The growing global flow of goods, the increasing problem of traffic congestion and the inefficiencies associated with distribution and logistics or the discerning consumers’ high standards for products and delivery services lead to new logistical requirements, for which the model of the ‘Physical Internet’ has emerged as a probable solution. Physical Internet is a novel concept that transforms how physical objects are designed, manufactured and distributed aiming for a radical sustainability improvement. The implementation of the Physical Internet leads to the need to rethink some basic concepts of logistics such as the shift from private supply networks to open supply networks. Therefore, increased collaboration and coordination is necessary. In order to make a productive contribution to the first steps towards the Physical Internet in Austria, this article focuses on the need for horizontal collaborations, which are required to realize the Physical Internet. Moreover, the study explores the views, experiences, beliefs and motivations of transport service providers in Austria in the context of horizontal collaborations and the Physical Internet. A literature research was carried out in a first step. Afterwards interviews with forwarding agencies and logistics service providers were conducted. Findings highlight that barriers such as the fear of antitrust fines or the high administrative input have to be removed to enable close vertical and horizontal collaboration among different logistics companies in Europe, as the vision of the Physical Internet is encouraging a smooth transition from independent supply chains to open global supply networks. The implementation of a Physical Internet in its full expression could probably take decades, but individual elements of it, such as horizontal and vertical cooperation, are a first step towards this vision. Important components of the implementation process are awareness raising and information sharing.

Private transport is associated with conventional cars. Cars pollute, run empty during peak hours, stay idle 95% of the time and are privately owned. Fifteen years from now, the first driverless cars will start hitting the road in large numbers. By then most cars will be electric. If the service-oriented business model takes on momentum, a fleet of unmanned taxis will compete directly with buses and light trains. At that point in time, differences between public and private transport will only be semantic. After all, metro, buses and cars will all be unmanned, electric and managed by a fleet operator. As a consequence, city developers will have problems, justifying subsidies to bus and light vehicle operations. Without these subsidies, buses and light trains will have problems, competing with car transport. Unmanned taxis will cut journey cost by around 60% to 80%. New taxi apps allowing for car sharing will slash cost even further, making unmanned taxi fares unbeatable. Furthermore, driverless taxis will provide better services, picking up and dropping off passengers where they want to rather than stopping at each station. So if unmanned taxis are cheaper and provide better service, what selling arguments are left for buses and light metros? Transport capacity? Not really! In fact, a fleet of unmanned taxis using platooning technology (cars following each other at one-metre distance) and car sharing apps would achieve around 15.000 PPHPD per lane, more than a bus and equal to light train operations.

Humanitarian logistics are recognized as significant issues of natural disaster operations and management. This study considers the vital item distribution network models to relieve the large number of surviving victims under their uncertainty by the reason that the post-disaster undergoes fluctuation of demand and imprecise prediction. The purpose of this study is to handle this demand uncertainty with the facility location model and to compare their sensitivity with the deterministic model. The expected results are to explore the location of facilities and optimize transportation link flows in order to minimize total delivery cost, which includes travel, facility and transhipment costs. We propose three distinct network models based on their hierarchy structures and truck sizes to determine the most efficient model with high robustness for both deterministic demand and uncertainty demand. We determine a single hierarchy and double hierarchies of the facility sites; each hierarchy is then distributed by the distinct truck sizes. The two hierarchies with the large truck’s delivery offered preferable objectives; they are robust when demand becomes uncertain or unknown. We solve the problem by the ellipsoidal uncertainty set, which is a novel approach that has never been fully applied so far to solve the facility location. We also estimate the fundamental resource requirements, including the number of trucks and total working time of drivers. Therefore, this study can help the decision maker to plan for post-disaster distribution network and their systems when demand uncertainty occurs.

The potential of reducing greenhouse gases in transport sector attracted different groups to promote electric vehicles (EVs) as a component of sustainable mobility development. However, studies assert that the usage of EV is currently limited mainly to short-distance trips and the users are only those who have the opportunity of charging their car privately at home or workplaces. This research highlights the lack of public charging stations and tries to develop a demand-oriented location model for finding the optimal location of fast charging stations

(FCSs) from a user’s point of view. In urban areas the users can make use of activity time of their daily routine activities such as supermarket shopping for charging the battery of their EVs. Therefore, the proposed location model focuses on the interaction between people’s travel behaviour and urban infrastructure. First, the potential of a facility for installation of FCS is determined by means of its different attributes such as number of attracted motorized individual trips, opening hours and parking lot availability, activity time of users in different facilities in relation to the charging time and synergy effect of closely allied facilities. In the

second step, the study area is zoned and the calculated potential for facilities is transferred to the relevant zones, considering users’ maximum detour acceptance, catchment area of facilities as well as spatial impact of existing charging stations. The input data, which rely mainly on open source and publically accessible data, are analysed and depicted as different georeferenced layers in the geographical information system (ArcGIS Software). The proposed location model aims to cover the growing demand for public FCS of current EV users as well as one step forward to increase the acceptance of electro mobility among potential users.

Dynamic traffic assignment (DTA) is a commonly used approach for the process of assigning traffic from origin–destination (OD) pairs to actual roadway paths. The amount of computational effort required by the typical DTA application is approximately proportional to the square of the number of OD pairs, so for large networks the level of effort is very large. however, many network questions only involve changing one or a small number of links and therefore do not involve a very large fraction of the whole network. The concept of using a subnetwork to replace a regional network has been often used as a solution to this problem. however, how to define the size of the subnetwork, how large subnetwork is appropriate and how to build a subnetwork have been the questions. This study reviewed the researches which focused on the above questions. Then, based on the literature review, we developed a programme that can automatically build an optimal size of the subnetwork with acceptable error in Visual Interactive System for Transportation algorithms (VISTA), a mesoscopic DTA simulator. This automatic programme makes the process of examining the subnetwork size easy and is expected to have important implications for future research on DTA.

The debate for the need to align spatial planning, transportation planning and environmental management strategically, functionally and operationally in support of modelling is ongoing internationally since the early 2000s. This incorporates the articulation of the planning instruments used by professionals within these functional fields and the way in which it is coordinated and aligned.

With the approval of the Spatial Planning and Land Use Management Act (SPLUMA) (Act 16 of 2013) and the SPLUMA Regulations (23 March 2015) in South Africa, the statutory planning legislation framework applicable during the previous political dispensation was reformed and democratized.

In this article the alignment between policy and legislative frameworks, guidelines and processes to support planning and development in spatial systems will be discussed. The approach presented in this article will serve as a guide in planning within developing countries.

In the literature by spatial accessibility it is meant a measure of spatial equity represented by the ease of travelling from an origin to a destination with a given transport mode. Recent investments in highspeed rail (HSR) systems have brought an increase in accessibility as well as equity issues, which will be discussed in this contribution.

Indeed equity impacts, due to the extension of the HSR network in Italy, are here evaluated through the results of a joint revealed preference/stated preference (RP/SP) survey. In the first part of the questionnaire submitted to Italian travellers, i.e. the RP exercise, socio-economic data about the users together with information concerning their trip have been collected. In the second part of the questionnaire, the SP exercise has been employed. Specifically, nine hypothetical scenarios have been submitted to respondents with the objective of understanding what was the transport mode chosen, within a given context, and to see whether HSR was the preferred alternative (or it was an element of spatial exclusion).

The main policy implications of this study are that investors in HS should take into account not only the economic benefits brought by them, but also the spatial imbalance brought by these systems.

Real-world testing of a set of modern vehicles show that most petrols meet their Euro standards fornitrous oxides (NOx), while most diesel vehicles exceed them. However, that some diesel vehicles met their Euro standards implies exceedances are not peculiar to the fuel. Likewise, the compliance of the tested petrol vehicles with the standard does not mean all petrol vehicles do. Engine maps were synthesized which reproduced trip level emissions to within 10% of that gathered under real-world driving conditions. Average velocity alone, such as what is used in COPERT, is a poor predictor of emissions. Stepwise linear models showed NOx emissions could be predicted accurately by incorporating other metrics, such as maximum deceleration and the variance of velocity over the driving cycle. The models were validated on three driving cycles where all vehicles met their Euro standards, save Euro 6 diesel vehicles on the US highway cycle. COPERT overestimated NOx from all vehicles. More work is required to combine driving cycle metrics with vehicle characteristics, such as mass and peak engine torque, to identify the conditions under which vehicles exceed their Euro limits.

The growth in container volumes over the last decades means an increase in container handling at terminals around the world. Notwithstanding the economic benefits, container handling causes additional pressure on the surrounding infrastructure and the environment. This is happening precisely at a time when environmental issues, in particular CO2 emissions, are the main concern of the energy and climate change debate. Although not specialized in the field of energy consumption, many policymakers and managers need to make decisions about reducing CO2 emission. This paper provides a six-step approach to make energy consumption (and hence CO2 emissions) easily transparent. The approach is illustrated using the energy consumption of yard lighting. It can be concluded that our first attempt to understand the energy consumption of yard lightning gives promising results that can contribute to an improved benchmark for the CEN EN 16258 standard.

Cheap, fast, comfortable and environmental-friendly – people travelling inter- or multimodal can utilize the advantages of different transport modes by selecting or combining those which best meet their specific requirements in terms of trip purposes or travel patterns. However, there are barriers to inter- or multimodal travel behaviour. Mobility cards such as the WienMobil card might be the solution to break some of them. They enable to use several mobility services and modes of transport. The WienMobil card was introduced in spring 2015 and combines an annual PT ticket and access to both – a bike- and carsharing scheme. Additionally cardholders can use it to pay for taxi rides as well as get discounts for certain services like using the airport express train, for charging electric vehicles and for using urban car park facilities. The impacts of the WienMobil card are currently analysed in the project Guide2Wear using a pre-post-control-group approach. It includes a Web survey and two GPS-tracking periods, each covering an entire week. This article describes the first users of the WienMobil card, the so-called lead users with regard to socio-demographics, their mobility behaviour as well as their mobility-related expectations and requirements. The control group consists of annual PT ticket owners. The lead users are younger, more often male and have an above-average education level. Their mobility behaviour can be marked as more multimodal already before they used the WienMobil card. However, differences are even more pronounced in terms of perceived and real mobility behaviour. Considering attitudes towards public transport, there are no clear group differences.

The users of powered two-wheeler (PTW) are facing everywhere in the world a road risk significantly higher than car users, especially in towns. This is particularly the case in France, where the risk of death per kilometre travelled for two-wheeler rider is over 20 times that of motorists. This risk is linked to the intrinsic vulnerability of these road users due to a lack of protection by a coachwork, but it also highlights some accidents configurations that deserve to be analysed in depth to understand their mechanisms and factors, and to set countermeasures. The present paper is based on the results of a previous comparative analysis of accidents involving PTWs occurred in urban and extra-urban areas, to understand in more detail the specific problems generated by urban traffic situations. It aims to deepen the question of the interactions that take place between the driving failures of the protagonists (notably PTW riders and car drivers) involved in urban accidents. 565 accident cases of this type are examined in more detail. The study of these accidents shows a strong interaction between the anticipation failure by the rider and a perception failure by the car driver. The process of this interaction consists in the car drivers being surprised by the presence and/or an unexpected behaviour of the PTW driver; and in return the manoeuvre undertaken by the car driver misleads the expectations of the PTW driver who was sure to have been seen. Solutions to this critical malfunction scenario are thought to be found in training and communication of different road user, and in an urban road network that offers greater visibility and predictability of behaviour.

Public bike systems have grown in popularity and are expanding rapidly across cities worldwide. Such systems provide access to pickup and drop-off public bikes at numerous bike stations for free or for an affordable fee and aim at increasing bike use and extending the accessibility of traditional public transport systems. A variety of studies have examined the characteristics of bike-sharing systems, mostly in American and European cities and with a focus on user demographics. The objective of this study is to investigate the general characteristics of system usage, in terms of system efficiency, trip characteristics and bike activity patterns, for Zhongshan’s public bike system during a five-month period. The findings

show that the system is not very efficient based on usage metrics which are low compared to successful systems in other countries. Demand is relatively high in city centre zones due to high population and activity density. However, there is no clear direction of inbound or outbound trips in rush hours. This may be attributed not only to mixed land use patterns throughout the city, but also to the fact that most trips are local trips over short distance. This could indicate that public bike trips are mainly substitute for walking trips rather than for car or PT trips. On the outskirts, demand and system efficiency are low, indicating that location allocation of stations needs adjustment. In the conclusions, we discuss how these findings can be used for improving the system.

Crash records for a sample of signalized intersections have been analysed to assess the effect of surface treatment. Analysis of crash data (all types and severity levels) for 3–5 years before and after resurfacing year showed a reduction in rate. Effectiveness of treatment in achieving statistically significant reduction in crashes was confirmed by Empirical Bayes (EB) approach. Overall trends of crash frequency before and after treatment against surface condition in terms of roughness, rut depth and skid resistance were also investigated. The results showed that the trend of crash rate correlates positively with roughness and negatively with skid resistance and rut depth. This trend was true for both before and after crash data. Time of day and moisture condition of the surface proved to strongly influence crash frequency with wet surface during night-time being associated with lower frequency than dry surface at daytime.

Recent handsets with touchscreens, as well as more advanced features including multimedia and mobile applications (apps), cause increased cognitive distraction and reduced situation awareness to a greater degree. Recently concerns have been raised about how texting, app use and listening to music affect pedestrian safety. The current research attempts to investigate the effects of phone use (talking, texting and listening to music) on the street-crossing behaviours of pedestrians. A controlled field study using video cameras was conducted. In the study, pedestrian crossing behaviours (e.g. crossing time, sudden stops, looking both ways before crossing, disobeying traffic signals) were recorded/observed. Pedestrians were classified into two groups: experimental group (talking, texting, listening to music) and control group (no phone use). Pedestrians’ inattentional blindness was also examined by evaluating whether they saw an unusual object (i.e. a clown) nearby. The personal attributes and handset characteristics (e.g. unlimited Internet access, screen size and smartphone) were used as independent variables. The results indicate that the proportions of unsafe crossing behaviours (e.g. sudden stops, disobeying traffic signals, not looking both ways before crossing) were higher among distracted individuals and more pronounced among those using instant-messaging apps. These instant-message app users were the least likely to see the clown, and music listeners were the least likely to hear the horn that the clown will be honking. Contributing factors to unsafe behaviours include being a student, having a phone screen of 5 inches or larger and having unlimited third-generation Internet access.

The National Land Transport Strategic Framework (NLTSF) (2006) in South Africa was reviewed in 2015 in order to address current transportation issues after 21 years in a democratic society. This process was preceded by the publication of the National Development Plan (NDP) (2012) setting new development focuses and more specifically related to development of transportation systems, infrastructure goals and objectives influencing the movement of people, goods and services. The NDP holds specific implications for the implementation of planning instruments such as the NLTSF, the National Transport Master Plan (NATMAP) and the recently published Integrated Urban Development Framework (IUDF) (2014). If the content of these documents is evaluated, it is clear that it mainly consists of development principles that are uncoordinated and disjointed in terms of transportation development. This holds implications for transportation planning and development in terms of system development, priorities and projects. It focuses spatially on what should be done nationally with restricted intelligence on where it should take place and how development priorities should be determined. Transportation plans and development without supporting decision-making systems remain the goals and objectives of this study. This article will assess the use and application of decision-making tools through transportation modelling methodologies and practices. It will include the design of a framework to address challenges related to transportation planning through modelling techniques. It will inform decision making in enhancing transportation system and infrastructure development and enable interface management between transportation instruments.

Monitoring railway-induced ground vibrations represents a fundamental step in assessing the environmental impact of train passage on buildings and surrounding receptors. For this purpose, accurate measurements of seismic waves are often required. Nevertheless, depending on soil structure, its characteristics or surface, the placement of transducer may affect the shape and phase of the seismic wave determining signal distortion and finally affecting the measurement itself. In particular, the most critical aspect of the sampling phase is represented by the coupling between the seismic transducer and the soil. Slipping or friction of the transducer may generate unacceptable results. For this purpose, different methods of coupling were tested in different conditions with regard to high speed train passages near a location in Rome. To start the test, some steel spikes of different shapes and lengths were tested in order to investigate their response to ground characteristics, surface and resonance frequency. The sampling campaign was carried out by fastening the transducers on the spikes fixed vertically in the soil at a certain distance from the railway track. Sampled data consisting of each passage in Peak Particle Velocity and acceleration were compared with those obtained by coupling transducers as defined in UNI 9916 norms. According to this norm, sensors are buried into the soil at a fixed depth depending on their dimensions. The final part of the sampling is aimed at comparing the sets of obtained values. This analysis is focused on the identification of those parameters to be taken into account in order to select the best coupling method for different conditions.