| 1. |
- Ait Ali, Abderrahman, et al.
(författare)
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Evaluating the mix of maintenance activities on railway crossings with respect to life-cycle costs
- 2024
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Ingår i: European Journal of Transport and Infrastructure Research. - : TU Delft OPEN Publishing. - 1567-7141 .- 1567-7133. ; 24:1, s. 1-29
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Switches & crossings (S&Cs) are vital assets as they allow for increased railway capacity by introducing flexibility and connectivity in railway networks. At the same time, this makes them critical since they can cause costly delays and disruptions if they are not well maintained. This motivates studies to improve maintenance strategies of S&Cs, considering both the life-cycle costs (LCCs) of the assets and socio-economic transportation costs for passengers and freight customers. In this paper, the interdependence between deterioration mechanisms, maintenance activities, and expected LCC (including transportation costs) for the crossing panel – an S&C subsystem – is investigated using a combination of mechanical and econometric modelling. The interrelation between the degradation of contact geometry and track settlement is analysed using simulations of dynamic vehicle– turnout interaction. Long-term mechanical degradation of the crossing panel is simulated for different maintenance strategies that correspond to different timing of the associated maintenance measures (crossing repair welding and tamping). This provides the basis for analysing the interdependence between preventive and corrective activities using econometric modelling. Based on a case study of a common type of S&Cs in the Swedish infrastructure, the impact of different maintenance strategies on LCC and transportation costs is analysed. Opportunities and challenges in the development of more economically effective maintenance strategies of S&Cs are discussed.
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| 2. |
- Al Haji, Ghazwan, 1970-, et al.
(författare)
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Smart traffic calming measures for smart cities : a pre-study
- 2018
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Traffic calming measures, such as speed bumps and elevated crossing points, are used to reduce speed, to prevent overtaking and generally contribute to a safer traffic situation. However, they might also cause increased response times for rescue vehicles (e.g. ambulances or fire trucks). An alternative to the conventional traffic calming measures is so-called smart traffic calming measures. These can determine when a vehicle approaches, whose journey should not be hindered, and adjust to allow for free passage for this vehicle.This report gives an overview of the problem, and some examples of smart traffic calming measures are discussed. Special focus is put on the wireless communication necessary to detect emergency vehicles. Furthermore, existing challenges and possible solutions for traffic calming measures and the communication needed to make them smart are discussed.
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| 3. |
- Bernhardsson, Viktor, 1989-, et al.
(författare)
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Effektiva omkörningsfält på 2+1-vägar : trafiksimuleringar av olika utformningsalternativ ur ett framkomlighetsperspektiv
- 2017
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Framkomligheten på mötesseparerade vägar med växelvis omkörningsfält (så kallade 2+1-vägar) beror på hur stor del av vägens sträckning som har omkörningsfält, vilket brukar benämnas som andelen omkörbar längd. För att utnyttja vägen på ett effektivt sätt bör utformningen och lokaliseringen av omkörningsfälten upprättas för att i största möjliga mån undvika onödig köbildning och fördröjning. Olika utformningsalternativ för omkörningsfälten har olika fördelar. Kortare omkörningsfält innebär begränsade tidsfönster för köavveckling, men medför samtidigt snabba upprepningar av omkörningstillfällen. Längre omkörningssträckor innebär bättre möjlighet till omkörning av flera fordon vid ett och samma tillfälle, men medför samtidigt ökade enfältslängder vilket ökar risken för upphinnanden.Denna rapport presenterar en trafiksimuleringsstudie av hur olika längder för omkörningsfälten påverkar framkomligheten. Resultaten från simuleringsstudien indikerar att omkörningsfält med längder mellan 1 050 och 1 400 meter innebär kortast restid. Skillnaderna är dock små (~0,4 sekunder per kilometer) och dessutom inte statistiskt signifikanta. Nyttan med att utforma 2+1-vägar med optimala längder för omkörningsfälten för att maximera framkomlighet kan således ifrågasättas. Baserat på resultaten är det dock rimligt att ifrågasätta konceptet med att bygga mycket långa omkörningsfält (som den nuvarande rekommendationen i Trafikverkets riktlinjer för vägars- och gators utformning (VGU) till viss del antyder). Det är tydligt att risken för upphinnanden på enfältssträckorna är mycket stora, vilket påverkar den totala restiden.
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| 4. |
- Carlsson, Arne, et al.
(författare)
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Metod för beräkning av fördröjningar på vägavsnitt utan omkörningsmöjlighet
- 2013
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Detta VTI notat presenterar en beräkningsmetod för beräkning av förväntad kölängd och restidsfördröjning för enfältiga vägavsnitt utan omkörningsmöjligheter. Metoden utvecklades 2001 och presenterades i ett PM. Bakgrunden till modellutvecklingen var att dåvarande Vägverket (nu Trafikverket) planerade att införa så kallade 1+1-vägar, det vill säga, vägar med längre delsträckor utan omkörningsmöjlighet. Den utvecklade beräkningsmetoden har sedermera visat sig värdefull även vid framkomlighetsberäkningar för 2+1-vägar med varierande andel tvåfältsavsnitt och har använts vid framtagning av hastighetsflödessamband till Trafikverkets ”Effektsamband för vägtransportsystemet”. Metoden använder avsnittslängd, trafikflöde samt medelhastighet och standardavvikelse som indata. Metoden är uppdelad på beräkning av effekter på grund av enstaka långsamtgående fordon samt effekter vid ”normal” hastighetsfördelning. Då mätdata saknades vid modellutvecklingen jämfördes metoden med simuleringskörningar med den mikroskopiska trafiksimuleringsmodellen AIMSUN. Resultaten visar på en relativt god korrelation men generellt så ger den analytiska metoden cirka 1,2 procent lägre restidsfördröjning. En stor del av skillnaden mellan modellerna vid måttliga flöden bör kunna härledas till det stokastiska inslaget i simuleringen. Det bör även påpekas att varken den analytiska modellen eller trafiksimuleringsmodellen har kalibrerats och validerats mot verkliga data för denna typ av väg. Skillnaden mellan modellerna innebär således inte att den analytiska modellen självklart är den som avviker från verkligheten.
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| 5. |
- Feiz, Roozbeh, 1975-, et al.
(författare)
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Key factors for site-selection of biogas plants in Sweden
- 2022
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Ingår i: Journal of Cleaner Production. - Amsterdam, Netherlands : Elsevier. - 0959-6526 .- 1879-1786. ; 354
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Biogas production through anaerobic digestion is an integral part of the transition toward a biobased and circular economy and its expansion is foreseen in many parts of the world as well as in Europe. In Sweden, a governmental inquiry suggested biogas production to be increased from about 2 TWh today to 7 TWh by 2030. This rapid expansion would require installation of several new biogas plants across the country. However, the location of biogas plants can greatly affect its business performance and there are several geographic and socio-political factors that would limit the choice of location. Through dialogue with existing biogas producing companies and a few other related actors, we identified 12 factors that are commonly considered in the site-selection of biogas plants in Sweden or are considered to be important in the years to come. These factors are grouped into those related to supply and demand (feedstock supply, biogas demand, digestate demand, and carbon dioxide demand), infrastructure and synergies (available infrastructure, adjacent existing industries), land-use and zoning (nearby housing, zoning, and historic preservation sites), and socio-political context (political strategies and goals, organizational capability, and local social acceptance). We discuss how these factors can be used under rapidly transforming conditions in Sweden through different site-selection logics and highlight the importance of spatially explicit analysis for individual or coordinated decision making in future. Our method of enquiry and analysis, and to a certain degree the factors, can be also relevant for other countries, particularly in Europe. This study paves the way for more in-depth investigation of the question of site-selection of biogas plants in Sweden; both in the direction of detailed analysis at the local level, or screening analysis on the regional or national level for improved coordinated actions.
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| 6. |
- Grumert, Ellen, 1983-, et al.
(författare)
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Bottleneck mitigation through a variable speed limit system using connected vehicles
- 2020
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Ingår i: Transportmetrica A. - : Taylor and Francis Ltd.. - 2324-9935 .- 2324-9943. ; 16:2, s. 213-233
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Variable speed limit (VSL) systems are used to improve the traffic conditions by adjusting the speed limits based on the current traffic situation. Advances in vehicle technology have made it possible to use connected vehicles in VSL systems. Connected vehicles can continuously transmit information about their speed and location, which can be used to estimate the current traffic conditions at arbitrary locations. In this study, we propose a VSL system based on connected vehicles. The aim is to also allow application of VSLs for non-recurrent bottleneck mitigation at arbitrary locations, unlike today's systems which require densely placed detectors or are limited to beforehand known bottleneck locations. The proposed system is evaluated by microscopic traffic simulation. The results indicate that the VSL system manage to improve traffic efficiency in a simulated incident scenario.
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| 7. |
- Gundlegård, David, et al.
(författare)
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Clustering in Before-After Studies of ITS Measures
- 2024
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Ingår i: 2023 IEEE 26th International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSC). - : IEEE. - 9798350399462 - 9798350399479 ; , s. 2671-2676
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Intelligent Transport System (ITS) measures are becoming more and more common on urban motorways. Different methods can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the ITS measure, for example traffic simulation, cost-benefit analysis and before-after studies. A fundamental part of a before-after study is the choice of days for comparison of the before and after periods. Many previous before-after studies of ITS measures are based on simple methods for choosing comparable days, similar to the benchmark method used in this paper. For the chosen case study, a modified Variable Speed Limit (VSL) control strategy, we have used clustering to 1) quickly find similar days for evaluation, 2) identify type days with different characteristics and 3) identify deviating days that are non-representative for the before-after study. From the case study, it is clear that the choice of the days for evaluation are important and can generate different inference, and the clustering method provides promising results compared to the benchmark.
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| 8. |
- Hughes, Brett P., et al.
(författare)
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The relevance of U.S. Strategic Highway Safety Plans in a future context
- 2019
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Ingår i: PLOS ONE. - San Francisco, CA, United States : Public Library of Science. - 1932-6203. ; 14:10
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- While road safety in the United States (U.S.) has been continually improving since the 1970's, there are indications that these improvements are becoming increasingly difficult to sustain. Strategic Highway Safety Plans (SHSPs) are prepared by States to guide road safety management, however assessing the appropriateness of these plans remains a significant challenge, especially for the future in which they are to be applied. This study developed a new methodology to assess SHSPs from the perspectives of comprehensive system-based safety management and relevant future issues that can be applied before SHSPs are implemented, thereby avoiding long periods after implementation before assessing the appropriateness of the plans. A rating scale was developed and applied to assess 48 U.S. SHSPs against two key criteria: 1. a comprehensive framework for road safety, and 2. the anticipated changing, difficult and unpredictable nature of future transport and its context. The analysis concluded that current SHSPs have good national oversight with several strengths but were weak in some areas of content and did not address future challenges. Improvements are suggested to strengthen the plans' thoroughness by being consistent with systems theory and practice, as well as ways that these SHSPs can be more resilient to future circumstances. Implementing the recommendations in this paper provides the opportunity to adopt a system-based safety management practice that has been successful in other hazardous industries. Doing so is expected to most efficiently and effectively continue the recent improvements to road safety, which is likely to be increasingly difficult otherwise.
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| 9. |
- Johansson, Fredrik, 1983-
(författare)
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Microscopic Simulation of Pedestrian Traffic
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- There has recently been a renewed interest in planning for pedestrian traffic, primarily in connection to public transport interchange stations, since these are important for public transport to constitute an attractive alternative to car usage. This thesis concerns microscopic simulation of pedestrian traffic, which is a promising tool for analyzing and predicting the traffic situation in a given pedestrian facility; particularly powerful when the traffic is congested. Important applications of microscopic simulation include comparison of possible infrastructure designs such as proposed interchange stations, and evaluations of various traffic management solutions, for example information systems.The purpose of this thesis is to advance the capabilities of pedestrian microsimulation toward a level at which it can be reliably applied for quantitative analysis by practitioners in the field. The work is based on an established microscopic model of pedestrian dynamics, the Social Force Model (sfm), and the advances are made in a number of different areas.To be able to evaluate and compare simulated traffic situations suitable performance measures are needed. A set of local performance measures are proposed that quantifies the local delay rate density and estimates the discomfort perceived by the pedestrians.The sfm is extended to include waiting pedestrians through the introduction of a waiting model, demonstrated to be stable and free from oscillations. The inclusion of waiting pedestrians in the model is critical for accurate modelling of public transport interchange stations, where large groups of waiting pedestrians may hinder passing pedestrians if the design of the station is poor.The relaxation time of the adaptation to the preferred velocity is an important parameter in force based models of pedestrian traffic since it affects several behaviors of the simulated pedestrians, two of which are linear acceleration and turning movements. A comparison of observations of accelerating pedestrians reported in the literature and new observations of turning pedestrians indicates that no value of the relaxation time can give model behavior consistent with both sets of observations. This indicates that modifications of the model is needed to accurately reproduce the observed behavior.An important input to simulations is the preferred speed of the simulated pedestrians. The common assumption that the preferred speed distribution at a location does not vary during the day is tested through observations of pedestrian traffic at Stockholm Central Station. The results demonstrate that the preferred speeds are lower in the afternoon than in the morning, implying that the preferred speed should be treated as a source of uncertainty when applying pedestrian microsimulation.Finally, a sensitivity analysis of a simulation of the lower hall of Stockholm Central Station is performed to find the most important sources of uncertainty in the model predictions, given the available data. The results indicate that the uncertainty related to calibration is the largest of the considered potential error sources.
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| 10. |
- Jägerbrand, Annika K., et al.
(författare)
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Speed reduction effects over distance of animal-vehicle collision countermeasures – a driving simulator study
- 2018
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Ingår i: European Transport Research Review. - : Springer Publishing Company. - 1867-0717 .- 1866-8887. ; 10:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Purpose: This study examined if speed reduction effects from animal-vehicle collision (AVC) countermeasures are merely local or do extend to a wider area, and what implications the results have on road planning practice regarding AVCs.Methods: Twenty-five drivers drove repeatedly on a 9-km long road stretch in a high-fidelity driving simulator. The development of vehicle speed in the surrounding of an automatic speed camera, a wildlife warning sign and a radio message, were investigated in a full factorial within-subject experiment. The factors wildlife fence (with/without) and forest (dense/open landscape) were also included.Results: The radio warning message had the largest influence on vehicle speed with a speed reduction of 8 km/h that lasted beyond 1 km and 2 km after the implementation. Eighty-eight per cent of the drivers reported being made extra aware of AVC due to the radio message, which was also associated with stress, insecurity and unsafety. The warning sign reduced vehicle speed by 1.5 km/h, but speed reductions were not significantly reduced 1 km after the implementation. Only 8 % of the drivers felt insecure/unsafe after passing the wildlife warning sign, explaining its limited impact on speed. There were no main effects of the automatic speed camera on vehicle speed at longer distances after implementation.Conclusions: We recommend that AVC countermeasures should be of various design, occur at various segments along the road, and preferably be adaptive and geo-localized to minimize habituation effects on drivers.
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