Transit Route Research Articles

Unveiling the roles of public bike systems: From leisure to multimodal transportation

As bike-sharing systems gain popularity, understanding their roles in urban transportation, such as the first/last mile problem and the replacement of public transit, is crucial to comprehensively promote urban transport systems. Due to the Internet of Things (IoT) technique, copious data from public bike trips worldwide are available to urban researchers. In this study, we examine how public bikes function not just as a means of transportation, but also for leisure. The leisure function was ignored in previous empirical studies using data mining techniques, an oversight that could skew results in places like Seoul where leisure trips constitute a significant portion of the trips. We investigate when, where, and to what degree bike-sharing serves as a leisure tool and substitutes for, integrates with, or complements the public transit system. We propose an integrated data-mining approach to identify the above four categories of public bike trips. Our method combines multiple sources of real-world data, the distributed density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise (DBSCAN), and spatial feature engineering. The results reveal that the distribution of each category shows substantial spatial–temporal heterogeneity. Longitudinal analysis reveals that the use of public bicycles as a transportation mode primarily contributes to the growth observed from 2018 to 2021, compared to use for leisure. The determining factors and non-linear functions of each type of bike trip were interpreted by explainable machine learning methods, Shapley additive explanations (SHAP), and partial dependence plot (PDP). We discovered that lower slopes, higher residential densities, and more commercial neighborhoods consistently attract users across all categories. Additionally, rivers and green areas attract more leisure trips, while areas with denser transit routes see more substitution trips and fewer complementary trips. By understanding the characteristics, spatial–temporal distribution, and determining factors of public bike trips across these four categories, city planners and operators can tailor services to meet the diverse needs of citizens, fostering a more convenient, sustainable, and accessible urban transport system.

Multi‐Shell Copper Catalysts for Selective Electroreduction of CO2to Multicarbon Chemicals

AbstractElectrocatalytic CO2reduction (CO2R) coupled with renewable electricity has been considered as a promising route for the sustainability transition of energy and chemical industries. However, the unsatisfactory yield of desired products, particularly multicarbon (C2+) products, has hindered the implementation of this technology. This work describes a strategy to enhance the yield of C2+product formation in CO2R by utilizing spatial confinement effects. The finite element simulation results suggest that increasing the number of shells in the catalyst wil lead to a high local concentration of *CO and promotes the formation of C2+products. Inspired by this, Cu nanoparticles are synthesized with desired hollow multi‐shell structures. The CO2reduction results confirm that as the number of shells increase, the hollow multi‐shell copper catalysts exhibit improved selectivity toward C2+products. Specifically, the Cu catalyst with 4.4‐shell achieved a high selectivity of over 80% toward C2+at a current density of 900 mA cm−2. Evidence from in situ attenuated total reflection surface‐enhanced infrared absorption spectroscopy unveils that the multi‐shell Cu catalyst exhibits an enhanced *COatopcoverage and the stronger interaction with *COatopcompared to commercial Cu, confirming the simulation results. Overall, the work promises an effective approach for boosting CO2R selectivity toward value‐added chemicals.

Indo-Iran Relations: Impact of Third-party Influence

Close historical, social, cultural and economic ties and geographical proximity present ample opportunity for both Iran and India to advance their national interests by forging strong bilateral relations. Rich in energy resources, particularly oil and gas, Iran can meet India’s growing demand for energy while serving as an international transit route in India’s march towards global prominence and power. India, on the other hand, can help Iran in its testing times to end its isolation and contribute to its economic development. The ground reality, however, is different. India, while maintaining some level of cooperation with Iran, has been increasingly looking towards other countries like Saudi Arabia and Iraq to meet its energy demands. Based on descriptive-analytical research methodology, the article posits that the shift in the Indian foreign policy paradigm from Nehruism during the Cold War period to pragmatism in the post-Cold War period has negatively impacted Iran–India relations. A number of additional factors hinder the development of positive Iran–India relations. The present article considers the role of third countries such as the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and China as important factors impeding positive Tehran–Delhi relations.

Experiment of a thermal plume on an open cylinder

In this study, we performed a set of experiments of the thermal plume on an open cylinder heated from below and a simple scaling analysis. The flow structure of the plume was visualized using the shadowgraph technique, and the temperature at specific points was measured using a thermistor. Transient plumes in a developing stage, an equilibrating stage and a fully developed stage were described. The new scaling laws of the stem radius and the velocity of the rising plume were presented, which are different from those on a two-dimensional heated plate due to the cylindrical effect and agree with experimental results. In the fully developed stage, there is a transition route of the plume from a steady to chaotic state with an increase in the Rayleigh number, which involves a series of bifurcations. A reverse bifurcation from a periodic (Ra = 1.17 × 106) back to a steady (Ra = 1.30 × 106) state has been observed in the experiment, which is referred to as the period bubbling bifurcation. Thus, the present experimental results validate the previous numerical results presented by Zhang et al. (Phys. Fluids, vol. 33 (6), 2021, 064110). The bifurcation diagram, spectral analysis and attractor are used to characterize the transitional plume. In addition, the heat and mass transfer have also been quantified.

The Importance of Lapis Lazuli Corridor for Afghanistan

Lapis lazuli corridor is one of the most important and new transit routes which Afghanistan connects to central Asia countries and other countries. Lapis Lazuli corridor has a historical background and was part of the Silk Road through which the lapis lazuli of Afghanistan (from Badakhshan) was exported over 2000 years ago to the Caucasus, Russia, the Balkans, Europe, and North Africa, especially to the eastern civilizations along the ancient Silk Road. The lapis lazuli trade route connects Afghanistan and South Asia countries with Europe by roads and rails. It is considered one of the shortest and most reliable transit routes for Afghanistan where it has named a landlocked country, in order to get connected to Europe. The importance of this route is that to emerge as an economic corridor for inclusive development by which Afghanistan will be connected to Europe, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey and then to Europe. It will connect Afghanistan through land and sea with developed and economic zones of central Asia and European countries, where it will provide more opportunities for Afghanistan to trade it’s all kind of products to other nations. In addition, it will be discussed the importance of this transit route for Afghanistan as a new economic policy of Afghanistan which conducted by Afghan government to connect this country with Central Asia countries and Europe. The main object of this essay covers the socio-cultural significances of the lapis lazuli route for Afghanistan and other nations which located on this way. Moreover, I will find out the cultural and social importance of lapis lazuli corridor in this essay to know its geographical location and its other important issues from articles and journals which discuss about the lapis lazuli corridor as a new economic way for Afghanistan.

Baltık ve Arktika’da NATO Genişlemesinin Rusya Güvenliğine Etkisi

After the discovery of energy and new transit routes, the Arctic has become the new competition area of global powers. The Arctic, which has a geopolitically important position, is the new struggle area of NATO and Russia. When we examine the region we see the members of the Arctic Council are Canada, America, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Sweden and Russia. All of these countries are NATO members except Russia and Sweden. After Russia's attack on Ukraine, Finland and Sweden applied for NATO membership and Finland was accepted. On the other hand, with the Baltic states also becoming NATO members, Russia is surrounded both in Eastern Europe and in the Arctic region. Therefore, the study seeks to answer three main research questions: first, how is NATO's enlargement process in the Arctic region progressing? Second, what is Russia's doctrine (policies) against NATO enlargement? Third, what will be the impact of NATO enlargement on Russia's security?

Nepal’s Transit Route Negotiation with India and China

The geographical disadvantage faced by landlocked countries hampers their overall development, prompting international law to grant certain rights to secure their access to coastal areas. Nepal, as a landlocked country, has encountered numerous challenges in negotiating transit routes with its immediate neighbors, China and India, in order to realize the rights guaranteed by international law to landlocked nations. The transit right serves as a lifeline for Nepal to access third countries, but recurrent blockades from its southern neighbor have created uncertainty regarding the southern route to seaports. While Nepal has signed the Transit Transport Agreement and its protocol with its northern neighbor, China, there has been limited progress in developing connectivity infrastructure. This paper argues that ensuring uninterrupted access through the southern route is vital for Nepal from an economic perspective. However, the development of an alternative route through the north is not only crucial for contingency situations but also for unlocking new opportunities.

A “Polymer‐in‐Salt” Solid Electrolyte Enabled by Fast Phase Transition Route for Stable Zn Batteries

AbstractSolid polymer electrolyte‐based batteries show great promise because of their safe operating properties, wide voltage window and suitable flexibility. However, low ionic conductivity, low cation transfer number, weak oxidation/reduction resistance and low mechanical strength limit their implementation in Zn ion batteries. Here, w e developed a “polymer‐in‐salt” Zn2+‐conductive solid electrolyte (denoted as 70% salt‐SPE) constructed by a simple and fast phase transition method. The room‐temperature ionic conductivity and the transfer number of the 70% salt‐SPE reaches 1.6 mS cm−1 and 0.78, respectively. Meanwhile, the ZnF2‐rich inorganic/organic hybrid solid electrolyte interface is formed, and the stable voltage window reaches 9.35 V. In consequence, the Zn||Zn symmetric cell continuously cycles over 700 hours at current density of 2 mA cm−2 and the Zn||Cu symmetric battery runs with Coulombic efficiency of >99%. The Zn||MnPBA full battery delivers a discharge specific capacity of 109 mAh g−1 at room temperature and 190 mAh g−1 at 60 °C. Meanwhile, impressive cyclic stability of 6000 cycles with capacity retention of 80% is achieved, which originates from the effectively optimized ion transport action and dendrite‐free Zn plating/stripping.

Optimization of train timetables and placement of charging facilities for battery‐powered LRT

AbstractThe energy consumption of a battery‐powered train in an interstation depends on the running time and state of energy (SOE) at departure. In this paper, we develop an optimization method of train timetables to minimize energy consumption in line with several stations. The variables in this proposed optimization model are running, dwell, and charging times as real numbers and places of charging facilities as binaries. Additionally, we conducted a case study using the real‐world light rail transit (LRT) route, vehicle, and onboard battery model to confirm the effectiveness. In the case study, the proposed method can optimize the timetable and placement of charging facilities by considering the track gradient and battery SOE.

The reach of the trade in Captagon beyond the Middle East

Over the last five years, illicit trade in the amphetamine-type stimulant Captagon has expanded considerably, both in size and scope, posing new challenges to the rule of law, public health and even security dynamics. With its production hub anchored heavily in regime-held areas of Syria—with sponsorship from Syria’s Fourth Division and partnered Iran-aligned militias—the Captagon trade has been used as both an alternative revenue source for the cash-strapped and sanctioned Syrian regime and a tool for influence on the diplomatic stage. The Syrian regime has leveraged its agency over the trade, violent cross-border smuggling clashes and plausible deniability with affiliated actors to achieve its aims of the normalisation of relations with it regionally and the granting of concessions. However, these normalisation efforts have come under pressure as demands from regional neighbours to reduce the flow of Captagon and interdiction capacity have increased. Incentivised to retain their profits from Captagon, producers and traffickers aligned with the Syrian regime’s security apparatus have begun to identify new routes and markets outside its primary destinations in the Arab Gulf. As a result, criminal networks have carved out new transit routes across Iraq and Turkey and through African ports, and have even established nodes in southern and mainland Europe—all with the potential for pills to trickle into local consumer markets over time. With the Captagon challenge no longer confined to the Middle East, European countries and their partners are quickly beginning to focus on key aspects of the trade, implementing policies that address supply, demand and accountability for implicated actors.

Kazakhstan and the Northern Sea Route: Problems and Prospects

The article is devoted to the analysis of the transit potential of the transboundary river Irtysh to the north towards the Arctic. Landlocked Kazakhstan is making efforts to develop new transport routes thanks to its access to the largest river system. This route connects China, Kazakhstan and Russia, and also gives access to the possibilities of the Northern Sea Route. It should be noted that Kazakhstan constantly needs to diversify transport corridors for export and import. The escalation of the international situation once again emphasized the vulnerability of international agreements in the sphere of transit of goods and resources. If the development of the trans-Caspian international transport route has become a solution and an answer to a sudden onset problem, then the development of the Irtysh route has prospects and opportunities for the future, in the long term. Despite the long-term prospects of the Irtysh transit route, there is a need to carry out analysis and preparatory work already now for development of a new direction in the future.

Interdiction of wildlife trafficking supply chains: An analytical approach

Illicit Wildlife Trade (IWT) is a serious global crime that negatively impacts biodiversity, human health, national security, and economic development. Many flora and fauna are trafficked in different product forms. We investigate a network interdiction problem for wildlife trafficking and introduce a new model to tackle key challenges associated with IWT. Our model captures the interdiction problem faced by law enforcement impeding IWT on flight networks, though it can be extended to other types of transportation networks. We incorporate vital issues unique to IWT, including the need for training and difficulty recognizing illicit wildlife products, the impact of charismatic species and geopolitical differences, and the varying amounts of information and objectives traffickers may use when choosing transit routes. Additionally, we incorporate different detection probabilities at nodes and along arcs depending on law enforcement’s interdiction and training actions. We present solutions for several key IWT supply chains using realistic data from conservation research, seizure databases, and international reports. We compare our model to two benchmark models and highlight key features of the interdiction strategy. We discuss the implications of our models for combating IWT in practice and highlight critical areas of concern for stakeholders.

Evaluation Of Passenger Services At Kendari France Port Based On The Regulation Of The Minister Of Transportation Number Pm 39 Year 2015 Southeast Sulawesi Province

The Kendari crossing harbor is a pioneer crossing that serves the three-hour commuter crossing. The government has made every effort to support economic development in the konave region. The level of services felt by those who use services may have a bearing on whether or not they should be carried out in the harbor, especially those felt at the harbor that must meet passenger service standards because they are consumers that determine the growth or failure of transportation systems. The method used to analyze existing problems is a minimum standard of compliance analysis with existing conditions. According to the corresponding treaty, the corresponding value of each passenger service requirement is 4, and the corresponding value of each passenger service requirement is 14 and 18 is also available. Based on the analysis, the conclusion is that there is still less service of several transit transit routes such as the waiting room, the toilets, evacuation route instructions, evacuation point point, the musholah facility. Inadequate, no passenger baggage service, no advanced transit information, information of shipwrecks and no masth has not met the standard requirements of passenger service in the port.

How Different Analytical and Stylistics Investigations Can Help in Describing Artefacts Made of Non-coeval Parts: The Imago Pietatis in Breno

ABSTRACT Valcamonica is an Italian Alpine valley that has been the transit route for people and goods in prehistoric, Roman, medieval, and modern times. This led to the presence of artefacts from different eras and/or the occurrence of artefacts made of non-coeval parts. This research reports the characterization of an artefact in the Museum of Breno (Brescia Province). It is surmised that the artwork is made of different and non-coeval parts. The aim of the research is to investigate the natural pigments dyeing the different parts of the artefact, to infer information also on the origin and the dating. The investigation is supported by different analytical techniques (microscopic, spectroscopic, chromatographic, and spectrometric evaluation). The artifact is an Imago Pietatis, with Christ emerging from the tomb with his open arms. Microscopic observation allowed a preliminary evaluation of the colouration and to hypothesize the pigments used. 1H NMR analysis and spectrophotometric analysis suggested the presence of Tyrian purple and logwood (Haematoxylum campechianum) in the background of the sacred image, that was probably a liturgical vestment dismembered and overdyed. It is very likely that the image was in use to a brotherhood of Disciplini, a secular congregation very active in Valcamonica whose activities consisted in praying for the dead and making processions. Our work was important for the narration of this artefact and could be useful for the reconstruction of the object in the original colours, for providing to the local stakeholders a suitable recognition for this historical discovery.

Optimal charging station locations and durations for a transit route with battery-electric buses: A two-stage stochastic programming approach with consideration of weather conditions

While the environmental advantages of battery-electric buses (BEBs) are well-known, their significant differences from diesel buses require alterations to both route design (i.e., charging station locations) and operations (i.e., schedule management and holding control). The location, number, charging duration, and types of charging stations must be considered as part of the planning process. Charging stations can be located at depots, termini, or en-route. This paper considers the long-term planning and optimization problem of en-route charging station locations and charging duration to optimize passengers’ waiting time and operation and capital costs while addressing the weather-induced stochasticity of ridership and battery performance of the BEBs. A linear deterministic optimization model and a two-stage stochastic programming (SP) optimization process are developed to place BEB charging stations along the route and estimate their assigned charging time for both one-way and two-way operations. The developed approaches are tested on two high-demand bus routes in Calgary. The impact of the breakdown of the charging station associated with the maximum charging time on the schedule and the cost of the BEB operation is assessed. The solution of the stochastic model is analyzed using the expected value of perfect information as an index. The results indicate that using the SP model helps decrease the expected travel time of the route while the total cost per trip increases compared to the deterministic model.

Identifying the energy threshold for multistable tensegrity structures using a Mountain Pass algorithm

Multistable tensegrity structures are able to switch between equilibrium configurations and maintain these states with no additional energy input; as a result, they have found applications in reconfigurable robotics and deployable structures. However, the actuation strategy for multistable tensegrity structures to transform from one stable state to another remains unknown. In this work, we propose a method to identify a transition route between the known stable states of multistable tensegrity structures. The least-energy threshold and the transformation route formed by a series of deformed position point vectors are obtained. The method is based on the Conjugate Peak Refinement (CPR) method, which is one of the Mountain Pass Algorithms. To capture the fact that cable members could go slack during the transition route, a slack cable model is adapted into the CPR method so that the accurate energy state of the tensegrity structure is derived. The algorithms are successfully applied to examples of 3D multistable tensegrity structures from the literature. The work in this paper provides a minimum energy threshold between stable states, a measure of its shock sensitivity, and a reference actuation strategy to transform between the stable states of multistable tensegrity structures.

Nano-metal diborides-supported anode catalyst with strongly coupled TaOx/IrO2 catalytic layer for low-iridium-loading proton exchange membrane electrolyzer

The sluggish kinetics of oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and high iridium loading in catalyst coated membrane (CCM) are the key challenges for practical proton exchange membrane water electrolyzer (PEMWE). Herein, we demonstrate high-surface-area nano-metal diborides as promising supports of iridium-based OER nanocatalysts for realizing efficient, low-iridium-loading PEMWE. Nano-metal diborides are prepared by a novel disulphide-to-diboride transition route, in which the entropy contribution to the Gibbs free energy by generation of gaseous sulfur-containing products plays a crucial role. The nano-metal diborides, TaB2 in particular, are investigated as the support of IrO2 nanocatalysts, which finally forms a TaOx/IrO2 heterojunction catalytic layer on TaB2 surface. Multiple advantageous properties are achieved simultaneously by the resulting composite material (denoted as IrO2@TaB2), including high electrical conductivity, improved iridium mass activity and enhanced corrosion resistance. As a consequence, the IrO2@TaB2 can be used to fabricate the membrane electrode with a low iridium loading of 0.15 mg cm−2, and to give an excellent catalytic performance (3.06 A cm−2@2.0 V@80 oC) in PEMWE―the one that is usually inaccessible by unsupported Ir-based nanocatalysts and the vast majority of existing supported Ir-based catalysts at such a low iridium loading.

Modified and Improved Algorithm for Finding a Median Path with a Specific Length (ℓ) for a Tree Network

The median path problem (min-sum criterion) is a common problem in graph theory and tree networks. This problem is open to study because its applications are growing and extending in different fields, such as providing insight for decision-makers when selecting the optimal location for non-emergency services, including railroad lines, highways, pipelines, and transit routes. Also, the min-sum criterion can deal with several networks in different applications. The location problem has traditionally been concerned with the optimal location of a single-point facility at either a vertex or along an edge in a network. Recently, numerous investigators have investigated this classic problem and have studied the location of many facilities, such as paths, trees, and cycles. The concept of the median, which measures the centrality of a vertex in a graph, is extended to the paths in a graph. In this paper, we consider the problem of locating path-shaped facilities on a tree network. A new modified and improved algorithm for finding a median single path facility of a specified length in a tree network is proposed. The median criterion for optimality considers the sum of the distances from all vertices of the tree to the path facility. This problem under the median criterion is called the ℓ-core problem. The distance between any two vertices in the tree is equal to the length of the unique path connecting them. This location problem usually has applications in distributed database systems, pipelines, the design of public transportation routes, and communication networks.

Schedule-based transit assignment with online bus arrival information

Most public transportation services deviate from their published schedule. To cope with the delay caused by the unreliable service, passengers use online information about the bus arrival time which affects their route choice behavior. Current schedule-based transit assignment models fail to capture the passengers’ adaptive response to unreliable service, resulting in an inaccurate estimation of passenger wait time and passenger loads on various transit routes. The current study proposes schedule-based transit assignment models that incorporate online bus arrival information when modeling the passenger route choice in a stochastic and time-dependent transit network. The authors propose that passengers employ strategies when traveling between different origin–destination pairs not only due to the limited capacity of vehicles but also to cope with the transit delay. The passenger routing problem is modeled as a Markov Decision Process, and efficient algorithms are developed to solve this problem. Depending on the vehicle capacity, two types of assignment models are presented, namely, uncapacitated and capacitated assignments. When penalties for arriving at the destination outside the desired arrival time window are not applied, the uncapacitated assignment problem is formulated as a linear program. On the other hand, the capacitated assignment is formulated as a variational inequality problem for which an efficient Method of Successive Averages-based heuristic solution algorithm is proposed. Computational experiments are presented for a small and a large schedule-based transit network. The results show that denied boarding in an unreliable network leads to higher expected costs to passengers compared to the reliable and uncongested network. Furthermore, the analysis shows that the strategies evaluated with reliable schedule assumption lead to unreliable paths in the network and produces more transferring flow than should happen in practice. The application of our method to a subnetwork of the Twin Cities transit network with artificial demand reveals that passengers traveling from a residential area to the University of Minnesota campus may prefer taking a path with transfer in the event of highly unreliable transit service on the direct routes.

Iterative Backpropagation Method for Efficient Gradient Estimation in Bilevel Network Equilibrium Optimization Problems

Network optimization or network design with an embedded traffic assignment (TA) to model user equilibrium principle, sometimes expressed as bilevel problems or mathematical programs with equilibrium constraints (MPEC), is at the heart of transportation planning and operations. For applications to large-scale multimodal networks with high dimensional decision variables, the problem is nontrivial, to say the least. General-purpose algorithms and problem-specific bilevel formulations have been proposed in the past to solve small problems for demonstration purposes. Research gap, however, exists in developing efficient solution methods for large-scale problems in both static and dynamic contexts. This paper proposes an efficient gradient estimation method called Iterative Backpropagation (IB) for network optimization problems with an embedded static TA model. IB exploits the iterative structure of the TA solution procedure and simultaneously calculates the gradients while the TA process converges. IB does not require any additional function evaluation and consequently scales very well with higher dimensions. We apply the proposed approach to origin-destination (OD) estimation, an MPEC problem, of the Hong Kong multimodal network with 49,806 decision variables, 8,797 nodes, 18,207 links, 2,684 transit routes, and 165,509 OD pairs. The calibrated model performs well in matching the link counts. Specifically, the IB-gradient based optimization technique reduces the link volume squared error by 98%, mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) from 95.29% to 21.23%, and the average GEH statistics from 24.18 to 6.09 compared with the noncalibrated case. The framework, even though applied to OD estimation in this paper, is applicable to a wide variety of optimization problems with an embedded TA model, opening up an efficient way to solve large-scale MPEC or bilevel problems. Funding: The study is supported by IVADO Postdoctoral Fellowship scheme 2021, HSBC 150th Anniversary Charity Programme HKBF17RG01, National Science Foundation of China (71890970, 71890974), General Research Fund (16212819, 16207920) of the HKSAR Government, and the Hong Kong PhD Fellowship.