Video enforcement for HOV lanes: field test results for the I-30 HOV lane in Dallas.

Texas Department of Transportation, Austin

Optimal detector locations for HOV lane operations.

Texas Department of Transportation, Austin

High occupancy vehicle (HOV) lane marketing manual : final report /

"DOT-T-95-04."

The effect of motorcycle travel on the safety and operations of HOV facilities in Virginia. Final report.

Federal Highway Administration, Washington, D.C.

A Travel Optimization System for Academic Environments

Carpooling initiated in America in the 1970s due to the oil crisis. However, over the past years, carpooling has increased significantly across the world. Some countries have created a High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lane to encourage commuters not to travel alone. In additional, carpool websites has been developed to facilitate the connection between the commuters, making it possible to create a compatible match in a faster and efficient manner. This project focuses on carpooling, especially in an academic environment since younger people are more likely to choose carpool. Initially, an intense research was made to examine carpool studies that occurred all over the world, following with a research of higher education institutes that use carpooling as a transportation mode. Most websites created carpools by targeting people from a specific country. These commuters have different origins and destinations making it more complicated to create compatible matches. The objective of this project is to develop a system helping teachers and students from an academic environment to create carpool matches. This objective makes it easier to create carpools because these students and teachers have the same destination. During the research, it was essential to explore, as many as possible, existing carpool websites that are available across the world. After this analysis, several sketches were made to develop the layout and structure of the web application that’s being implemented throughout the project. Once the layout was established, the development of the web application was initiated. This project had its ups and downs but it accomplished all the necessary requirements. This project can be accessed on the link: http://ipcacarpool.somee.com. Once the website was up and running, a web-based survey was developed to study the reasons that motivate people to consider carpooling as an alternative to driving alone. To develop this survey was used a tool called Survey Planet. This survey contained 408 respondents, which 391 are students and 17 are teachers. This study concludes that a majority of the respondents don’t carpool, however they will consider carpooling if there was a dedicated parking space. A majority of the respondents that carpool initiated less than a year ago, indicating that this mean of transportation is recent.

An earth-system prediction initiative for the twenty-first century

The necessity and benefits for establishing the international Earth-system Prediction Initiative (EPI) are discussed by scientists associated with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) World Weather Research Programme (WWRP), World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), International Geosphere–Biosphere Programme (IGBP), Global Climate Observing System (GCOS), and natural-hazards and socioeconomic communities. The proposed initiative will provide research and services to accelerate advances in weather, climate, and Earth system prediction and the use of this information by global societies. It will build upon the WMO, the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) and the International Council for Science (ICSU) to coordinate the effort across the weather, climate, Earth system, natural-hazards, and socioeconomic disciplines. It will require (i) advanced high-performance computing facilities, supporting a worldwide network of research and operational modeling centers, and early warning systems; (ii) science, technology, and education projects to enhance knowledge, awareness, and utilization of weather, climate, environmental, and socioeconomic information; (iii) investments in maintaining existing and developing new observational capabilities; and (iv) infrastructure to transition achievements into operational products and services.

Production sharing, demand spillovers and CO2 emissions : the case of Chinese regions in GVCs

This study adopts the perspective of demand spillovers to provide new insights regarding Chinese domestic-regions' production position in global value chains and their associated CO2 emissions. To this end, we constructed a new type of World Input-Output Database in which China's domestic interregional input-output table for 2007 is endogenously embedded. Then, the pattern of China's regional demand spillovers across both domestic regions and countries are revealed by employing this new database. These results were further connected to endowments theory, which help to make sense of the empirical results. It is found that China's regions locate relatively upstream in GVCs, and had CO2 emissions in net exports, which were entirely predicted by the environmental extended HOV model. Our study points to micro policy instruments to combat climate change, for example, the tax reform for energy inputs that helps to change the production pattern thus has impact on trade pattern and so forth.

Vízlábnyom: a fenntarthatóság egy új mérőszáma?

Az emberiség egyik létmeghatározó eleme a víz, amit számos formában használhatnak: ivóvízként, elfogyasztott élelmiszertermékeink előállításához, részben a termesztéskor, részben a termékké alakításkor, a közlekedésben, de az egészséges környezet kialakításához is. A víz szűkös erőforrássá válása évtizedek óta téma, azonban ezt csak átfogóan, a felhasznált vízmennyiség egésze és a vízminőség alakulása/alakítása szempontjából vizsgálták, és kisebb hangsúlyt fektettek arra, hogy részleteiben hová is kerül a víz. Ez a téma globálisan is és egy-egy régió fenntarthatóságának is döntő eleme lehet. A kép árnyalásának egyik eszköze lehet a virtuális víz (Allen, 1993) és a vízlábnyom (Hoekstra, 2003) vizsgálata. A tanulmányban részben a két, viszonylag újnak tekinthető fogalom bemutatását tűztük ki célul, valamint annak a kérdésnek a megválaszolását, hogy egy ország gazdasági fejlettsége és vízfelhasználása között milyen összefüggés írható le, hiszen ez a jövőbeli életet jelentősen befolyásolhatja. Nem tehetünk teljesen egyértelmű kijelentéseket a gazdasági fejlettség és a vízlábnyom viszonyának leírására, azonban az empirikusan is alátámasztható véleményünk kialakításához megvizsgáltuk a két mutató közötti kapcsolat lehetséges irányait. Javaslatokat fogalmaztunk meg Magyarországra vonatkozóan abból a szempontból, hogy vízi erőforrásainkat hogyan hasznosíthatnák a jövőben, a fenntarthatósághoz kapcsolódóan. Cikkünkben először az elméleti hátteret mutatjuk be, részben a vízlábnyom és a virtuális víz meghatározásán keresztül, részben annak demonstrálásával, milyen vonatkozásban alkalmazták az eddigiekben ezeket a fogalmakat. A következő részben elemzéseinket tekintjük át, külön az adatokat és külön az eredményeket. Az eredmények értelmezése során arra keressük a választ, mennyire lehet hasznos ez a megközelítés hazánk vagy hazánk egyes régiói számára a fenntarthatóság szempontjából.

A hazai társadalmi-gazdasági mutatók vizsgálata a káoszelmélet eszközével

A hazai társadalmi-gazdasági mutatók múltbeli és jövőben várható viselkedésének vizsgálatára az 1990- es években már alkalmazott káoszelméleti módszertant (Gáspárné Vér–Hideg–Nováky [1995]) hívták segítségül a szerzők. A tanulmányban ennek személyi számítógépre kidolgozott változatát mutatják be, majd a kiválasztott makromutatók segítségével írják le, hogy milyen pályákon haladt hazánk társadalma és gazdasága, valamint hová tarthat a jövőben. A jelenlegi és a 20 évvel ezelőtti időszak (amikor az elmúlt két évtized még a jövőt jelentette) vizsgálati eredményeit összehasonlítva arra a következtetésre jutottak, hogy a legtöbb mutató kaotikussága csökkent, vagyis a társadalmigazdasági folyamatok általában stabilizálódtak az elmúlt két évtizedben.

TRAFFIC IMPACT ANALYSIS OF SEVERAL DYNAMIC LANE MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES FOR CONGESTION MITIGATION BASED ON DTA MODEL

Persistent daily congestion has been increasing in recent years, particularly along major corridors during selected periods in the mornings and evenings. On certain segments, these roadways are often at or near capacity. However, a conventional Predefined control strategy did not fit the demands that changed over time, making it necessary to implement the various dynamical lane management strategies discussed in this thesis. Those strategies include hard shoulder running, reversible HOV lanes, dynamic tolls and variable speed limit. A mesoscopic agent-based DTA model is used to simulate different strategies and scenarios. From the analyses, all strategies aim to mitigate congestion in terms of the average speed and average density. The largest improvement can be found in hard shoulder running and reversible HOV lanes while the other two provide more stable traffic. In terms of average speed and travel time, hard shoulder running is the most congested strategy for I-270 to help relieve the traffic pressure.

Analys av NIR hårdvaruuppsättning samt metod för fotografering av individer i fordon

Abstract Purpose – To study the possibility of using a NIR hardware solution to photograph individuals in a private vehicle as well as an analysis of its images. Method – A study of existing theories around the NIR-method’s performance in selected conditions and individual tests were performed to examine if the literature statements were valid for this study. Two empirical tests have been carried out, the first was carried out at Kapsch test track and the other outside the test track in a single stationary test. An interview which formed the basis for the assessment on the quality of empirical data with a focus on computer-based detection of the number of individuals in the vehicle. Findings – The results have demonstrated the potential of the NIR method’s performance in a fully automated detection system for the number of individuals inside the vehicle. Empirical data indicates that the method can depict individuals inside vehicles of sufficiently high quality, but it is greatly affected by reflections, weather and light conditions. Implications – Result supports the assumption that the NIR method using an external light source can be used to image the interior through a varying number of weather and lightning conditions. The study originated until the results suggested that a NIR-based hardware setup can create images with high enough quality for the human eye to be able to detect the number of individuals inside the vehicle.If the overall performance into account, it suggests that the main problem with the use of the hardware set is to maintain the quality of the whole sample and that the crucial variables for the method’s performance is the influence of light and reflection conditions. Limitations – The major limitations have been that we limited ourselves to a subjective analysis of the selection and assessment on the image features for computer-based detection of the number of individuals in the vehicle. We were limited to two tests, one in tough conditions where only the driver was in the vehicle and the second stationary test, where the focus was on the number of people in vehicles and light sources impact on the result.