Estimating the Capacity of a Curbside Bus Stop with Multiple Berths Using Probabilistic Models

Capacity estimation of a curbside bus stop is essential to evaluation of its operation, reliability and performance. Arrival buses and served buses will form an overflow queue and an interlocking queue in loading areas with high frequencies. Therefore, bus stop blockage may reduce the stop capacity. The capacity of a bus stop is modelled as a function of the blockage probability, the arrival of buses, and the service time, while considering the no-overtaking principle and allowable-overtaking principle. This study aims to estimate the capacity, minimum arrival time and maximum service time based on the blockage probability and number of berths. The results indicate that congestion can be effectively alleviated by increasing the number of berths when the demand for loaded buses is low due to the significantly changing probability threshold for a NO stop. A congestion and stopping principle is important when multiple bus routes converge at the same bus stop. By combination with an actual case, an optimal overtaking principle is obtained using a computer program written in the MATLAB environment. The developed methodology can be practically applied to determine the loading principle and designated stopping berths for multi-route buses

Computer Controlled Urban Transportation: A Survey of Concepts, Methods, and International Experiences

This book is concerned with the present and future traffic problems in the developing and developed world. It examines possible solutions to those problems based on technological innovations and implementing large-scale computerized traffic and transportation control systems. It discusses the basic concepts and methods for control and automation that have been proposed, developed, and implemented, and experience from real applications of these in different cities and nations

Big Water

Big Water explores four centuries of the overlapping histories of Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay (the Triple Frontier), and the colonies that preceded them. Examining an important area that includes some of the first national parks established in Latin America and one of the world’s largest hydroelectric dams, this transnational approach illustrates how these three nation-states have interacted over time. From the Jesuit reductions in the seventeenth century to the flows of capital and goods accelerated by contemporary trade agreements, the Triple Frontier region has proven fundamental to the development of Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay, as well as to the Southern Cone and South America itself. Although historians from each of these three countries have tended to construct narratives that stop at their respective borders, the contributors call for a reinterpretation that goes beyond the material and conceptual boundaries of the Triple Frontier. In offering a transnational approach, Big Water helps transcend nation-centered blind spots and approach new understandings of how space and society have developed throughout Latin America. These essays complicate traditional frontier histories and balance the excessive weight previously given to empires, nations, and territorial expansion. Overcoming stagnant comparisons between national cases, the research explores regional identity beyond border and geopolitical divides. Thus, Big Water focuses on the uniquely overlapping character of the Triple Frontier and emphasizes a perspective usually left at the periphery of national histories

Safety and Reliability - Safe Societies in a Changing World

The contributions cover a wide range of methodologies and application areas for safety and reliability that contribute to safe societies in a changing world. These methodologies and applications include: - foundations of risk and reliability assessment and management - mathematical methods in reliability and safety - risk assessment - risk management - system reliability - uncertainty analysis - digitalization and big data - prognostics and system health management - occupational safety - accident and incident modeling - maintenance modeling and applications - simulation for safety and reliability analysis - dynamic risk and barrier management - organizational factors and safety culture - human factors and human reliability - resilience engineering - structural reliability - natural hazards - security - economic analysis in risk managemen

Linguistic and cultural oppositions in discourse about Thailand

The thesis investigates the rhetorical construction of textual oppositions in the representation of Thailand in a post-colonial context. It falls within the field of linguistic oppositions pioneered by Jeffries (2014) and Davies (2008, 2010 and 2013). It concurrently offers a means of examination of tourism-related promotional discourse related to Thailand as particularised in Lonelyplanet.com and Stickmanbangkok.com. The thesis also takes into consideration and examines critically, personal views on Thai-Western relationships submitted by contributors to the Readers' Submissions section in Stickmanbangkok.com. At the micro-level, this study is a qualitative analysis of the linguistic oppositions. These linguistic oppositions are examined using lexical and syntactic triggers. These triggers detect both external and internal oppositions. The external oppositions are those that pertain to the Us/ Them relationship between Thailand and its Other, namely tourists from the West or other origins. The internal oppositions are related to differences among Thai communities. The textual oppositions are conceptualised and subsequently investigated by comparing them to macro-level oppositions identified to establish the extent to which the textual oppositions detected in this study conforms to the pre-existing cultural oppositions. The significant findings show that, at the micro-level, the external oppositions could be conceptualised broadly into the domains of FAMILIARITY, DEVELOPMENT, and DEGENERACY. At the macro level, the finding reveals conformity of the textual oppositions to the six stereotypes of Orientalism (Said 2003, McLeod 2012): namely, the association of Thailand and Thai people with the concept of being UNDEVELOPED as opposed to the civilised Other. These categories are also applicable to the internal representation of classes within Thailand. For instance, the Isan people are represented as 'the Other within' due to their cultural disparities from the rest of the Thais. Nevertheless, to the Western writers, the people of Isan, as well as the prostitutes, appear to represent the authenticity of the country. Ultimately, the investigation of linguistic oppositions shows that the writers in both websites write about Thailand in a way that conforms to the discourse of Orientalism (2003), namely in the recurring application of DEVELOPED/ UNDEVELOPED in the representation of space and relationships. However, permanent discourses are also challenged. For instance, when used in gradable forms in which the opposite pairs share some similarities, Thailand and its other are not entirely different after all. Therefore, to a certain degree, the writers both contribute to and challenge Said's Orientalist discourse (2003)