute the reforms implementation with the Act but generate necessary fund for road infrastructural development through taxes.

European dieselization: Policy insights from EU car trade

European dieselization, i.e. the sustained increase in the diesel share in the passenger car fleet, is associated with the first EU strategy to reduce CO2 emissions from passenger cars. This paper aims to contribute to the literature on dieselization by looking at EU international trade flows in passenger cars, a perspective seldom found in the literature. Trade data confirm that the bulk of EU diesel trade flows occurs between EU partners, although diesel imports from other, non-EU countries are also significant. Besides, the external competitiveness of the EU car industry is clearly based on petrol cars. The analysis of trade data also reflects previous findings on the increase in car size. On the policy side, the divergence between CO2 from new car registrations and total CO2 emissions from passenger cars during the dieselization era proves that strategies for decarbonization should not rely exclusively on efficiency gains, demand policies are also needed. The dieselization phenomenon warns of the major inertia that road transport policies can have. The analysis of EU car trade also underlines the need to coordinate environmental policy with other relevant countries in the international car market.

Thinking aloud on the road: Thematic differences in the experiences of drivers, cyclists, and motorcyclists

This study takes a qualitative approach to exploring the experiences (and differences therein) of individuals using either their car, bicycle, or motorcycle to navigate a ∼10.5 km urban route in a provincial UK city, with the aim of contributing to our understanding of the needs and requirements of different road users. Forty-six individuals provided concurrent verbal reports, using the ‘think aloud’ method, whilst using their vehicle to navigate the test route, the transcripts of which were subjected to a theory-agnostic, inductive, thematic analysis. A number of group differences were observed, revealing (among other factors) the importance of road surface quality to cyclists, the focus on vigilant observation in motorcyclists, and the heightened emotionality experienced by both two-wheeled groups, particularly those on bicycles. This affective component has, as yet, been under-explored in the academic domain and under-utilised in road transport policy and strategy; this is discussed, with attention drawn to the cyclists’ greater tendency to make negatively valenced value judgements. Results are also discussed in terms of the potential to improve road users’ experiences, foster inter-group empathy and understanding, and encourage a shift in mobility towards more sustainable modes.

Modelling potential visibility of wind turbines: A geospatial approach for planning and impact mitigation

There has been a dramatic increase in wind power supply due to the growing demand for renewable energy sources across the globe. In this process, technological advancements have led to the emergence of more sophisticated wind turbines with higher hubs and larger swept areas to reduce the unit costs for power generation. However, there is also a growing concern about the visibility impacts of wind turbines. Spatial modelling of the potential visibility of wind turbines holds strategic information for wind power siting decisions. The visibility information is critical to breaking trade-offs between energy production and protecting the visual amenity of landscapes. Currently, public attention to the visual impacts of wind turbines tends to rise in countries with high wind power capacities. Decreases in property values due to wind turbine visibility and negative impacts on scenery are among the factors that draw public attention. These implications make it necessary to use spatial analysis and develop mitigation strategies based on the geospatial outputs. This paper aims to produce Potential Visibility Models (PVM) to analyse wind turbine visibility from candidate observation locations where the scenery is an important asset. These are residential buildings (RB), protected areas (PA), natural and archaeological sites (NAS), tourism development centres (TDC), roads (RD), and the coastal areas (CS). The results showed that potential turbine visibility varied across the study area considering the five qualitative visibility classes. The areas with “very low” and “low” potential visibility were proposed as candidate areas of low visual impact for wind power generation.

Sustainability and EU Road Transport Carbon Emissions from Consumption of Diesel and Gasoline in 2000 and 2018

To accomplish the 1.5 °C and 2 °C climate change targets, the European Union (EU) has set up several policy initiatives. Within the EU, the carbon emissions of the road transport sector from the consumption of diesel and gasoline are constantly rising. (1) Background: due to road transport policies, diesel and gasoline use within the EU is increasing the amount of carbon in the atmosphere and adding to climate risks. (2) Methods: sustainability analysis used was based on the method recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (3) Results: to meet its road transport requirements, the EU produces an estimated 0.237–0.245 billion tonnes of carbon per year from its total consumption of diesel and gasoline. (4) Conclusion: if there is no significant reduction in diesel and gasoline carbon emissions, there is a real risk that the EU’s carbon budget commitment could lapse and that climate change targets will not be met. Sustainability analysis of energy consumption in road transport sector shows the optimum solution is the direct electrification of road transport.

Mortality and morbidity costs of road traffic-based air pollution in Turkey

Government policies on renewing vehicle fleet by introducing newer, cleaner vehicles and removing old, polluting vehicles have significant impacts on air pollution. In this study, the estimated emissions of air pollutants that influence human health are reported together with health endpoints and corresponding mortality and morbidity costs under five alternative road transport policy scenarios, varying in scrapping rate and the shares of hybrid and electric vehicles. Using COPERT software, PM10, PM2.5, NO2, and SO2 emissions are determined for five scenarios. PM2.5 is the most reduced pollutant (41%) if the government adopts the most progressive scenario, followed by PM10 (27%) and NO2 (27%). A total of a maximum of 19,396 premature deaths and 803,328 years of life lost could be saved, corresponding to 252 billion TL cost savings over the 2020–2030 period if the most drastic policy encouraging an introduction of the newer and cleaner vehicles is adopted.

Roads to anti-descriptivism (about reference fixing): replies to Soames, Raatikainen, and Devitt

Roads to anti-descriptivism (about reference fixing): replies to Soames, Raatikainen, and Devitt

The road to Atil: Shlomo Sand, post-Zionism, and the dialectic of Khazaria

The road to Atil: Shlomo Sand, post-Zionism, and the dialectic of Khazaria

Environmental and anthropogenic drivers of surface urban heat island intensity: A case-study in the Yangtze River Delta, China

Nowadays urban climate is a global problem and many studies focused on understanding the relation between urban climate the built-up space using radiometric observations of the land surface temperature to estimate and monitor the surface urban heat island intensity (SUHIs). In this study MODIS land surface temperature (LST) data were used. The Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration (YRDUA), eastern China, was selected as an example to study SUHI and multiple influencing factors in 16 big cities. Anthropogenic factors are considered the most important ones in determining SUHI, while natural factors remain influential. By using stratified random sampling (SRS), 78,085 random points were selected within the 16 cities. Nine influencing factors were selected in this study: distance from building (BD), distance from the main roads (RD), distance from water (WD), digital elevation model product (DEM), gross domestic product (GDP), normalized difference vegetation index product (NDVI), nighttime lighting intensity (NTI), population (POP) and impervious surface area data (%ISA). The SUHI intensity was extracted at each random point as well as the values of the influencing factors, NDVI, DEM, ISA, POP, NTI and GDP. For BD, WD and RD, random points were selected from the water, building and main roads using the near tool in ArcGIS to measure these distances. Boosted regression tree (BRT) model was applied to capture the contributions of the above factors to SUHI. We also applied a different procedure to evaluate the relative influence of Land Use and Land Cover (LULC). The relative influence refers to the contribution of each factor to determine SUHI. The influencing factors were ranked on the basis of the relative influence on SUHI. The results showed that (1) higher SUHI intensity was recorded in Shanghai, Jiaxing and Nanjing cities respectively, while Hangzhou recorded the lowest SUHI. (2) Anthropogenic drivers have slightly higher relative influence on SUHI than natural drivers, i.e. 51.29% and 48.71% respectively. The influence of all drivers on SUHI from high to low is NTI (27.62%), ISA (24.38%), NDVI (12.11%), GDP (7.95%), DEM (7.29%), POP (6.37%), BD (5.33%), WD (4.93%), RD (4.02%). (3) The variation in the socioeconomic level lead to different spatial patterns of different influence factors, further indicating that the overall mean SUHI intensity is affected by the development of the city.