Traffic Obstacles Research Articles

1F14 Real-time Train Traffic Operation Assistance System(Operation management)

The train traffic operations are done automatically without any manual operation in a normal situation. But once some abnormality like accident occurs, that induces traffic congestion and suddenly requires many complex manual operations like situation grasping, rescheduling, relevant communications, instruction and notification. These situations may cause operational mistake and delay enhancement. Therefore, the West Japan Railway Company is developing an efficient operator assistance system in cases of traffic congestion.The"Real-time Train Traffic Operator Assistance System" will support operation tasks in abnormal situation following three phases. (1) Situation grasp This system corrects abnormal situation status data and indicates the situation objectively to the operator and prompts next action which shall be done as quickly as appropriate especially for the initial instruction and treatment. (2) Train traffic diagram rescheduling According to a traffic obstacle area and period, this system automatically proposes rescheduled train diagram pattern. Based on this proposal, some minor modification by the operator may be proceeding. (3) Instruction and notification sending to the driver This system automatically picks up the related trains to instruct and notify when entering covered area and sends the instruction and notification to the train driver's display through an on-board to ground communication line. This very complex and versatile system shall be proven as stable and certainty operational in any case of the abnormal situations. But it is impossible to realize the abnormal situation in the actual operation field. Also it is essential to reflect the operators' intention and improvement proposal such as display visibility and operability for human machine interface. For these reasons, we are also making the "real-time traffic operation simulator" which simulates overall traffic operation activity in case of the abnormal situation in realistic. It assures objective and quantitative total system evaluation and assessment.

Fire station location analysis in a metropolitan area

Facility location problem involves locating a facility to optimise some performance measure. Location of a public facility significantly affects its service quality. Therefore, it is essential to give special consideration in selecting a proper location for a facility that will be used to meet the community needs in metropolitan areas. Locating a fire station is an example for a service facility location for a community. The main objective in locating a fire station is to minimise the response time, which is the time duration between receiving a call and reaching the place of incident. In metropolitan areas, fire vehicles need to cross highways and other traffic obstacles through some obstacle-overcoming points which delay the response time. Therefore, in the analysis of fire station locations, obstacles have to be taken into consideration. In this paper, fire station location problem is analysed. Models are developed for the fire station location problems, which involve obstacles and obstacle-overcoming points. Particular case problems are analysed and the results are presented.

Design and Implementation of a Miniature Intelligent Vehicle Test Platform

The test platform plays an important role for the development of intelligent vehicles. In this work, we propose to design and build a miniature test model before building a real scene. The whole test system consists of the simulated traffic environment, the micro-intelligent vehicle and the visual information processing. Firstly, a micro-intelligent vehicle test platform applied to visual information perception is proposed. Secondly, some algorithms about traffic environmental element detection such as lane detection, traffic light and traffic signal recognition and obstacle detection are presented. The experiment validated the proposed approach. On the one hand, the main visual technologies of intelligent vehicles such as line detection, obstacle detection, and traffic signal recognition can be tested in this system; on the other hand, the test result can be used to evaluate and improve the design of the real test platform.

Energy-based approach for flight control systems design

We consider the fundamentals of the energy-based approach to spatial motion control. The resulting energy balance equation establishes quantitative relations between all energy sources and consumers in the system of objects "flying vehicle--thrust system--external environment." We establish the structure and further modification of an energy-based flight control system. The energy balance equation lets us estimate the level of atmospheric disturbances and formulate the commanding control index for engine thrust under winds of complex structure. For ground-based stages, we show a prediction method for the takeoff energy possibilities with air traffic obstacles; for situations of interrupted takeoff, the possibilities to stop inside the runway.

都道Ａ路線のサクラ街路樹における車両接触痕および管理状況にみる安全管理の課題

We aimed at clarifying problems of safety management in roadside trees on A street of the Tokyo prefectural road in Japan. We investigated and analyzed the data in connection with an accident by a collision between a roadside tree and a car and cherry roadside trees on the street where a lot of such accidents occurred on that data. As the result, it became clear that there was a big difference in the number of accidents between the results of the data analysis and the site investigation, so that the road administrator was not able to understand the occurrence of the accident enough. And on A street, trunks and branches of trees that incline to the roadway side and that distance to the roadway is short are big traffic obstacles. It is important for the prevention of such accidents to cut thin branches expected to become a traffic obstacles in the future as soon as possible and to correct a tree form because the group that the diameter of the pruned branch was larger tended to have more individuals that the prune sign was decayed.

Precise electrocardiographic measurements and clinical sense

Practically, all aspects of our lives are subject to numerous rules, laws, and regulations that turn continuous scales into binary ‘YES/NO’ classifications. While driving in a residential street of London at 29 mph is perfectly legal, driving at 31 mph is a crime with possible consequences for the ‘perpetrator’. Everybody would agree that having a Highway Code restriction of this kind is necessary. However, it is obvious that the particular speed limit of 30 mph, derived from statistical observations, does not necessarily reflect the true risk of each situation. Driving one car under particular circumstances at 35 mph might easily be substantially safer than driving another car under different circumstances at 25 mph. Driving in a residential street very fast at, say 65 mph will always be dangerous while driving very slowly at, say, 10 mph, will be basically safe all the time irrespective of the conditions on the road (that is ignoring the possible traffic obstacle). However, as we get nearer and nearer to the speed limit of 30 mph from either side, the distinction between safe and dangerous driving becomes less and less clear. Also, for the Highway Code to be practical, the legal speed limit must be a round number. Indeed, the same statistical observations made on the Old Continent led to a speed limit of 50 km/h, which is equal to 31.2 mph. It would be naturally pointless to discuss whether the British or the Continental residential areas are more or less safe because of this difference. Statistical observations of the past are unlikely reproducible with this precision in the future. A sensible police officer has the obvious advantage over an automatic speed camera of understanding all this and thus making corresponding differentiations. He will not make much … *Corresponding author. Fax: +44 20 8660 6031, Email: marek.malik{at}btinternet.com

In-Vehicle Glance Duration

In general, the unsafe conditions that are likely to produce a motor vehicle crash reside not at the mean of a given distribution (in other words, under typical conditions), but rather in the tails of the distribution. For example, an unusually slow response to a traffic obstacle, rather than an average response, may result in a collision. Although that situation means that crashes are the exception and not the norm, it has implications for how safety-critical data are approached and handled. In this current paper, experimental data collected in a driving simulator are used to demonstrate how an analysis of the average glance durations to an in-vehicle display might lead to different conclusions about safety compared with an alternative analysis of the tail end of the distribution. In addition, a model of crash risk based on the distribution of in-vehicle glances is described, as well as several characteristics of the traffic environment.

Cellular automata modeling of pedestrian’s crossing dynamics

Cellular automata modeling techniques and the characteristics of mixed traffic flow were used to derive the 2-dimensional model presented here for simulation of pedestrian's crossing dynamics. A conception of "stop point" is introduced to deal with traffic obstacles and resolve conflicts among pedestrians or between pedestrians and the other vehicles on the crosswalk. The model can be easily extended, is very efficient for simulation of pedestrian's crossing dynamics, can be integrated into traffic simulation software, and has been proved feasible by simulation experiments.

The Open-Ring Line: A Low-Loss Surface Waveguide

This paper presents the theoretical analysis of the electromagnetic properties of the open-ring line by means of the Hankel transform. Fields components, stored energy, power flow, dispersion relation, and energy distribution are calculated. Measurements have corroborated our theoretical results. These results help in the design of low-loss line operating in the fundamental dipolar hybrid mode. The measured attenuation on a prototype line consisting of equally spaced aluminum rings held by a metal rod is less than 5 dB/km below 1.8 GHz. Among the possible applications are railway traffic control and railway obstacle detection.

Safety clothing for human traffic obstacles.

Abstract Several fluorescent and non-fluorescent colours are compared to determine which is to be recommended for safety clothing for people who work on or near the road. It was found in a variety of circumstances that fluorescent orange is advisable. Non-fluorescent yellow was found to be better than fluorescent yellow. White is significantly worse as a safety colour than any of the other alternatives, and should not be used without an additional coloured surface. Not much effect was found from some simple designs (e.g. chevron), nor does it seem necessary to dress a man fully in fluorescent clothing, A 30 cm wide band around the body is sufficient.