A traffic fundamental diagram calibrating methodology to avoid unbalanced speed–density observations

Traffic fundamental diagram is extremely important to analyse traffic flow and traffic capacity, and the central part of traffic fundamental diagram is to calibrate speed–density relationship. However, because of unbalanced speed–density observations, calibrating results using Least Square Method (LSM) with all speed–density points always lead to inaccurate effect, so this paper proposed a selecting data sample method and then LSM was used to calibrate four well-known single-regime models. Comparisons were made among the results using LSM with all speed–density points and the selecting data sample. Results indicated that the selecting data sample method proposed by this paper can calibrate the singleregime models well, and the method overcomes the inaccurate effect caused by unbalanced speed–density observations. Data from different highways validated the results. The contribution of this paper is that the proposed method can help researchers to determine more precise traffic fundamental diagram

Modeling of taxi cab fleets in urban environment

Taxis are a necessary mean of transport in cities for meeting the mobility needs of its citizens. The impact of the taxi market in the daily life is quite important, concerning both financial (e.g. taxi drivers' salaries) and societal issues (e.g congestion, travel demand satisfaction). Therefore, it is crucial to develop models and tools in an effort to help decision makers control the taxi market and meet the customers' requirements for an adequate level of service. In this direction, various methodologies have been developed aiming at quantifying the impacts and evaluating the performance of the taxi sector, initially from an aggregated and economic equilibrium perspective and recently from an operational and more realistic one. The main objective of this thesis is to develop models that analyze the provision of taxi services, emphasizing on the optimal number of taxis that are in order to provide a reasonable waiting time for customers and assure a minimum profitability to the taxi drivers. For this purpose, two models are developed, an analytical economic one and an agent-based simulation one. The first model is able to analyze the taxi market in a macroscopic way, using average values for the taxi drivers' cost and performance in the area of study for obtaining the optimum number of taxis for achieving the minimum unitary system cost and the related waiting time to this optimum fleet. The second model is able to analyze the operational characteristics of the taxi sector in detail, simulating taxi trips in a road network and recording all the performance indicators related to the operational efficiency of the sector. Observed data from the city of Barcelona are used for calibrating the developed models and obtaining the results of their application to the city of Barcelona. The developed models perfectly complement each other. Their combination can prove to be a valuable tool for decision makers when analyzing the performance of the taxi sector or when meeting policy related decisions. At the same time, local operation issues can be analyzed in detail when designing taxi policy related issues since all actors are included within the models and can be taken into account when optimizing this performance. The models are used for analyzing the impact of pricing policies in the taxi market, evaluating the demand for taxi trips related to various fare levels and fleet sizes. Policy issues related to the taxi shifts are also taken into account through the development of an optimization problem for matching the optimum supply levels to the ones provided by a shift-based taxi policy, which is the most common around the world. Optimum ranges of demand are obtained for the hailing, the dispatching and the stand operation modes. Dispatching mode appears to be more efficient at low demand levels, while the hailing mode present lower unitary costs for high demand levels. Aggregated models tend to underestimate the costs of both the customers and the system between 15% and 30% if the demand distribution is uniform. For non-uniform demands, the aggregated models overestimate costs between 20% and 300%, depending on the GINI value of the demand distribution.Els taxis són un mode de transport necessari per satisfer les necessitats de la població relacionades amb la mobilitat. L'impacte del mercat del taxi a la vida quotidiana és molt important, tant des del punt de vista econòmic (per exemple, els salaris dels taxistes) com social (per exemple, la congestió o la satisfacció de la demanda de desplaçaments). S’han desenvolupat diversos models amb l'objectiu de quantificar els impactes i avaluar el rendiment del sector del taxi, inicialment des d'un punt de vista agregat i econòmic i, recentment, des d'un punt de vista operacional i més realista. L'objectiu principal d'aquesta tesi és el de desenvolupar models d’estudi dels serveis oferts pel sector del taxi, fent èmfasi en el dimensionament de la flota òptima de taxis necessària per satisfer la demanda oferint un temps d’espera raonable per als clients i assegurant al mateix temps una mínima rendibilitat als taxistes. Per a aquest propòsit, s'han desenvolupat dos models, un econòmic analític i un de simulació basada en agents. El primer model és capaç d'analitzar el mercat dels taxis des d'un punt de vista macroscòpic mitjançant l’ús de valors mitjans representatius de tota la regió per obtenir el nombre òptim de taxis que satisfarà les necessitats de la població amb uns costos unitaris mínims, obtenint també el temps d'espera relacionat a aquesta flota òptima. El segon model és capaç de reproduir les característiques operacionals del sector del taxi en detall, simulant viatges en taxi a la xarxa viaria i enregistrant tots els indicadors de rendiment relacionats amb l’eficiència operacional del sector del taxi. S'utilitzen dades reals de la ciutat de Barcelona per al calibratge dels models proposats i per a l'obtenció dels resultats de l'aplicació d’ambdós models al sector del taxi de la ciutat de Barcelona. Els dos models desenvolupats es complementen perfectament, la seva combinació pot ser una eina valuosa per als responsables de la regulació del sector del taxi, ja que els permetrà analitzar els serveis del taxi i prendre les decisions correctes per millorar els servies oferts. Al mateix temps, els problemes operacionals poden ser analitzats en detall durant la fase de disseny de la política de taxis, ja que tots els actors estàn inclosos dins dels models i es tenen en compte alhora d'optimitzar el rendiment del sector del taxi. Els models s'utilitzen per analitzar l'impacte de les polítiques tarifaries en el mercat del taxi. També es te en compte la política de torns, per la qual s’ha plantejat un problema d'optimització que fa coincidir el nombre òptim de vehicles obtingut dels models amb el real proporcionat per la política de torns, que és la més comú a tot el món . Es presenten rangs òptims de demanda per als tres modes operatius. Els sistemes de taxi basats en centraletes telefòniques es mostren més eficients per baixes concentracions de demanda, mentre que els sistemes de taxi al carrer presenten menors costos unitaris per altes concentracions de demanda. Els models agregats tendeixen a subestimar els costos, tant dels clients com del sistema entre el 15% i el 30% si la distribució de la demanda és uniforme. Per demandes no uniformes, els models agregats sobreestimen els costos entre un 20% i 300%, depenent del valor de GINI de la distribució de la demanda.Los taxis son un modo de transporte necesario para satisfacer las necesidades de la población relacionadas con la movilidad. El impacto del mercado de taxis en la vida cotidiana es muy importante, tanto desde el punto de vista económico (por ejemplo, los salarios de los taxistas) como social (por ejemplo, la congestión o la satisfacción de la demanda de viajes). Varios modelos han sido desarrollados con el objetivo de cuantificar los impactos y evaluar el rendimiento del sector del taxi, inicialmente desde un punto de vista agregado y económico y, recientemente, desde un punto de vista operacional y más realista. El objetivo principal de esta tesis es el de desarrollar modelos que se ocupen de los servicios del sector del taxi, dando énfasis en el número óptimo de taxis necesarios para satisfacer la demanda ofreciendo un tiempo de espera razonable a los clientes y asegurando una mínima rentabilidad a los taxistas. Para este propósito se han desarrollado dos modelos, uno económico analítico y uno basado en simulación de agentes. El primer modelo es capaz de analizar el mercado del taxi desde un punto de vista macroscópico mediante el uso de valores medios para toda la región y de obtener el número óptimo de taxis que satisfará las necesidades de transporte a un coste unitario mínimo, obteniendo también el tiempo de espera relacionado a esta flota óptima. El segundo modelo es capaz de reproducir las características operacionales del sector del taxi en detalle, simulando viajes de taxi en una red viaria y registrando todos los indicadores de rendimiento relacionados con el funcionamiento eficiente del sector del taxi. Se utilizan datos reales de la ciudad de Barcelona para la calibración de los modelos propuestos y la obtención de los resultados de la aplicación de ambos modelos al sector del taxi de la misma ciudad. Los dos modelos desarrollados se complementan perfectamente. Su combinación puede ser una herramienta valiosa en el análisis de los servicios de taxi o cuando se toman decisiones políticas en un esfuerzo para mejorarlos. Al mismo tiempo, problemas de funcionamiento locales pueden ser analizados en detalle durante el diseño de las cuestiones relacionadas con la política de taxis ya que todos los agentes se incluyen en los modelos y se pueden tomar en cuenta a la hora de optimizar el rendimiento del sistema. Los modelos se utilizan para analizar el impacto de las políticas tarifárias en el mercado del taxi. Tambien se tiene en cuenta la política de turnos, para la qual se ha planteado un problema de optimización que hace coincidir el numero óptimo de taxis obtenido por los modelos con los proporcionados por una política de turnos, que es la más común en todo el mundo. Se presentan rangos óptimos de demanda para los tres modos de operación. El sistema de taxis basado en reservas telefónicas parece ser más eficiente en bajas concentraciones de demanda, mientras que el sistema de taxis en la calle presenta menores costes unitarios para altas concentraciones de demanda. Los modelos agregados tienden a subestimar los costes tanto de los clientes como del sistema entre el 15 % y el 30 % si la distribución de la demanda es uniforme. Para demandas no uniformes, los modelos agregados sobreestiman los costes entre un 20% y 300%, dependiendo del valor de GINI de la distribución de la demanda.Τα ταξί αποτελούν ένα απαραίτητο μέσο μεταφοράς για την ικανοποίηση των αναγκών μετακίνησης των πολιτών. Οι επιπτώσεις της αγοράς ταξί στην καθημερινή ζωή είναι επομένως πολύ σημαντικές, τόσο σε ότι αφορά οικονομικά (π.χ. οι μισθοί των οδηγών ταξί) όσο σε κοινωνικά θέματα (π.χ. συμφόρηση ή ικανοποίηση της ζήτησης για μετακίνηση). Έτσι, είναι σημαντικό να αναπτυχθούν μοντέλα και εργαλεία σε μια προσπάθεια να ελεχθεί η αγορά των ταξί από τους αντίστοιχους φορείς και να ικανοποιηθούν οι ανάγκες των χρηστών. Διάφορα μοντέλα έχουν αναπτυχθεί με στόχο την ποσοτικοποίηση των επιπτώσεων και την αξιολόγηση των επιδόσεων του κλάδου των ταξί, αρχικά από μια πιο συγκεντρωτική και οικονομική άποψη και, πιο πρόσφατα, από μια λειτουργική και πιο ρεαλιστική άποψη. Ο κύριος στόχος αυτής της διδακτορικής διατριβής είναι η ανάπτυξη μοντέλων που ασχολούνται με την ανάλυση των υπηρεσιών ταξί, με έμφαση στον βέλτιστο αριθμό των ταξί που απαιτούνται για την ικανοποίηση της ζήτησης παρέχοντας ένα εύλογο χρόνο αναμονής και εξασφαλίζοντας έναν ελάχιστο κέρδος στους οδηγούς ταξί. Για το σκοπό αυτό, δύο μοντέλα έχουν αναπτυχθεί, ένα συγκεντρωτικό οικονομικό μοντέλο και ένα μοντέλο προσομοίωσης. Το πρώτο μοντέλο μπορεί να αναλύσει την αγορά ταξί από μια μακροσκοπική άποψη χρησιμοποιώντας μέσες τιμές για το σύνολο της περιοχής για τον καθορισμό του βέλτιστου αριθμού ταξί που θα παρέχει υπηρεσίες ταξί με το ελάχιστο μοναδιαίο κόστος, παρέχοντας επίσης το αντίστοιχο χρόνο αναμονής για αυτό το βέλτιστο στόλο. Το δεύτερο μοντέλο μπορεί να αναλύσει τα λειτουργικά χαρακτηριστικά του κλάδου των ταξί με κάθε λεπτομέρεια, προσομοιώνοντας μετακινήσεις με ταξί σε ένα οδικό δίκτυο και καταγράφοντας όλους τους δείκτες απόδοσης της λειτουργίας του κλάδου των ταξί. Χρησιμοποιούνται πραγματικά δεδομένα από την πόλη της Βαρκελώνης για τη βαθμονόμηση των προτεινόμενων μοντέλων και τον καθορισμό των αποτελεσμάτων της εφαρμογής των δύο μοντέλων στην πόλη της Βαρκελώνης. Τα δύο μοντέλα που αναπτύχθηκαν είναι συμπληρωματικά και ο συνδυασμός τους μπορεί να αποδειχθεί ένα πολύτιμο εργαλείο για τους φορείς λήψης αποφάσεων κατά την ανάλυση της απόδοσης των υπηρεσιών ταξί ή για την λήψη αποφάσεων για τη βελτίωσή τους. Τα τοπικά ζητήματα λειτουργίας μπορούν να αναλυθούν λεπτομερειακά κατά το σχεδιασμό της πολιτικής της αγοράς ταξί. Τα μοντέλα χρησιμποιούνται για την ανάλυση των επιπτώσεων τιμολογησης της αγορας ταξί, αξιολογώντας τη ζήτηση για ταξί που συσχετιζεται σε διάφορα επιπέδα τιμολόγησης με τον αριθμό οχημάτων. Περιλαμβάνονται επίσης θέματα διαχείσης της αγοράς ταξί, όπως η χρήση βαρδιών, που είναι το πιο συνηθισμένο, για την παροχή οχηματοορών υπηρεσίας σε επίπεδα αντίστοιχα της βέλτιστης λύσης. Έχουνε διατυπωθεί βέλτιστα διαστήματα ζήτησης για τις τρεις αγορές ταξί, παρά την οδό, με τηλεφωνική κράτηση και σε στάση. Η αγορά με τηλεφωνική κράτηση φαίνεται να είναι η πιο αποδοτική για χαμηλά επίπεδα ζήτησης, καθώς και η παρά την οδό να είναι η πιο αποδοτική για ψηλά επίπεδα ζήτησης. Τα συγκεντρωτικά μοντέλα υπο-εκτιμούν τα κόστη των χρηστών και του συστημάτος μεταξύ 15% και 30% εαν η κατανομή της ζήτησης είναι ομοιομόρφη. Για μη ομοιομόρφες κατανομές ζήτησης, τα συγκεντρωτικά μοντέλα υπερ-εκτιμούν το κόστος μεταξύ 20% και 300%, βάσει της τιμής του συντελεστή GINI της κατανομής της ζήτησης

KINE[SIS]TEM'17 From Nature to Architectural Matter

Kine[SiS]tem – From Kinesis + System. Kinesis is a non-linear movement or activity of an organism in response to a stimulus. A system is a set of interacting and interdependent agents forming a complex whole, delineated by its spatial and temporal boundaries, influenced by its environment. How can architectural systems moderate the external environment to enhance comfort conditions in a simple, sustainable and smart way? This is the starting question for the Kine[SiS]tem’17 – From Nature to Architectural Matter International Conference. For decades, architectural design was developed despite (and not with) the climate, based on mechanical heating and cooling. Today, the argument for net zero energy buildings needs very effective strategies to reduce energy requirements. The challenge ahead requires design processes that are built upon consolidated knowledge, make use of advanced technologies and are inspired by nature. These design processes should lead to responsive smart systems that deliver the best performance in each specific design scenario. To control solar radiation is one key factor in low-energy thermal comfort. Computational-controlled sensor-based kinetic surfaces are one of the possible answers to control solar energy in an effective way, within the scope of contradictory objectives throughout the year.FC

3D-in-2D Displays for ATC.

This paper reports on the efforts and accomplishments of the 3D-in-2D Displays for ATC project at the end of Year 1. We describe the invention of 10 novel 3D/2D visualisations that were mostly implemented in the Augmented Reality ARToolkit. These prototype implementations of visualisation and interaction elements can be viewed on the accompanying video. We have identified six candidate design concepts which we will further research and develop. These designs correspond with the early feasibility studies stage of maturity as defined by the NASA Technology Readiness Level framework. We developed the Combination Display Framework from a review of the literature, and used it for analysing display designs in terms of display technique used and how they are combined. The insights we gained from this framework then guided our inventions and the human-centered innovation process we use to iteratively invent. Our designs are based on an understanding of user work practices. We also developed a simple ATC simulator that we used for rapid experimentation and evaluation of design ideas. We expect that if this project continues, the effort in Year 2 and 3 will be focus on maturing the concepts and employment in a operational laboratory settings

Example-Based Urban Modeling

The manual modeling of virtual cities or suburban regions is an extremely time-consuming task, which expects expert knowledge of different fields. Existing modeling tool-sets have a steep learning curve and may need special education skills to work with them productively. Existing automatic methods rely on rule sets and grammars to generate urban structures; however, their expressiveness is limited by the rule-sets. Expert skills are necessary to typeset rule sets successfully and, in many cases, new rule-sets need to be defined for every new building style or street network style. To enable non-expert users, the possibility to construct urban structures for individual experiments, this work proposes a portfolio of novel example-based synthesis algorithms and applications for the controlled generation of virtual urban environments. The notion example-based denotes here that new virtual urban environments are created by computer programs that re-use existing digitized real-world data serving as templates. The data, i.e., street networks, topography, layouts of building footprints, or even 3D building models, necessary to realize the envisioned task is already publicly available via online services. To enable the reuse of existing urban datasets, novel algorithms need to be developed by encapsulating expert knowledge and thus allow the controlled generation of virtual urban structures from sparse user input. The focus of this work is the automatic generation of three fundamental structures that are common in urban environments: road networks, city block, and individual buildings. In order to achieve this goal, the thesis proposes a portfolio of algorithms that are briefly summarized next. In a theoretical chapter, we propose a general optimization technique that allows formulating example-based synthesis as a general resource-constrained k-shortest path (RCKSP) problem. From an abstract problem specification and a database of exemplars carrying resource attributes, we construct an intermediate graph and employ a path-search optimization technique. This allows determining either the best or the k-best solutions. The resulting algorithm has a reduced complexity for the single constraint case when compared to other graph search-based techniques. For the generation of road networks, two different techniques are proposed. The first algorithm synthesizes a novel road network from user input, i.e., a desired arterial street skeleton, topography map, and a collection of hierarchical fragments extracted from real-world road networks. The algorithm recursively constructs a novel road network reusing these fragments. Candidate fragments are inserted into the current state of the road network, while shape differences will be compensated by warping. The second algorithm synthesizes road networks using generative adversarial networks (GANs), a recently introduced deep learning technique. A pre- and postprocessing pipeline allows using GANs for the generation of road networks. An in-depth evaluation shows that GANs faithfully learn the road structure present in the example network and that graph measures such as area, aspect ratio, and compactness, are maintained within the virtual road networks. To fill empty city blocks in road networks we propose two novel techniques. The first algorithm re-uses real-world city blocks and synthesizes building footprint layouts into empty city blocks by retrieving viable candidate blocks from a database. We evaluate the algorithm and synthesize a multitude of city block layouts reusing real-world building footprint arrangements from European and US-cities. In addition, we increase the realism of the synthesized layouts by performing example-based placement of 3D building models. This technique is evaluated by placing buildings onto challenging footprint layouts using different example building databases. The second algorithm computes a city block layout, resembling the style of a real-world city block. The original footprint layout is deformed to construct a textit{guidance map}, i.e., the original layout is transferred to a target city block using warping. This guidance map and the original footprints are used by an optimization technique that computes a novel footprint layout along the city block edges. We perform a detailed evaluation and show that using the guidance map allows transferring of the original layout, locally as well as globally, even when the source and target shapes drastically differ. To synthesize individual buildings, we use the general optimization technique described first and formulate the building generation process as a resource-constrained optimization problem. From an input database of annotated building parts, an abstract description of the building shape, and the specification of resource constraints such as length, area, or a number of architectural elements, a novel building is synthesized. We evaluate the technique by synthesizing a multitude of challenging buildings fulfilling several global and local resource constraints. Finally, we show how this technique can even be used to synthesize buildings having the shape of city blocks and might also be used to fill empty city blocks in virtual street networks. All algorithms presented in this work were developed to work with a small amount of user input. In most cases, simple sketches and the definition of constraints are enough to produce plausible results. Manual work is necessary to set up the building part databases and to download example data from mapping services available on the Internet

Generalized averaged Gaussian quadrature and applications

A simple numerical method for constructing the optimal generalized averaged Gaussian quadrature formulas will be presented. These formulas exist in many cases in which real positive GaussKronrod formulas do not exist, and can be used as an adequate alternative in order to estimate the error of a Gaussian rule. We also investigate the conditions under which the optimal averaged Gaussian quadrature formulas and their truncated variants are internal

MS FT-2-2 7 Orthogonal polynomials and quadrature: Theory, computation, and applications

Quadrature rules find many applications in science and engineering. Their analysis is a classical area of applied mathematics and continues to attract considerable attention. This seminar brings together speakers with expertise in a large variety of quadrature rules. It is the aim of the seminar to provide an overview of recent developments in the analysis of quadrature rules. The computation of error estimates and novel applications also are described