63,763 research outputs found

    The Merits of Sharing a Ride

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    The culture of sharing instead of ownership is sharply increasing in individuals behaviors. Particularly in transportation, concepts of sharing a ride in either carpooling or ridesharing have been recently adopted. An efficient optimization approach to match passengers in real-time is the core of any ridesharing system. In this paper, we model ridesharing as an online matching problem on general graphs such that passengers do not drive private cars and use shared taxis. We propose an optimization algorithm to solve it. The outlined algorithm calculates the optimal waiting time when a passenger arrives. This leads to a matching with minimal overall overheads while maximizing the number of partnerships. To evaluate the behavior of our algorithm, we used NYC taxi real-life data set. Results represent a substantial reduction in overall overheads

    An American Conversation on the Post-2015 Development Agenda

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    In the closing months of 2013, over 1,000 Americans gathered in communities large and small to discuss the world they want in 2030. They came together to answer a call to action from Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for every UN member state to seek public input for a new and ambitious development agenda to replace the Millennium Development Goals when they expire in 2015.From October to December 2013, the United Nations Association of the United States of America (UNA-USA), a program of the United Nations Foundation, held day-long consultations in 12 cities across America. The 16 proposed development themes listed on the MY World 2015 website of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) served as the starting point for each conversation with participants ranking each theme while adding new ideas of their own.This report provides a window into the conversations that unfolded as Americans stepped back from their daily routines to think about how a new development agenda might impact their own lives as well as the lives of citizens of other UN member states around the world. The conversations included a diverse audience from age 15 to 95 and revealed both cross cutting themes and a few surprising findings

    Collaborative Governance: A Guide for Grantmakers

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    Provides a framework for understanding the different tools and approaches within the emerging field of collaborative governance. Includes case examples that illustrate how the process works, and how it can be applied in specific situations

    Sustainability Analysis Framework for On-Demand Public Transit Systems

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    There is an increased interest from transit agencies to replace fixed-route transit services with on-demand public transits (ODT). However, it is still unclear when and where such a service is efficient and sustainable. To this end, we provide a comprehensive framework for assessing the sustainability of ODT systems from the perspective of overall efficiency, environmental footprint, and social equity and inclusion. The proposed framework is illustrated by applying it to the Town of Innisfil, Ontario, where an ODT system has been implemented since 2017. It can be concluded that when there is adequate supply and no surge pricing, crowdsourced ODTs are the most cost-effective transit system when the demand is below 3.37 riders/km2/day. With surge pricing applied to crowdsourced ODTs, hybrid systems become the most cost-effective transit solution when demand ranges between 1.18 and 3.37 riders/km2/day. The use of private vehicles is more environmentally sustainable than providing public transit service at all demand levels below 3.37 riders/km2/day. However, the electrification of the public transit fleet along with optimized charging strategies can reduce total yearly GHG emissions by more than 98%. Furthermore, transit systems have similar equity distributions for waiting and in-vehicle travel times

    The Critical Role of Public Charging Infrastructure

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    Editors: Peter Fox-Penner, PhD, Z. Justin Ren, PhD, David O. JermainA decade after the launch of the contemporary global electric vehicle (EV) market, most cities face a major challenge preparing for rising EV demand. Some cities, and the leaders who shape them, are meeting and even leading demand for EV infrastructure. This book aggregates deep, groundbreaking research in the areas of urban EV deployment for city managers, private developers, urban planners, and utilities who want to understand and lead change

    E-logistics of agribusiness organisations

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    Logistics is one of the most important agribusiness functions due to the idiosyncrasy of food products and the structure of food supply chain. Companies in the food sector typically operate with poor production forecasting, inefficient inventory management, lack of coordination with supply partners. Further, markets are characterised by stern competition, increasing consumer demands and stringent regulation for food quality and safety. Large agribusiness corporations have already turned to e-logistics solutions as a means to sustain competitive advantage and meet consumer demands. There are four types of e-logistics applications: (a) Vertical alliances where supply partners forge long-term strategic alliances based on electronic sharing of critical logistics information such as sales forecasts and inventory volume. Vertical alliances often apply supply chain management (SCM) which is concerned with the relationship between a company and its suppliers and customers. The prime characteristic of SCM is interorganizational coordination: agribusiness companies working jointly with their customers and suppliers to integrate activities along the supply chain to effectively supply food products to customers. E-logistics solutions engender the systematic integration among supply partners by allowing more efficient and automatic information flow. (b) e-tailing, in which retailers give consumers the ability to order food such as groceries from home electronically i.e. using the Internet and the subsequent delivery of those ordered goods at home. (c) Efficient Foodservice Response (EFR), which is a strategy designed to enable foodservice industry to achieve profitable growth by looking at ways to save money for each level of the supply chain by eliminating inefficient practices. EFR provides solutions to common logistics problems, such as transactional inefficiency, inefficient plant scheduling, out-of-stocks, and expedited transportation. (d) Contracting, a means of coordinating procurement of food, beverages and their associated supplies. Many markets and supply chains in agriculture are buyer-driven where the buyers in the market tend to set prices and terms of trade. Those terms can include the use of electronic means of communication to support automatic replenishment of goods, management of supply and inventory. The results of the current applications of e-logistics in food sector are encouraging for Greek agribusiness. Companies need to become aware of and evaluate the value-added by those applications which are a sustainable competitive advantage, optimisation of supply chain flows, and meeting consumer demands and food safety regulations. E-business diffusion has shown that typically first-movers gain a significant competitive advantage and the rest companies either eventually adopt the new systems or see a significant decline in their trading partners and perish. E-logistics solutions typically require huge investments in hardware and software and skilled personnel, which is an overt barrier for most Greek companies. Large companies typically are first-movers but small and medium enterprises (SMEs) need institutional support in order to become aware that e-logistics systems can be fruitful for them as well

    How a rapid modal convergence into a universal automated taxi service could be the future for local passenger transport

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    The world is changing rapidly. Yet a common assumption is that cars, buses and taxis will remain the dominant local passenger transport modes in the coming decades. This concept paper draws on literature sources and on discussions with industry stakeholders to look anew at the local passenger transport sector in the light of broader societal trends to suggest an alternative future, and to offer insights to practitioners and policy makers. The paper finds that the traditional modes of car, bus and taxi are slowly beginning to lose market share to intermediate modes such as shared taxis, lift sharing schemes, DRT services and car clubs whilst numerous technological and market trends are combining to accelerate this process of ‘modal convergence’. Taken together, these trends could revolutionise how we move about, with one possible outcome being the emergence of a single dominant passenger mode of an automated universal taxi system or dial-a-pod
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