State Of Road Network Research Articles

A multi-stage stochastic programming model for relief distribution considering the state of road network

As an important aspect in disaster operations management, relief distribution has been challenged by lots of factors, such as unpredictable occurrence time, intensity and location of secondary disasters (e.g. aftershocks and landslides, which usually occur after an earthquake), and availability of vehicles. A multi-stage stochastic programming model is developed for disaster relief distribution with consideration of multiple types of vehicles, fluctuation of rental, and the state of road network. The state of road network is characterized using uncertain and dynamic road capacity. The scenario tree is employed to represent the uncertain and dynamic road capacity, and demonstrate the decision process of relief distribution. A progressive hedging algorithm (PHA) is proposed for solving the proposed model in large-scale size. Based on a real-world case of Yaan earthquake in China, numerical experiments are presented to study the applicability of the proposed model and demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed PHA. Useful managerial insights are provided by conducting numerical analysis.

Development of optimal routing service for emergency scenarios using pgRouting and FOSS4G

This study aims to implement a system for Emergency Routing Decision Planning (ERDP) based on Service Oriented Architecture. A Web-based system is implemented to facilitate ubiquitous dynamic routing services on up-to-date road network data. Integration of Dijkstra’s shortest path and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) algorithms has facilitated improved weighted travel-time computation. Route computations are done considering situation at source, transit and destinations. The AHP is used to prioritize amongst possible destinations considering impedance factors affecting travel time. The routing algorithm is deployed as Web Processing Service (WPS) using the ZOO-Project Platform. Two scenarios for application of the ERDP Web services are demonstrated. In the first scenario of medical emergency, the ERDP computes routes between patient’s location, emergency car to hospital in proximity of accident site considering dynamic factors such as conditions of road network, the patient’s state and availability of medical facilities and expertise in the target hospital. In the second scenario of a disaster situation, the GRASS GIS r.sim.water simulation model for overland flow under excess rainfall conditions was integrated into the ERDP system as a WPS. The result of the simulation is used to automatically update the road network database and new routes are computed based on existing conditions. The system is developed using Free and Open Source Software for Geoinformatics (FOSS4G) stack and is amenable to customization to support other emergencies such as fire, debris flow and tsunami. Integration with Sensor Observation Services for automatic data updates from CCTV camera and weather stations could further improve utility as a real-time ERDP system.

Influence of pavement condition towards accident number on Malaysian highway

Accidents in Malaysia are alarming and have been in the rise for the past decades. Increasing numbers of road users, condition of road surface, expanded road network and weather conditions are being carefully looked into determining the contributors towards fatality. Human factors has been widely known and established as one of the main contributor to road accidents. Therefore, this study had focused more on to pavement conditions, where its relation with accidents needs to be further explored. The purpose of this study is to determine the influence of pavement condition towards accident number on Malaysian Highway. Pavement condition data which consist of Mean Texture Depth (MTD), Rutting Depth (RD) and also International Roughness Index (IRI) were measured along 265 km southern stretch of Malaysia highway, by using Multi Laser Profiler (MLP). Accident data were also collected from the accident report prepared by Southern region of Malaysian Highway Authority. Based on the results, it was found that more than 70% of the accidents happened at a good condition of road which having high MTD, low RD and minimum IRI. MTD was found as the most significance parameters that relates to accident. Other factors such as human negligence and environments (weather and lighting), might be the major cause that contribute to the accidents that happened along Malaysian highway.

Reliability analysis of road networks in disaster waste management

The condition of road networks which connect disaster affected areas and final disposal sites has a critical role in the management of disaster waste. In this paper, we present a two-stage framework to estimate the overall reliability and failure modes of a disaster waste management system considering the reliability of each route involved in the road network. In the first stage, first order reliability method and Ditlevsen bounds are applied to estimate system reliability. In the second stage, an event tree approach is implemented to analyse the failure modes of the system. The methodology is demonstrated with an artificial case study considering three different scales of disasters. The results obtained from the case study can provide information to decision makers regarding the priority of the routes in the system and the most likely failure mode.

Ridesharing Problem with Flexible Pickup and Delivery Locations for App-Based Transportation Service: Mathematical Modeling and Decomposition Methods

App-based transportation service system, such as Uber and Didi, has brought a new transportation mode to users, who are able to make reservations using mobile apps conveniently. However, one of the fundamental challenges in app-based transportation system is the inefficiency and unreliability of the vehicle routing plans caused by complex topology of urban road network and unpredictable traffic conditions. A common way to tackle this problem is repositioning pickup or delivery locations via the coordination between drivers and passengers. This paper studies an on-demand ridesharing problem that determines the optimal ride-share matching strategy and vehicle routing plan with respect to flexible pickup and delivery locations. By introducing the concept of space-time windows, the problem is formulated as the pickup and delivery problem with space-time windows (PDPSW) in space-time network. To solve the model efficiently and accurately, we particularly develop a customized solution approach based on Lagrangian relaxation. Numerical examples are conducted to demonstrate the performance of the proposed framework and draw some managerial insights into the optimal system operation. The results indicate that adopting the serving strategy of flexible pickup and delivery locations will evidently reduce the system cost and improve the service quality in app-based transportation service systems.

Application in Dynamic Path Selection for Emergency Vehicles Based on Hybrid Cuckoo Algorithm Optimizing Neural Network Model

If any emergency occurs in a city, emergency vehicle scheduling must be such as to shorten the path travel time. The biggest difficulty in scheduling is how to measure the real-time changes in the traffic conditions of urban road network. To study the dynamic path selection of emergency vehicles under city emergency, this paper abstracts the urban road network into a map composed of nodes and edges, and takes the shortest path as the optimization objective. Firstly, the author takes the K-nearest sample set from the similar historical sample sets, predicts the real-time vehicle speed and establishes the path travel time function. Then, the author uses path reliability to measure the impacts of real-time traffic conditions on the overall travel time and constructs the two-stage objective optimization model for dynamic optimal path selection. Finally, based on this model, the author proposes a hybrid cuckoo search algorithm and uses it to optimize the weights and thresholds of neural network model to solve the K shortest-time paths in the dynamic road network, and take a partial road network in Yangpu District of Shanghai as an example for simulation test. The test results show that the proposed dynamic path selection model can reflect the actual scenario of emergency vehicle scheduling under emergency, and that the neural network model based on the hybrid cuckoo search algorithm is used to train weights and thresholds, so that the algorithm has a fast convergence speed and can solve the problem well. Compared with the classic cuckoo search algorithm and the particle swarm optimization algorithm, this algorithm has better performance.

Correlation Analysis between Pavement Condition Indices in Korean Roads

The Korean road network has been aging rapidly. It is necessary to assess the pavement conditions of various road networks in order to come up with proper rehabilitation strategies against the aging road networks. Pavement management system is an essential tool for road management, and each road management organization has developed its own pavement condition index for assessing the road conditions. Nonetheless, because the pavement condition of various types of roads could not be represented by a single pavement condition index, it was difficult to comprehend the condition of the entire roads of Korea and its changing trend at a glance. Moreover, there has been a limitation on the persuasion of the justification for the use of road management and rehabilitation budget at national level to the people and the budget office of Korea. This study derived the relationship among the pavement condition indices of Korean expressways, Korean national highways, and Seoul city roads so that those pavement indices can be represented by one unified pavement condition index. A sensitivity analysis of how variables of pavement distress (roughness, rut depth, and crack ratio) influenced each of the pavement condition index was carried out. Then, correlation equations between the pavement condition indices were developed in order to represent them by a single pavement condition index (NHPCI) through a statistical analysis of the pavement condition monitoring system data over 8 years, and its application plan is proposed.

Modelling the Collection and Delivery of Sheep Milk: A Tool to Optimise the Logistics Costs of Cheese Factories

The milk transformation process, in the last thirty years, moved from on-farm to centralised cheese factories, affecting the management of transport logistics. In Sardinia, the presence of about 12,000 dairy sheep farms, located in rural areas with poor condition of road network, makes collecting milk a significant impact on profit, affecting the costs of milk transportation. Moreover, dairy sheep farming is characterized by seasonal production, this means that the amount of milk that is produced by each farm differs significantly over the year. The objective of this work was to develop a decision support tool that, while optimising milk collection routes, reduced the costs of milk transport, thus improving the density of collection. The tool developed ad hoc in this study used GPS map location and milk volumes of farms to calculate the cost per litre of milk for the regular routing, and to recalculate the same cost for the optimised collecting route. Results showed that this tool improved the efficiency of milk collection, reducing the number of routes and the driving distances. Furthermore, optimising the density of collection, the new routes improved the environmental impact and the transportation costs that are associated with logistic and traceability of raw sheep milk.

Development of Parameters of Road Conditions based on Road User/Citizen Satisfaction

The study focused on the parameters of road conditions in a city road network in Indonesia. It also assessed the satisfaction level of road users/citizens within two streets in Cimahi city, Indonesia. In achieving this objective, literature reviews and opinions of 30 road users/citizens for each street were sampled using two key questions. The data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics. The analysis revealed that the satisfaction level of road users/citizens is 2.53 and 1.67 respectively, which conforms to the result of a road condition survey in the two streets. The reasons for satisfaction based on the road users’/citizens’ perspective were the good physical conditions of the road/drainage. In contrast, the reasons for dissatisfaction were unstable physical road conditions related to city maintenance activities, late/deferred maintenance and inappropriate maintenance. Road users/citizens found such maintenance activities contributed to four specific physical conditions of roads/drainage in the city: a small volume of pavement distress in scattered areas, moving road deterioration, seasonal floods and water ponds and the rapid decay of newly paved roads. The physical conditions also conform to the result of a road conditions survey for the two streets. Besides this, other physical conditions of roads/drainage contributing to unstable road conditions found by an expert are unconnected road networks due to natural disasters. The study recommended the five physical conditions of roads/drainage as a new set of parameters for road conditions for the city network in Indonesia. The new set of road condition parameters can be applied to benchmark and compare a city road condition for each parameter and also display the derived overall road performance.

Forest biomass power plant installation scenarios

Modern society is dependent on energy use in several ways. Due to environmental and strategic issues, biomass is emerging as an alternative for the diversification of energy sources worldwide. Forest biomass is abundant at Minas Gerais, Southeastern Brazil, but its usage for power generation remains a niche pathway yet to be exploited. The geographical planning of biomass energy production is of the utmost importance to guarantee the distribution of cheap and clean energy. This study presents a GIS-based methodology for prospecting forest biomass power plants in the Minas Gerais state, Brazil. First, applying fuzzy logic, suitable zones for biomass activity were identified by combining various environmental and social factors, along with the State road network infrastructure. For the second step, a location-allocation model was generated, which considered only the most suitable areas for plant development, spatial availability of raw materials, and the existing road network. Various scenarios were simulated with different numbers of bioenergy plants, using a capacitated location-allocation model, in order to consume half of the state forest biomass stock. The best locations and the optimum number of power plants were found by minimizing transport distances of raw material to the factories. This proposed methodology could be adapted for use in other countries.

An adaptive agent digraph simulation for road traffic safety statue in bridge–tunnel groups

The safety state of road network in the bridge–tunnel groups is an important factor in evaluating road traffic safety. This article describes a case study simulating brittleness behavior of road traffic safety statue in the bridge–tunnel groups. First, the safety state of road network and brittleness behavior characteristics are analyzed; second, the relationship between brittleness behavior and safety entropy is also introduced, and the collapse process of the travel system of road traffic network in the bridge–tunnel groups is simulated, which is based on the adaptive agent digraph theory. Finally, the rear-end accident data from Liu’an mountainous freeway are verified through the reasonability and feasibility of adaptive agent digraph theory. The case study has shown that there is a certain delay in the collapse of whole system; the key of vertex collapse will lead to the collapse of the whole system in a short time; the initial value of each vertex has a significant impact on the collapse of the whole system. The findings in this study provide scientific guidance to potentially improve the current mountainous freeway design and traffic management policy.

Consistency of state road network master plan development steps

By scrutinizing the implementation of a long-range road network plan at the federal state level, the article puts emphasis on the consistency of previously compartmentalized development steps. A recent regional case study of the German state of Thuringia is used to reflect the current planning procedures. Aiming to overcome inconsistencies, an integrated approach to a policy-formation framework is presented, allowing for the systematic identification of a road network improvement project portfolio. Organizational and technological options for the delivery of consistency and a better the usage of the project opportunity space are explored, for example, by transferring the considerations on welfare aspects from the cost-benefit appraisal step to the earlier process stages of construction measure specification and project nomination.

Health communication and awareness of aluminium-waste disposal effects among Ogun state housing corporation residents

This paper determines the awareness profile of residents of Ogun state housing corporation, who have resorted to collecting aluminium waste as a cheap alternative to assuage the deplorable state of road networks in the estate. A total of 200 copies of a questionnaire were randomly distributed to the residents of the estate. The survey determined their level of awareness of aluminium waste disposal, and their level of involvement in the collection, use and contact with these waste materials. In cases of awareness about the health implications, the medium through which they gained such awareness was further queried. The findings recommend that harnessing the participation of all stakeholders would bring stability to the growing demand for these materials within the estate. Similarly, coordinating educative and informative campaigns in the estate would expedite enhanced consciousness and eventual cessation of the possibilities of contact and inhalation of aluminium waste in the housing estate. Keywords: Aluminium waste,awareness, communication, public health.

Identification Of Unpaved Roads in a Regional Road Network Using Remote Sensing

An accurate inventory of unpaved road network length and condition within a county, state, or region is important for efficient use of resources to manage and maintain this critical transportation asset. Object-based classification techniques provide a cost-effective way to identify unpaved roads within a local agency's road network when the road type (i.e., paved versus unpaved) attribute is missing. We present a Trimble eCognition® algorithm using four band optical aerial imagery and object-based classification to classify roads as paved or unpaved. The ruleset evaluates relationships between bands and allows separation and segmentation of unpaved roads from other pavement classes. The algorithm is applied to unincorporated areas of a six county region in Southeastern Michigan. Tree shadows on roads and the spectral similarity of road construction materials pose challenges to classification accuracy. An accuracy assessment of the classification indicated that the algorithm works well with overall classification accuracy between 82 and 94 percent.

Infrastructure Assessment for Developing Route Evacuation of Bengawan Solo River Flood at Bojonegoro District

Bengawan Solo River is the biggest watersheet in java, Indonesia. It is reach between two provinces, Central Java and East Java. The flood’s happens almost every year on this river. The floods caused by increased rainfall on rainy season, and land use in upstream has changed too. The community not want to abandon their land so, they must living and adaptable with disaster. Beside that, decrease of river’s flow capacity and catchment area are the significant factor of causing floods in Bengawan Solo river. The villages nearest with river get susceptible floods area. In Bojonegoro district there was 23 of flooded sub-district. Using supported information and map of road network, topography, provisional care, and infrastructure condition. Then assessment of infrastructure damaged such as roads, bridges, railway, etc. from that information and assessment, capable to created evacuated lines map for flood’s victim in Bojonegoro district using GIS. This map can useful as a guide the victim to safety line and nearest provisional care when flood disaster has come out.

A diverging diamond interchange (DDI) in conditions of road network in Slovakia

This article focuses on the comparison of the current uncontrolled intersection and the new type of intersection. To obtain the most accurate results the intersection is simulated in the Aimsun software. The intersection is situated in Bratislava. It is formed by exits and entrances to the highway D2. The new type of the intersection is denoted as a Diverging diamond interchange (DDI) which increases the safety and fluency of the road traffic. It is most used in the interchanges.

Enabling a Freight Traffic Controller for Collaborative Multidrop Urban Logistics

There is increasing interest in how horizontal collaboration between parcel carriers might help alleviate problems associated with last-mile logistics in congested urban centers. Through a detailed review of the literature on parcel logistics pertaining to collaboration, along with practical insights from carriers operating in the United Kingdom, this paper examines the challenges that will be faced in optimizing multi-carrier, multidrop collection, and delivery schedules. A “freight traffic controller” (FTC) concept is proposed. The FTC would be a trusted third party, assigned to equitably manage the work allocation between collaborating carriers and the passage of vehicles over the last mile when joint benefits to the parties could be achieved. Creating this FTC concept required a combinatorial optimization approach for evaluation of the many combinations of hub locations, network configuration, and routing options for vehicle or walking to find the true value of each potential collaboration. At the same time, the traffic, social, and environmental impacts of these activities had to be considered. Cooperative game theory is a way to investigate the formation of collaborations (or coalitions), and the analysis used in this study identified a significant shortfall in current applications of this theory to last-mile parcel logistics. Application of theory to urban freight logistics has, thus far, failed to account for critical concerns including ( a) the mismatch of vehicle parking locations relative to actual delivery addresses; ( b) the combination of deliveries with collections, requests for the latter often being received in real time during the round; and ( c) the variability in travel times and route options attributable to traffic and road network conditions.

Network Fundamental Diagram (NFD) and traffic signal control: first empirical evidences from the city of Santander

Abstract According to recent literature, the aggregate traffic conditions of an urban road network may be measured by an asymmetric inverse-U shaped diagram, called Network or Macroscopic Fundamental Diagram (NFD or MFD). The research on NFD was finalizes for applications connected to congestion control by means of gating, pricing schemes, multi-modal network analysis, freight vehicle routing. The control of urban road networks by means of NFD is a promising research area, where new methods and models are proposed to reduce traffic congestion and delay. The general objective of the research is to investigate if and in which measure the NFD profile (estimated by means of observed traffic data) changes according to the control strategy adopted for junction signals in an urban area. The first empirical evidences presented in this paper are related to a portion of Santander urban area, where a specific zone has been identified according to traffic characteristics and land uses. Data from traffic loops are collected and correlated with the signal control plans during a working day at link (flow-density diagrams) and network levels (NFD). Some preliminary considerations are derived from the empirical results. The cycle length with a fixed regulation plan does not influence the main traffic variables (flow, density) at link and network level, but these results cannot be generalized.

Refreshment of the shortest path cache with change of single edge

The problem of caching shortest paths has been widely studied. All of existing methods that address this problem assume that the condition of road networks does not change with time. In this paper, we study how to refresh a cache when one edge of the underlying road network (graph) changes. A bitmap-based cache structure is proposed to store and give access to shortest paths. In the following, algorithms are developed to detect shortest paths that are affected by the change of edge. After detecting affected paths, several heuristic-based refreshment strategies are proposed to update the cache. We have conducted a series of experiments to compare the performance of proposed strategies. It shows that replacing affected shortest paths with new paths whose benefit values are the largest should be applied in the shortest path caching applications such as navigation and map services.

Impact of Performance Based Contract Implementation on National Road Maintenance Project to Road Functional Performance

The national road network has a significant role in promoting the national economy in Indonesia. But the national road network conditions in general are still not satisfactory although the government continues to improve the technical standards of road maintenance which contributes to the high unit cost of road maintenance. To overcome this classical problem, now the road agencies began to implement alternative road maintenance contracts known as Performance Based Contract (PBC). Successful practice of PBC implementation in various countries indicates that the PBC is able to produce a good road service performance compared with the implementation of in-house system or contract-based input on road maintenance projects. This study aims to measure the impact of PBC implementation on the national road maintenance project in Indonesia with the type of flexible pavement. The impact of PBC is focused on the functional performance, which is measured using a model of IIRMS and expressed in the International Roughness Index (IRI) value. The case study conducted on one of the PBC pilot projects that are in the segment of northern coast of West Java. The results showed that the implementation of PBC for national road maintenance projects proven to ensure the quality and road service performance for the long term.