A life-cycle approach for managing road infrastructures in developing countries based on Asset Management

Road infrastructures are very important to economic activity, especially in developing countries where they play an essential role in marketing agricultural products and providing access to health, education, and other services. While economic growth and the investments in road transport have increased heavily in developing countries, the public sector responsible for their life-cycle planning, management and maintenance is struggling to make the necessary reforms to keep up with the pace. The main objective of this dissertation is to understand the patterns that influence the strategic planning of road infrastructures and the successful implementation of the practices of asset management in the regulatory environment and structure of the responsible authorities in the developing countries. These patterns (external drivers), different in each country, if not researched and understood correctly, may affect the outcome of the results for the upcoming decades and jeopardize the entire implementation of asset management processes within the organizational structures of the developing countries. It reviews and analyzes the National regulatory environment and practices in Top Asset management countries (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Uk, USA) and current social and political situation in the western Balkans region (developing countries region), which is influencing the successful management of primary infrastructures in this region. A significant Case study from Albania (Highway Durres- Kukes - Morine, a segment of European route 7 between Albania and Serbia), is introduced and actual physical Conditions, value, and performance of the highway are taken in consideration. Description of Problems this highway experiences because of lack of life-cycle planning and management are presented and how the mismanagement of the assets on a strategic level leads to tangible problems on the technical level. Transport impacts on the highway in terms of displacement, traffic flows, and forecast, historical traffic data are analyzed in order to analyze capacity/demand patterns and future demand, the influence it has on Road asset management and relate this with different strategies of maintenance

Effects of Weather Conditions on Motorway Lane Flow Distributions

Several factors affect the lane choices made by motorway drivers. According to the driving rules, the nearside lane is the one that is primarily used. The main reasons for lane changes are overtaking, congestion, or restrictions on other lanes. The empirical research presented in this paper presents comprehensive traffic characteristics observed in different traffic lanes on four-lane motorways in Slovenia. The research was focused on the influence of adverse weather conditions on the lane flow distribution, and on the speed of vehicles in different lanes. The lane flow and speed distributions both directly affect road capacity and safety; therefore, estimating these characteristics could improve the reliability of active traffic control when traffic flow perturbation is detected. Field test results show that lane flow distributions and lane speed distributions at a particular site vary depending on weather conditions, namely, dry, wet (rain), low-visibility, and snow conditions.</p

Climate Change Adaptation of Geo-Structures in Europe: Emerging Issues and Future Steps

Climate change is already being felt in Europe, unequivocally affecting the regions’ geo-structures. Concern over this is rising, as reflected in the increasing number of studies on the subject. However, the majority of these studies focused only on slopes and on a limited geographical scope. In this paper, we attempted to provide a broader picture of potential climate change impacts on the geo-structures in Europe by gathering the collective view of geo-engineers and geo-scientists in several countries, and by considering different geo-structure types. We also investigated how geo-structural concerns are being addressed in national adaptation plans. We found that specific provisions for geo-structural adaptation are generally lacking and mainly come in the form of strategies for specific problems. In this regard, two common strategies are hazard/risk assessment and monitoring, which are mainly implemented in relation to slope stability. We recommend that in future steps, other geo-structures are likewise given attention, particularly those assessed as also potentially significantly affected by climate change. Countries considered in this study are mainly the member countries of the European Large Geotechnical Institutes Platform (ELGIP)

Proceedings of the 20th SIRWEC conference, Druskininkai, Lithuania (14-16th June 2022)

SIRWEC (The Standing International Road Weather Commission) exists to encourage meteorologists, weather forecasters, highway engineers, road masters and others, who are interested in road weather problems, to exchange ideas to make our roads safer to drive on in all weather conditions. Every two years SIRWEC conference is being organized to gather all of the road weather enthusiasts and encourage them to share new scientific discoveries they have accomplished, new products or technologies they have made or any other topic in road weather field

Does Infrastructure Investment Lead to Economic Growth or Economic Fragility? Evidence from China

The prevalent view in the economics literature is that a high level of infrastructure investment is a precursor to economic growth. China is especially held up as a model to emulate. Based on the largest dataset of its kind, this paper punctures the twin myths that, first, infrastructure creates economic value, and, second, China has a distinct advantage in its delivery. Far from being an engine of economic growth, the typical infrastructure investment fails to deliver a positive risk adjusted return. Moreover, China's track record in delivering infrastructure is no better than that of rich democracies. Where investments are debt-financed, overinvesting in unproductive projects results in the buildup of debt, monetary expansion, instability in financial markets, and economic fragility, exactly as we see in China today. We conclude that poorly managed infrastructure investments are a main explanation of surfacing economic and financial problems in China. We predict that, unless China shifts to a lower level of higher-quality infrastructure investments, the country is headed for an infrastructure-led national financial and economic crisis, which is likely also to be a crisis for the international economy. China's infrastructure investment model is not one to follow for other countries but one to avoid

Data Mining and Big Freight Transport Database Analysis and Forecasting Capabilities

Transport modeling in general and freight transport modeling in particular are becoming important tools for investigating the effects of investments and policies. Freight demand forecasting models are still in an experimentation and evolution stage. Nevertheless, some recent European projects, like Transtools or ETIS/ETIS Plus, have developed a unique modeling and data framework for freight forecast at large scale so to avoid data availability and modeling problems. Despite this, important projects using these modeling frameworks have provided very different results for the same forecasting areas and years, giving rise to serious doubts about the results quality, especially in relation to their cost and development time. Moreover, many of these models are purely deterministic. The project described in this article tries to overcome the above-mentioned problems with a new easy-to-implement freight demand forecasting method based on Bayesian Networks using European official and available data. The method is applied to the Transport Market study of the Sixth European Rail Freight Corridor

Internal report cluster 1: Urban freight innovations and solutions for sustainable deliveries (1/4)

Technical report about sustainable urban freight solutions, part 1 of

An Application of Dynamical System in Forecasting Motorway Traffic flow

Circumstance is essentially too surely understood to every one of us. You're on your route, when out of nowhere you're stuck in traffic. It isn't an average "rush hour" time and ordinarily you do not worry about traffic jam. There must be a mishap or some kind of genuine accident up ahead. You slowly advance your way, heavily congested, always endeavoring to discover the blazing lights of ambulances and squad cars. At that point quickly, activity begins to move ordinarily once more. There's no sign of a mishap, episode, or whatever other reason for the slowing down in traffic. So what happened? Traffic Flow system is a human-joined, variable, open and cacheable framework. It is very nonlinear and uncertain. Under certain circumstance, disorder shows up in it. The overview of publish studies implicates the importance of finding and detecting disorders in traffic. Furthermore, the outline of procedures to recognize chaotic features - disorders in traffic flow and to forecast them demonstrates the requirement on current techniques and angle of study