Benefits are intrinsic to infrastructure and the public sector, yet these remain a problem for many infrastructure sectors (including transportation), organizations and countries. Much of the focus upon benefit management targets project delivery; by contrast, this study considers system-level benefit management using a transportation case study from New Zealand. In so doing, it investigates why the matter of benefits might be so problematic, and in what way this might affect the integration of projects into the extant system.

The research shows system-level coordination and integration are being lost within the ‘tactical strategy’ of programmes and initiatives. In turn, this is creating a ‘red queen’-like busyness without a real understanding of whether anything has been achieved relative to the intended or necessary outcomes being sought. System stewardship has therefore been advanced as an appropriate response to system- level complexity and a potential enabler of strategic agility and adaptive capacity.

The role of ports has changed and has become more complex. Ports play a relevant role in global economy. They connect modes of transport and usually they are the leaders in the logistics chain. New works in Suez Canal were in progress until August 2015. The expansion of the Panama Canal will finish this year. These new operational conditions allow for an improvement of international maritime transportation. The Suez Canal Corridor Area Project is a mega project in Egypt that was officially launched in August 2014. The project’s aim is to increase the role of the Suez Canal region in international trading and to develop the three canal cities: Suez, Ismaïlia and Port Said. The importance of these actions changes in the new port cities and new trends and conditions in maritime transportation are discussed.

Illegal pedestrian crossing situations at signalized intersections are observed worldwide. The main goal of this study was to observe attributes and determine the proportion and type of pedestrian violations and dangerous crossing situations at a traffic light located in a recreational tourist urban environment, i.e. the beach town of Viareggio on the coast of Tuscany, Italy.

A large signalized intersection placed close to the beach was observed for some days in Summer 2015, for several hours, both in the morning and in the afternoon, to collect data. The main aim was to identify the illegal pedestrian crossing behaviour with red traffic light.

Pedestrian crossing data were recorded with a video camera. Then, the video data were processed using a semi-automated software self-written in MATLAB to extract information on different pedestrian factors.

Some factors, identified in the current literature as having an influence on the proportion of violations, such as age, sex and group size, were analysed. Furthermore, the impact of the amber length time on the proportion of dangerous performed crossings was studied. The obtained results highlight that pedestrians in a recreational tourist environment are generally more in compliance with traffic light than those in a weekday urban context. It is also important to pay particular attention to pedestrian yellow time (amber steady man) in order to avoid dangerous legal crossings. In fact it was often observed that pedestrians start to cross on the green walking man but end under the red light.

This article examines the role user-specific characteristics can play on assessing a new public transit service. The case under consideration is the new Western Suburban Rail service in Thessaloniki, Greece, which will cover a suburban area. Binary logit models were developed in order to investigate the potential demand for this project. A revealed and stated preference questionnaire survey was conducted. The sample of the survey was stratified according to the three current travel options, namely car, regular-fare bus and low-fare bus. The revealed preference survey included questions about trip and socio-economic characteristics of each user. The stated preference part examined the potential for the new mode in comparison to the current travel modes through changes in travel cost, travel time and number of transfers. Six binary logit choice models were developed in total, two for each user group. For each group, a simplified model was initially calibrated only with the mode-specific variables; at a next step user-specific variables were added and a second extended model was created. The results show significant relationship of mode- and user-specific variables to the final choice for all the three user groups. Likelihood ratio tests were used to examine whether user-specific attributes improve the overall fit of the models or not, compared to traditional choice models of travel time, travel cost and number of transfers. The outcomes show that the inclusion of user-specific variables improved the overall fit and the explanatory power of the models.

Trans-border railroad in the Arabian Peninsula dates back to the early 20th century in Saudi Arabia. Over the recent decades due to increasing population and developing industrial zones, the demands are growing up over time. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is now embarking on one of the largest modern cross-border rail networks in the world. This is an ambitious step regarding the planning and establishment of the rail network connecting all the six GCC countries. This railway network will go through at least one city in each country to link the cities of Kuwait in Kuwait, Dammam in Saudi Arabia, Manama in Bahrain, Doha in Qatar, the cities of Abu Dhabi and Al Ain in the United Arab Emirates and Sohar and then Muscat in Oman in terms of cargo and passengers. The area of investigation covers different aspects of the shared Arabian countries rail routes called ‘GCC line’ and their national rail network. The aim of this article is to study the existing future plans and policies of the GCC countries shared line and domestic railway network. This article studies the national urban (light rail transportation (LRT), metro (subways) and intercity rail transportation to appraise the potential of passenger movement and commodity transportation at present and in the future. The tabular informative technical aspects of operation, such as traffic load yearly, speed, cost of the project, tracks length and track types, are supplied. Result of the analysis gives an overview of the Gulf Arabian countries railway plan and project properties to generate opportunities for international companies and researchers. It shows that there is a big boom and development for the upcoming railway transportation in the GCC countries.

The coupling and decoupling of trains while they are in motion is one of the research fields of the DLR project, Next Generation Train. The coupling will be non-mechanical, but virtual and will be maintained by means of distance control technology. A special challenge of the virtual coupling in railway operation is the peril point of the switch in case of failure during the passage of two trains which are coming from different tracks, running in close succession at high speed. Therefore some concepts are unrealizable with the current switch technology. Nevertheless there are situations where virtual coupling seems promising. One scenario is the virtual coupling at low speed, for example in the proximity of a station, where a safe brake is possible in case of a switch failure. The ‘Shinkansen’ scenario aims to increase line capacity on the Tokaido high-speed line in Japan between Tokio and Osaka. The fastest ‘Nozomi’ trains are stopping only at major stations. These stations have two tracks per direction with a 400-metre platform. The idea is to double the number of Nozomi trains. So in every stopping station, there are two trains arriving and departing in a short interval. The distance on the open line is not that close, so it is more a ride within relative braking distance than a virtual coupling.

To evaluate that scenario a special railway operation simulation has been developed, which is able to handle virtual coupling. The simulation shows the possibility to increase seating capacity from 15,000 to 23,000 seats per hour and direction. One bottleneck is occurring in Nagoya, where an additional platform is needed. Also the return time in Tokio has to be shortened to no more than 15 min.

Specialists have been discussing the best locations for railway stations for a long time; the first railway stations were built in the 21st century, and afterwards cities grew to the point of leaving the stations in central areas. Central stations provide train trips with several advantages over other means of transport. However, high-speed railway (HSR) introduces new variables when considering the best location for new stations. In 2000, the author’s team started the discussion and assessment of possible locations for the new HSR station in Valencia (Spain) and undertook two studies to analyse this issue. This article provides a theoretical framework for train station location and the analysis of the case in Spain. Furthermore, it synthesizes the results from researches performed in 2002 and 2006 as well as their implementation in Valencia. In addition, this article examines recent experience in relation to new high-speed train station placement, and the case of the 2,400-km-long HSR network in Spain by the end of 2015. Since the HSR network has a different track gauge in relation to the historical railway network, adaptations in the old stations or new locations were required. This situation allowed us to analyse the evolution of HSR in Spain and confirm theories about territorial impacts and optimal rail-network design, particularly in relation to the best location for new HSR stations. This article also looks into the evolution and current trends in modern railway planning, which have progressively changed in Spanish cities such as Madrid and Barcelona.

In the case of conventional rail lines, when disruptions occur, dispatchers have the difficult task of finding feasible rescheduling solutions rapidly so as to re-establish ordinary conditions as soon as possible. Despite the numerous contributions for automatic rescheduling proposed in the literature, this process is still totally controlled by dispatchers who decide according to their personal experience and under their own responsibility. Indeed, in many cases, it can be more advantageous to let the system revert to ordinary conditions without implementing any strategy rather than look for solutions which can reduce the discomfort perceived by passengers. In this article we propose a system of models for managing the rail system, combining a microscopic simulation model with an assignment tool which is able to consider passenger flows on the network. as a result, the disutility experienced by users during their trip can be evaluated and feasible intervention strategies can be assessed, taking into account the passengers’ perspective. an application on a real regional line in campania (Italy) shows the benefits of the proposed approach for performing off-line analyses of intervention solutions and helping dispatchers make decisions during critical events to increase service quality.