The Application of Smart Phone, Weight-Mile Truck Data to Support Freight-Modeling, Performance Measures and Planning

Oregon is one of the few states that currently charge a commercial truck weight-mile tax (WMT). The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) has developed a data-collection system – Truck Road Use Electronics (TRUE) – to simplify WMT collection. The TRUE system includes a smart phone application that collects and records Global Positioning System (GPS) data. The TRUE data has enormous advantages over GPS data used in previous research due to its level of geographic detail and the potential to also integrate trip origin and destination, vehicle class, and commodity-type data. This research evaluates the accuracy of the TRUE data and demonstrates its use for significant ODOT ancillary applications. Specifically, ancillary applications that address ODOT freight modeling, performance measures, and planning needs are explored. The use of the data for highly accurate trip-generation rates and mobility performance measures is demonstrated. In addition, it is shown that the TRUE data has strong potential to be used for safety, accessibility and connectivity, system condition and environmental stewardship performance measures. The potential use of the TRUE data for emissions estimates that take into account truck-type details, truck weight and detailed speed profiles is considered. Results indicate that TRUE data, integrated with ODOT weigh-in-motion (WIM) data, will greatly improve the accuracy of emission estimates at the project and regional level. This research confirms the potential use of the TRUE data for significant ancillary applications and demonstrates the regional value of the TRUE data to enhance existing freight modeling, performance measures and planning

Como consomem os turistas um destino de enoturismo no Centro de Portugal? Uma análise espaciotemporal

Space-time tourist behaviour is influenced by numerous factors related both to tourists and the destination. Yet, however complex it may be, understanding and to some extent managing the way tourists move in space and time is crucial to ensuring the quality of their experience, as well as the effective and sustainable management of destinations and attractions. In the rural wine tourism context, studies on space-time behaviour are rare. The present study uses empirical data collected from tourists staying in hotels of the Bairrada Wine Route territory (N = 116), combining a GPS tracking study with a questionnaire survey. Using a time-geographical analytical approach, the GPS tracking data were mapped for a more detailed analysis of the tourists’ movements in the Bairrada terroir. The findings highlight specificities of tourist consumption in the context of rural wine regions and provide valuable insights for destination planning, service design and marketing of the Bairrada Wine Route.O comportamento turístico espaciotemporal é influenciado por diversos fatores relacionados tanto com os turistas como com o destino. No entanto, por complexo que seja, compreender e, em certa medida, gerir a forma como os turistas se movem no espaço e no tempo é crucial para assegurar a qualidade da sua experiência, bem como a gestão eficaz e sustentável de destinos e atrações. No contexto do enoturismo, são raros os estudos sobre o comportamento espaciotemporal. O presente estudo utiliza dados empíricos recolhidos junto de turistas alojados em hotéis do território da Rota do Vinho da Bairrada (N= 116), combinando um estudo de rastreamento por GPS com um inquérito por questionário. Utilizando uma perspetiva temporal de análise, os dados de rastreamento por GPS foram mapeados para o estudo mais aprofundado dos movimentos dos turistas no terroir da Bairrada. Os resultados destacam as especificidades do consumo turístico no contexto das regiões vitivinícolas e fornecem informações relevantes para o planeamento do destino, conceção do serviço e marketing da Rota do Vinho da Bairrada.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Sustainable Cultural Tourism in Urban Destinations: Does Space Matter?

Policy makers and tourism developers must understand visitors' mobility behavior and how they consume space and tourism resources in order to set up sustainable cultural tourism destinations. With this in mind, it should also be pointed out that the mobility patterns of tourists in urban destinations are mainly located in the city center (spatial centrality), the analysis of which enables us to define "how central" the resources (museums, monuments, etc.) are and what the interactions between them are. Comprehending which factors influence visitors' urban mobility behavior is key to understanding tourists' consumption of space and their connections with the tourism assets of the city. Furthermore, when tourists visit a destination, they make a mental representation of the destination, constructing a mental map of it. Thus, tourists consume not only spaces but also the image of a city/destination. Moreover, the latter influences the former. The quality of surrounding architecture and urbanism plays a crucial role in enhancing the experiential value of a destination and influencing space consumption preferences. Clearly, visitors are more likely to use/consume environments that are easily navigated and mentally legible. In order to explore these patterns, a real experiment was performed based on visitor behavior in the city of Bilbao. In addition, the central places of Bilbao were determined and an analysis of the spatial interaction between cultural sites was performed, making use of a new methodology based on GPS technologies, network analysis, and surveys. This methodology is the main contribution of this work. The results suggest that (1) easy mobility (walkability, accessibility, different transport modes) of the visited space facilitates the tourist experience; (2) simple and eligible mental maps of the city that are easily perceived by visitors facilitate the rapid consumption of the tourist destination; and (3) the centrality of the tourism resources affects the mobility of visitors and the consumption of the destination. Thus, by understanding how tourist mobility works in a destination and analyzing tourism resources' centrality, policy makers may better tailor sustainable strategies for cultural tourism destinations.The authors acknowledge the financial support from the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO 2015 CREA-NETWORK CSO2015-65265-C4-3-R). The Art4pax Foundation (Guernica) and the Basque Government (SAIOTEK) provided support for this project. We are grateful to BASQUETOUR (Basque Agency of Tourism), CICtourGUNE and to Silke Haarich (Germany) who kindly read an early draft of the article. They are not responsible for our interpretations

Incorporating Long-Distance Travel intoTransportation Planning in the United States

In the early years of transportation planning and highway infrastructure development in the United States the focus was on intercity or long-distance travel, a contrast to the metropolitan travel and state-based models that dominate today. Daily home and work-based travel, which have been the focus of data collection and models since the 1950s, are well-modeled by regional agencies and a limited number of state travel demand models even include some long-distance travel. Nonetheless, long-distance travel demand and factors affecting behavior are not thoroughly considered in transportation planning or behavior research. Only one recent activity-based model of national travel demand has been created and its scope was limited by a severe lack of data. The conceptualization of models to consider intercity long-distance travel has changed little since its inception in the 1970s and 1980s. In order to comprehensively consider transportation system sustainability, there is a critical need for improved nation-wide annual overnight activity data and models of overnight travel (a re-focus and important distinct re-framing of long-distance trips that this white paper suggests). Truly addressing the economic, environmental, and social equity issues required to create a sustainable global transportation system will entail completely updating our existing planning framework to meaningfully include long-distance travel. It is clear that long-distance passenger miles must be accounted for when addressing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and other negative environmental externalities. Less well-known are the questions of social justice that loom large when one considers the details of long-distance travel. Travel in our society is becoming increasingly associated with quality of life. Those without intercity access may miss opportunity and social capital. However, without representative long-distance travel data it is impossible to compare the relative participation by different groups and to consider latent demand. It is difficult to measure who comprises the global mobile elite and who lacks sufficient intercity mobility for reasonable social network obligations and personal services. This white paper suggests utilizing a common framework for long-distance data collection and tabulation that re-defines long-distance travel into daily or overnight. The author advocates using overnight as the defining characteristic for data collection, which complements existing daily travel surveys already capturing long day-trips. Within frameworks moving forward it is important to clearly characterize all trip purposes, including mixed purposes and purposeless travel, which comprise an appreciable portion of long-distance travel. Spatial data that distinguish between simple out-and-back trips and spatially complex trips are necessary and mobile devices have now made this measurement of long-distance tours feasible. In order to truly model all travel in the current system, we must move away from the idea that most travel is routine, within region, and home-based. Many people, especially the most frequent travelers, have long-distance routines including multiple home bases. Additionally, our models should not assume that travelers staying at a second home, hotel, or friend’s home travel like residents. Efforts to measure and model non-home-based travel or travel at destination are essential to accurately modeling behavior. Daily surveys such as the 2017 National Household Transportation Survey are increasingly doing this. A nation-wide annual activity model of overnight travel must fully incorporate both surface and air travel to allow full consideration of alternative future system scenarios

Nest-Site Selection by Female Black-Capped Chickadees: Settlement Based on Conspecific Attraction?

Female Black-capped Chickadees (Poecile atricapillus) solicit extrapair copulations (EPCs) from neighboring high-ranking males, and these EPCs result in extrapair young. Females might choose to locate their nests near the territory boundaries of attractive males to facilitate access to EPCs. Other hypotheses might also explain choice of nest site, namely (1) habitat characteristics, (2) prey abundance, and (3) previous experience. We tested these four hypotheses in 1996 and 1997. Out of 27 habitat characteristics measured, we found only one that was significantly different between nests and control sites in both years. The abundance of large trees was lower at nest sites than at control sites in each year and when years were pooled. Relative prey abundance did not differ between nests and control sites for either year of the study. We found no different in interyear nest placement based on female experience; experienced females nester farther than 60 m from their previous nest sites in both years of the study. In 1996, females whose neighboring males were higher ranked than their social partner located their nests significantly closer to territory boundaries than did females whose nearest neighbors were lower ranked than their social partner. In 1997, all pairs nested near territory boundaries. We conclude that choice of nest location in Black-capped Chickadees is influenced by conspecific attraction based on mating tactics

Rock Art Pilot Project Main Report

A report on the results of a pilot project to investigate the current state of research, conservation, management and presentation of prehistoric rock art in England commissioned by English Heritage from Archaeology Group, School of Conservation Sciences, Bournemouth Unviersity and the Institute of Archaeology, University College Londo

A time-dependent freight tour synthesis model

This paper introduces a model of urban freight demand that seeks to estimate tour flows from secondary data sources e.g., traffic counts, to bypass the need for expensive surveys. The model discussed in this paper, referred as Freight Tour Synthesis (FTS), enhances current techniques by incorporating the time-dependent tour-based behavior of freight vehicles, and the decision maker’s (e.g., metropolitan planning agency planner) preferences for different sources of information. The model, based on entropy maximization theory, estimates the most likely set of tour flows, given a set of trip generation estimates, a set of traffic counts per time interval, and total freight transportation cost in the network. The type of inputs used allows the assessment of changes in infrastructure, policy and land use. The ability of the model to replicate actual values is assessed using the Denver Region (CO) as a case study

GSH 91.5+2-114: A large HI shell in the outer part of the Galaxy

GSH91.5+2-114 is a large HI shell located in the outer Galaxy at a kinematic distance of about 15 kpc. It was first identified in the Canadian Galactic Plane Survey (CGPS) by Pineault et al. (2002) as being possibly associated with objects possessing infrared colors which indicates strong stellar winds. The HI shell has no obvious continuum counterpart in the CGPS radio images at 408 and 1420 MHz or in the IRAS images. We found no evidence for early-type massive stars, most likely as a result of the large extinction that is expected for this large distance. An analysis of the energetics and of the main physical parameters of the HI shell shows that this shell is likely the result of the combined action of the stellar winds and supernova explosions of many stars. We investigate whether a number of slightly extended regions characterized by a thermal radio continuum and located near the periphery of the HI shell could be the result of star formation triggered by the expanding shell.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A, October 2010. Some figures were degraded to reduce file siz