Bridging the East and West: Theories and Practices of Transportation in the Asia Pacific

From the point of view of revenue management, a bi-level optimization model is proposed to determine the seat allocation and discriminatory pricing for high speed rail. The relation between ticket prices and quantities can be represented using demand functions. Stochastic passenger demands and demand functions of high speed rail are integrated into this model. The objective is to maximize the expected total revenue. Discriminatory pricing principles and seat capacity constraints are considered simultaneously. For different market segments, discriminative ticket prices are determined in accordance with the given seat amount. The upper-level model is formulated as a nonlinear mathematical program. The lower-level model is formulated as a two-stage stochastic programming model.

Since 1980, citizens have a negative impression on bus system in Taichung city. The local government introduced strategies to improve the service quality of bus system. The bus reform starting from 2000 have successfully increased the bus ridership from 0.4 million per month in 2000 to 10 million per month in 2014. The successful bus reform in Taichung City is a great example for other similar cities. Although the use rate the ridership of urban bus are remarkably, 80 percent routes belongs to the deficit routes. Huge deficit of bus routes would give a great financial pressure for government. The object of research aims at build up a structural analysis on improvement of deficit bus routes and propose a new improvement method in order to reduce the serious deficit. Thus, using the smart card data to find out the worst routes and giving a revised direction is fundamental. The improved routes and service status can effectively decrease the subsidies required and provide more acceptable bus service.

Local governments in Taiwan and the Ministry of Transportation and Communication actively plan new bus routes to fill the gap of transit services with the aim to increase the public transportation’s market sharing rate. The Institute of Transportation have used transit big data to develop the “Transit Service Assessment System (TSAS)” which is used to assist government’s evaluation on the performance of transit routes. The objective of this paper is applying TSAS, big data and transit demands data to develop a methodology for planning and designing a cost and service efficient transit network. In this paper, a new bus route generating model is proposed by integrating an existing bus network with real demand data from Hsinchu County. The result of this paper shows that the proposed methodology can increase 12.38% of the service rate and decrease 7.52% costs.

It is widely believed that a successful TOD design could provide many benefits to sustainable transportation, such as the reduction of automobile trips and greenhouse gas emissions, creation of a sense of community and place, transformation to a more reasonable and comprehensive land use, and so on. However, planners and politicians are still often confused about whether it could and how practically to gain these so-called benefits, namely how to build a successful TOD. Many researchers answer the questions by investigating the impacts and changes of TOD on transport, economic growth or social development with little attention to user feedback. Nevertheless, the conclusions on the answers are still mixed. In particular, findings from a non-Western context are remaining scarce. This study aims to shed light on this. It applies a new approach which addresses TOD users’ subjective evaluation of the facilities and services in TOD area. The gaps between the designed TOD services and users’ actual demands for services in TOD area are investigated especially. The study uses three subway stations in Shanghai as cases. Deep interviews have been conducted with both subway passengers and the residents who live close to the TOD areas. The results of the analysis show that TOD contributes to public transport and land development. However, there are still gaps between the government-led TOD design and users’ actual demand. There are social variations in users’ subjective evaluation of TOD in terms of their income and social status.

In order to develop real-time intersection gridlock indicators, multi-dimension traffic data are analyzed by Fisher discrimination and conditional logistic regression. The discrimination function IGRI is presented to indicate the probability of intersection gridlock occurrence in this paper. For the case intersection in Chongqing, the accuracy of indication is 62.75%. This method conduces to warn the gridlock occurrence for the intersection with constant signal control and geometric conditions in a time period.

Emerging vehicle technologies foreshadow a world in which sensors and software will replace humans in the driver’s seat. Connected and autonomous vehicle technologies are no longer a question of “if” but rather of “how” implementation will impact future transportation. This paper explores the safety and operational impacts of connected and autonomous vehicles on future transportation. Safety impacts include enhanced awareness of surroundings, driving assistance, crash avoidance, and reduced human error. Operational impacts include reduced traffic congestion, improved mobility, optimized freight flow and traffic control, etc. The paper also describes the potential challenges and concerns related to system imperfection, cyber security, insurance, mixed traffic flow, and consumer perception. Furthermore, the paper discusses how these advances of technologies will impact the infrastructure of transportation systems and the transportation engineers and professionals that operate and manage them. It offers great insights into the impact of connected and autonomous vehicles on future transportation.

Infill development, which refers to new urban development on land blocks within the built-up area, has been advised and adopted as a policy tool to stop urban sprawl and to promote more sustainable travel patterns. This study compares travel patterns and attitudes of residents from three new infill neighborhoods in England’s Tyne and Wear metropolitan area, using results from questionnaire surveys carried out in the summer of 2015. The results show that residents’ travel behaviors differ in three neighborhoods, which have different levels of job opportunities, public transport services, walkability and other amenities. Their travel patterns have also changed a lot, comparing with before moving to the new neighborhoods. The results support the residential self-selection concept. However, it’s still necessary to build new neighborhoods which can make it easier for people to travel in their preferable ways, especially for the young people who are not so tied to private cars as their parents’ generations.

Intercity rail distinguishes itself from highway and conventional rail in terms of daily communication between different cities and the adoption of public transport operation mode. Based on the classification of urban agglomeration, the intercity rail network morphologies fall into four categories: growth pole network, polycentric network, dynamic network, and balanced network. These types are supported by typical cases of interactions between urban agglomeration and intercity rail network in the past few decades. The experience of the cases is conducive to provide reference for mutual promotion between intercity rail construction and spatial development in developing and potential urban agglomeration areas.

This paper aims to assess driver behaviors at signalized intersections with four identified pedestrian features (“Stop Here on Red,” “No Turn on Red,” “Turning Vehicles Yield to Pedestrians,” and “Right on Red Arrow after Stop”) via a pilot study by using an innovative safety data: Strategic Highway Research Program 2 (SHRP2) Naturalistic Driving Study (NDS) data. The major findings from the pilot study include: (1) “No Turn on Red” has the highest rate of compliance (70%), followed by “Right on Red Arrow after Stop” (67%), “Turning Vehicles Yield to Pedestrians” (67%), and “Stop Here on Red” (55%); (2) compared to control group (without pedestrian features), three features (“Stop Here on Red,” “No Turn on Red,” and “Right on Red Arrow after Stop”) increased the likelihood of compliant behaviors; and (3) mid-aged drivers (25-59) showed the highest percentage of compliance at feature sits (83%), followed by older drivers (60+, 69%) and young drivers (16-24, 61%).

For cross-border place-making, developing trustable infrastructures is needed. Intentional or unintentional electromagnetic interferences, blind spots, unmanned aerial vehicles, and failures of sensors are considered in security-information networking prototypes to provide universal-design environments, to well utilize land and ocean resources, and to respond probable climate changes. Infrastructures, including dedicated short range communications (DSRC), probes floating along the seashore, are considered to create integrated profits of fishery, agriculture, leisure sports, tourism, and speedy freight starting from the Hsinchu Nanliao port – the start point of the shortest multi-modal transportation path across the Taiwan Strait, and an element of Taiwan aerotropolis. By proactively secured facilities including advanced ferries, ecological, economical industries’ developments can be expected if the perspectives are strategically, resiliently constructed.

This paper summarized the successful implementation of a new, innovative intelligent transportation system (ITS) technologies to achieve the “seamless shift” from the original “time-based charge” to “mileage-based charge” has already reached its soaring popularity in such a short period starting in 2014. The recently completed “Open Road” ETC system and operational issues were carefully reviewed, including the updated AVI/TOLL technologies, potential operational enhancements, and alternative design upgrades, for effective electronic toll collection (ETC) and electronic toll and traffic management (ETTM). This successful transition into “Open-Road” electronic toll collection (ETC) operation can not be made possible without the well-established planning, thoughtful system design, hardware/software integration, innovative marketing strategies, and collaborated public/private partnerships.

Public transportation has traditionally been designed to cater for the able-body passengers. This is understandable on cost, safety and efficiency considerations. However, with the increased awareness of right of the individuals, consideration needs to be given to the needs of the disadvantaged segment of the community. There has been a shift in many societies to ensure equal opportunities for all persons, irrespective of their own physical handicap, to employment, to leading a normal life and to access public facilities. This awareness is a sign of development – it reflects on a society which shows positive signs of acceptance, tolerance and affordability. In recent years, the concerted efforts of the community, the special interest groups pertaining to each form of physical disability, developments, and public transportation operators, have worked to make the community more accessible, even to those who are disadvantaged. The idea of being disadvantaged extends to other groups in the society that need help. Besides permanent physical disability (in terms of mobility, visual or hearing), the following groups of people would also need support in terms of mobility – young children, old and weak people, pregnant women, sick persons, injured persons such as those in clutches, or people carrying large pieces of luggage. In other words, we are all vulnerable at some stage of our lives. By helping the disadvantaged people, we are also helping ourselves. This paper examines the efforts made by all concerned parties to make Hong Kong a more hospitable place for those who are impaired one way or the other.

In current design practice, it is not clearly defined whether a “U” shape soil-retaining wall shall be designed for active or at-rest earth pressures. To resolve this issue, a study is initiated to better understand the earth pressure behind the “U” shape retaining wall system and investigate the structure stiffness effect on the earth pressure behind the wall. In the study, a series of soil-retaining structure interactive finite element models is created for both static and dynamic analyses. Unlike most of the soil-structure interactive finite element models used in many published investigations which assumed soil as a uniform continuous material, the models in this study use nonlinear boundary link elements along the possible soil failure surfaces to separate the soil into micro layers in order to catch soil discrete properties. Considering different retaining structure’s stiffness and boundary conditions, a series of static and dynamic (nonlinear time-history seismic) analyses are performed. This paper present details of finite element models, analysis results, summary and conclusions.

As a result of enhanced safety measures in both highway and vehicle features, the number of highway crashes in the U.S. has been continuously decreasing in the past ten years in spite of the increasing vehicle miles traveled (VMT). However, the records showed that the fatal crashes at the roadway intersections have not decreased. A sstudy was conducted to analyze the nighttime crashes at the roadway intersections in Indiana. This paper describes the methods utilized in the intersection crash analysis and presents the findings in terms of the effects of intersection lightings on travel safety. Two methods, the before-and-after method and the cross-sectional method, were applied to analyze the intersection crashes. The before-and-after method was used to analyze the crash patterns at the selected intersections with recorded crashes a few years before and after the lighting conditions changed. The cross-sectional method was used to examine the lighting effects with less detailed crash data of large number of intersections. This paper presents analysis process with the two methods and discuss the effects of intersection lighting on nighttime traffic safety.

In-situ rehabilitation (ISR) by using chemical stabilization is a proven approach in strengthening overall performances and durability of pavements, which is remarkably green and sustainable. Semi-rigid pavement (SRP) as a wearing course can significantly improve surface performances and lifespan of pavements under heavy wear/tear conditions and chemically attacks. This paper introduces both ISR and SRP methods with their performances and advantages. To rehabilitate existing materials including soils, stones and solid wastes can quickly form a “floating semi-rigid platform” as a new or repaired pavement over soft grounds. Meantime comparisons among rigid pavement, flexible pavement and SRP were discussed with a conclusion that SRP can fully combine advantages of both rigid and flexible pavements. Several pavement quick repairing/strengthening patterns based on 20 years successful applications and different applied thicknesses of SRP drawn from 10 years satisfactory installations were summarized and recommended.

Maputo Bridge will be built between KaTembe and Maputo, Mozambique. To determine the ultimate bearing capacity of pile and friction resistance of different soil layers, a pile is conducted in the field by the method of o-cell test. The length of the pile is 55m, diameter 1.50m. The load cell is placed at 5 meter above the bottom of the pile. The bearing layer is clay siltstone. Strain gages are embedded at the different positions of the test pile to obtain the axial force of different cross section position. According to the field test, it results in an impossibly large computed load by assuming a constant pile stiffness. The pile axial forces of different load grades will confront with reasonable discipline in terms of nonlinear stiffness. The pile stiffness changes with different load grades, and that stiffness is a function of strain. When reaching a certain load level, the pile stiffness changes little and could be regarded as constant. Then the o-cell test result is converted to conventional pile head load-displacement. It shows that the pile ultimate bearing capacity of o-cell test is satisfied with design requirements, and the proposed nonlinear stiffness is reasonable in reality.

Yueqing Bay Bridge test pile program is located in Zhejiang Province, China. To improve the bearing capacity and decrease the settlement of the pile, a pile is conducted in the filed by the method of tip pressure grouting. The analyzed drilled shaft has a diameter of 2.0 m and a length of 88 m. The post grouted pile compared to non-grouted pile are believed to be related to the side friction reinforcing effect, which is due to the grout penetration upward along the sides of the pile. It is also related to an enlarge tip area due to the formation of grout bulb, which pre-compresses the soil under the pile tip, and results in tip resistance and stiffness improvements of piles due to tip pressure grouting. This paper investigates the contribution of these factors based on load transfer function method analyses applied to a case history. The bearing capacity of post grouted pile is analyzed by single factor, which shows that the single factor is not sufficient to predict the load settlement curve of post grouted pile. Considering the combined influence of these three factors, the prediction of the load settlement curve is consistent with the measured curve. The results indicate that the effect factor of post grouted pile is improved by these three factors.

Pervious pavements are generally weak in material strength and can be easily clogged. Thus, they were only used in sidewalks, squares, and parking lots, but not for vehicular loads. An innovative eco-technology recently developed in Taiwan uses air-circulated aqueduct frames and impervious Portland cement concrete on top of an aggregate (crushed stone or gravel base) layer to form a structured permeable concrete pavement (called JW eco-technology pavement) can alleviate such problems. The main features include: (1) the aggregate layer may serve as a detention reservoir to increase flood control capabilities; (2) the stored water may lower pavement surface temperature in summer and help to reduce heat island effects; (3) this eco-technology can prevent water accumulation on pavement surface to improve pedestrian and driving safety; and (4) enriching the ecological system. Through proper designs, the structured JW pavement can possess adequate load bearing capacities as conventional concrete pavements do.

Taipei urban road project has been converted the new conservation-based into the maintenance-based. After completed the road smooth project, the road maintenance authority should face the primary issue is “How to improve the performance of the road maintenance and ensures the implementation of the road smooth project”. Therefore, this study focuses on the characteristics of urban roads to reconstruct urban road maintenance management model. It uses the routine road inspection system to obtain the actual pavement performance indicators (PCI and IRI). Then, it utilizes the self-build maintenance management information platform to control the overall pavement maintenance tasks. Finally, it uses the best of theory and decision tree to evaluate the first priority section of roads to maintain, and the assessment results can provide decision-makers as a maintenance strategy selection and the reference of budgeting.

Noise may cause adverse effects on human health. However, there is less attention paid to the quantification of traffic on in-vehicle noise for drivers as well as for passengers. This paper identified a neural network model to characterize the in-vehicle sound level along roadway segments from pavement roughness and vehicle activity information. An on-road test was conducted along a roadway in El Paso, Texas, United States, resulting 22,267 data pairs. The identified neural network was with one hidden layer of eight neurons, which weights were calibrated from part of the data pairs, while the rests were for testing. The resulted root mean squared error was 1.58 dB, the predicted and measured in-vehicle sound levels were highly correlated (R = 0.95), and the autocorrelation of prediction errors was very close to 0.0. The estimation error in exposure rate for hazardous sound levels (greater than 85 dB) was only 3.33%.

The concentrated fixed mode is installed in abundant traffic signal lights in special-shaped traffic intersections in the old-city of the distance area in China. But the directions of these lights can’t be adjusted, one light surface at least can only shows the narrow projective plane which can’t be efficiently identified by drivers and even can trigger easily traffic accidents. For solve this question effectively, a steering equipment of the signal lights be designed with 3D simulation modeling by UG software and reliability analysis of wind power influence by ANSYS and Excel software. This facility has already obtained the national patent (201420338327.5) and applied in some special-shaped traffic intersections.

The traffic signal coordination is an important technic in intelligent transportation system (ITS) for the purposes of mobility, safety, and air quality. The environmental impacts of signal coordination are traditionally based on the analysis of vehicle emissions and noises around the roadway facilities. Less attention has been paid to in-vehicle noises. In this paper, in-vehicle noises were measured along an arterial street in Houston, Texas, United States, in which signalized intersections are equipped with traffic signal coordination. The statistically significant difference in the in-vehicle noise was tested between on the segments with and without a coordinated signal control. Results show that in-vehicle sounds under an uncoordinated control were significantly lower than under a coordinated control by approximately 3.5 dB. Hazardous exposure rate of 70 dB or above under the uncoordinated control was lower than under coordinated control. Drivers as well as passengers are mostly exposed to the in-vehicle noise during a cruise mode.

In recent years, the tourism industry has flourished in Taiwan. Thus, many famous tourist attractions are packed with people on holidays. Nantou is the only inland county in Taiwan. There are many famous tourist attractions such as Sun Moon Lake and Hehuan Mountain. A large influx of tourists in Nantou has led to more than 900 traffic accidents every year. This study analyzes the tourists’ traffic accidents in Nantou County as well as explores spatial and temporal analysis of traffic accidents. In addition, a logit regression is used to construct a model of traffic casualties. The result shows that compared to other areas, there are much more traffic accidents happening on the important access roads to tourist attractions such as Taiwan Provincial Highway14-A. Also, the related analysis results can serve as a reference for improving hardware and software facilities to achieve road safety as well as for strengthening the road safety advocacy.

Despite providing the necessary required signage and pavement markings as per the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD), wrong-way entries onto freeway and limited access facilities continue to occur and lead to wrong-way crashes, which can be severe and even fatal. Yellow rectangular rapid flashing beacons (RRFBs) have been proven to be effective to alert drivers to yield to pedestrians crossing streets; however, the effectiveness of red RRFBs with specific configurations installed at freeway off-ramps on reducing wrong-way driving onto freeway mainlines were unknown. This research investigated various combinations of RRFBs and wrong-way signs and their location placement to determine the RRFB combination most preferred by the motoring public for implementation and to assess their perceived effectiveness via a detailed public opinion survey. Comprehensive analyses were conducted based on 296 participants’ answers to a series of survey questions after their reviews of field videos recorded from a driver’s angle. The survey results showed that a vast majority (69.5%) of survey participants selected the combination of placing “WRONG WAY” signs on both the left and right sides of an interstate off-ramp with red RRFBs activated at the top and bottom as the method that most gets their attention and informs them of wrong-way driving. Additionally, approximately 58% of participants selected the non-dimmed flashing red RRFBs over the dimmed option. This study offers important findings essential for the future determination of using red RRFBs as an optional supplement to the existing standards in MUTCD to reduce wrong-way driving.

The grades of upstream sections may affect the discharge rates of queuing vehicles at signalized intersections. In the 2000 U.S. Highway Capacity Manual (HCM 2000) published by the Transportation Research Board, the grade adjustment factor was used to reflect the effect of grade on intersection capacity. In Chapters 13 and 18 of the 2011 Taiwan HCM, the values suggested in HCM 2000 were used to estimate the capacity of automobile and motorcycle lanes at signalized intersections. To understand the characteristics and related adjustment factors, this study collected field data about urban steep road sections in Taipei and established the regression models to analyze the relationships between the grades and the grade adjustment factors. The results revealed that the approach grade at an intersection has a significant impact on queue discharge rate and that impact is greater than what is indicated in HCM 2000.

In the study, we focus the inspections of deficiencies basing 2000 – 2014 database of Tokyo MOU, and a Q-learning method to check the risk decision-making model. The input data are inspections of deficiencies ratio, current occurrences of deficiencies, and occurrences of deficiencies in the next 5 years, depending on the weight to feedback R value, and execute Q-learning algorithm and Markov chain to correct Q-Table, and the risk of changes of the vessels basing different flag state and classification societies are obtained. The results of study, Port State Control would pay effort on the priority of the vessels in future year, as the ship’s safety status will turn into high-risk in forecasting years. Port State Control would pay effort on the priority of the vessels of the vessels basing different flag state and classification societies to reduce the risk.

Pipeline system is very important to transportation infrastructure. It is vulnerable to earthquake and man-made disasters in Taiwan. Because there is no strictly regulation to the petrochemical pipeline safety outside the industrial area, therefore a part of hazardous material transportation has to pass through some populous areas, such as Kaohsiung City. The consequences of pipeline accident is widely, such as fire, explosion, road and lifelines system destruction, tension in petrochemical industry supply etc. A petrochemical pipeline explosion occurred on July 31, 2014 in Kaohsiung City. Thirty-two people, include 7 policeman and fireman, were killed and 321 people were injured in this accident. It is the most severe public safety pipeline accident in recent years. This paper briefly describes this incident and its causes, lessons learnt from this accident and proposes some improvement issues, which includes pipeline safety regulations, inspection and maintenance of pipeline facility integrity, and enhance pipeline disaster management.

Traditional TSE approaches, based on chronological data including classical before-after studies, mainstream/statistical modelling and/or person judgment based approaches, has a long history. Despite the robustness of this established technique, this has not always been appropriate, as crash statistics are frequently questioned. Poor timeline, ethical issue, biasness and misjudgment also critical issues regarding this. For a more qualified and comprehensive form of safety analysis, there is a need for scientific methods that yield valid and reliable safety measures without the need for (or in addition to) accident data. At the very outset of this process, there is a need to pinpoint the confines of the current practices. This paper presents a critical review of state-of-the-art traditional approaches of TSE. The strengths and application challenges of those approaches which are also assessed based on methodological, as well as empirical grounds. Finally, future directions for traffic safety evaluation practices and researches are outlined.

Due to the numerous time-consumption and costly expenses of constructing public transportation infrastructure, free bus policy had been adopted as a marketing strategy and encouragement to increase the bus ridership in several cities of Taiwan. To examine the effect of free bus strategy, this paper analyzed the before/after behavior change of bus taking frequency first. Then, the psychological perceptions regarding the sample of motorcyclists whom were provided with a one-month free electronic ticket, concluded a different research finding. The results reveal the significant difference in mode use frequency between self-reported survey data and e-ticket data, and the insignificant effects of free bus ridership to bus use frequency.

Ticket pricing is a main topic of transport economy and also a key issue in public transport management. There are many arguments about the impacts of subway pricing on residents’ travel. This paper aims to examine the existing arguments by looking at Beijing as a case. Beijing municipal government decided to change subway fare from a flat fare of RMB 2 (0.35 USA cents) to a distance-based price system since 28th December, 2014. The paper investigates the impacts of an increase of subway fare on individual people’s travel trips. A before-after approach is applied to compare passengers’ travel characteristics before and after the ticket price changed. The data is from a survey which collected 788 questionnaires at 32 subway stations. The results of analysis show that 9.01% of the respondents reduced their travel frequency of subway. Among these reduced trips, 71.8% are commuting trips and 24% are shopping trips. Apparently, there are obvious social variations in the change of trips in terms of people’s income, ages, housing types and residential location, etc. The increase of subway fare would have effects on social inequity as the quality of living to some disadvantaged people are particularly affected, such as low-income, the young, the elderly, and those who live in suburban renting housing. For the future policy, targeted subsidy policy should be considered in order to promote a more equal and affordable public transport in Beijing.

The driver’s driving performance may affect the operation of transportation system in terms of safety, mobility, and air quality. Particularly, in a complicated traffic situation such as a local community area with multiple school zones and other public activity facilities, driver’s driving performance becomes critical to the safety of road users within the neighborhood. Many studies have demonstrated that driver’s driving performance could be altered by advance warning messages in the forms of either image or sound. With the advent of innovative wireless communication technologies, various smartphone applications have been developed to provide drivers with abundant information, so as to enhance traffic operations. In this paper, the implications of one such smartphone applications were evaluated through an on-road test in a complicated community area in Houston, Texas, United States. This study focused on the measurement of a following vehicle’s driving performance in a local street area. Three scenarios with two different speed limits were designed to explore the impacts of warning messages from the smartphone application and the sensitivity of message settings on driving performance (speed profile, deceleration rates, and braking distance). Results show that, the smartphone messages could improve the following vehicle’s performance by smoothing the speed profiles and deceleration rates, and extending the braking distances to either the leading vehicle or the stop line at an intersection, when the leading vehicle was approaching a stop sign controlled intersection, or slowed down for turning movement.

Significant developments, in the past two decades, in deploying intelligent transportation systems (ITS) by various operating agencies throughout China. This paper describes urgent needs, approaches designed, and up-to-date progress being made to establish the key performance indicators (KPI) to support the performance evaluation as a part of the “China’s Transit Metropolis Demonstration Project.” The concentrated efforts have been supported through both China Ministry of Transport (CN.MOT), China Academy of Transport Science (CATS), and Volvo Research Foundation since 2010. New technologies, such as the ITS applications (smart public transport terminals, ITS APTS technology, bus rapid transit, and alternative energy vehicles, etc.), are being implemented.