The Economic Impact of Environmentally Sustainable Transport in Germany

The economic assessment of the Environmentally Sustainable Transportation (EST) scenarios developed throughout this paper are part of Phase 3 of the overall project, which is on social and economic assessment and on devising packages of instruments that - if implemented - would result in attaining EST.  Two methods were chosen for the assessment of the scenarios: a qualitative evaluation based on a simplified cybernetic model (SCM) and a system dynamics model (SDM). In the assessment with the simplified cybernetic model, a conservative baseline has been chosen in order to start with a scenario that incorporates some pessimistic views of the industry. The aim is to show that, even in this case, an economic disaster will not occur.  The System Dynamics Model ESCOT was designed to consider the ecological and technical aspects of a transition towards sustainable transportation. It is important that ESCOT considers not only first round effects but also secondary effects, which makes it a powerful instrument for the assessment of such large ecological changes. The economic assessment of environmentally sustainable scenarios shows that the departure from car and road freight oriented transport policy is far from leading to an economic collapse. The effects concerning economic indices are rather low, even though the measures proposed in the EST-80% scenario designate distinct changes compared to today’s transport policy. The impacts on some economic indicators, however, are clearly negative. With an expansion of the time period for the transition in the EST-50% scenario we derived even more encouraging results than for EST-80%

Safety and risk in road traffic: selected problems

In the field of road safety, the concept of "risk" is used to define a measurable level of road safety dependent on numerical accident exposure value. This is an approach different (even contradictory) to calculate the level of security, measured by the number of accidents or injuries. So, whether otherwise - risk assessment is needed to improve the safety of road transport and define priorities in the field of public health. The article presents the concept of risk and selected problems of risk analysis in road traffic

Risk Assessment of Water Transport Enterprises by Modeling Direct and Indirect Threats

Introduction. The methods of traffic modeling by water transport and assessing the risks associated with it is needed to identify the issues of the past period, proposing methods for assessing not only direct but also indirect risks to form the preconditions for preventing them in the postwar reconstruction. The coordination of different transport type’s actions of transport requires an assessment of risks impact of the previous stages of mixed transportation on the formation of the following risks’ stages. Existing methods of assessing such impact need to be improved. Aim and tasks. The aim of this study is creation of methodological approach to risk management in water transport based on a mathematical model for assessing the impact of both direct and indirect risks. The tasks are: to prove that the additive approach of taking risks into account leads to the systematic deviation appearance from the result; take into account the impact on the risk of cargo transportation. Results. It has proved that the calculation of risk as an additive function leads to a systematic deviation from the relevant result. It stated that the risk of each of the next stages of transportation depends on the risks of the previous stages. To increase risk analysis relevance in water transport, the use of an oriented graph in a multidimensional parameter space proposed. It stated that in order to calculate the integrated risk, it is essential building not only the risk matrix but also the risk incidence matrix to take into account their relation to business entities. It established the impact of even minor risks could take the form of a catastrophe, which leads to cargo flows reorientation. It established that: for calculation of integral risk, it is crucial consider direct and indirect influences of risks; risk calculation for water transport also requires risk analysis in related modes of transport. Conclusions. It was established that, when calculating integral risk, it is necessary to consider direct and indirect influences on risks and that the risk calculation for water transport also requires risk analysis in related modes of transport. The proposed approach significantly increases the relevance of water transport risk analysis and allows for managing changes in transportation routes in real time

Railway Transport Planning and Management

Railway engineering is facing different and complex challenges due to the growing demand for travel, new technologies, and new mobility paradigms. All these issues require a clear understanding of the existing technologies, and it is crucial to identify the real opportunities that the current technological revolution may pose. As railway transportation planning processes change and pursue a multi-objective vision, diagnostic and maintenance issues are becoming even more crucial for overall system performances and alternative fuel solutions

The future of Cybersecurity in Italy: Strategic focus area

This volume has been created as a continuation of the previous one, with the aim of outlining a set of focus areas and actions that the Italian Nation research community considers essential. The book touches many aspects of cyber security, ranging from the definition of the infrastructure and controls needed to organize cyberdefence to the actions and technologies to be developed to be better protected, from the identification of the main technologies to be defended to the proposal of a set of horizontal actions for training, awareness raising, and risk management

Application of cybernetic models in the study of safety and economics of nuclear power systems and other high risk organizations: A study of nuclear power and high risk organizations to understand the central role of management in the safety and economics of these operations

The safety and economics of nuclear utilities and High Risk Operations (HROs) is very dependent on the quality of both the management and operations personnel. The decisionmaking capability of management is important in ensuring that the operators are adequately prepared to deal effectively with accidents. This means that management has to understand the risk of power production and adequately deal with it, so that the viability of the utility is not compromised, while still operating in an economical manner. The vehicle for enabling management to function effectively is a dynamic designed organizational structure in which all personnel communicate well and is designed to use the best features of human performance according to their roles within the organization. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the application of Beer’s Viable Systems Model of an organization to see if it fits the requirements of nuclear power plant (NPP) organizations to be both economical and safe and to propose modifications to VSM to more closely match the needs and requirements for NPP organizations. It is realized that organizations can operate effectively when they are not operating under stress, however the situations changes when they are subjected to accidents. A well designed organization is one that is prepared and can respond quickly to an accident. Because of the possible impact of accidents on organizations, the thesis studied a number of accidents that have occurred in the nuclear industry and to cover the more general case of HROs, accidents affecting other industries were also considered. Based upon the accident investigations and from the study of human behavior, insights were developed related to characteristics of both managers and operations personnel. These insights led to the development of an understanding of how VSM needs to be considered when dealing with HROs, including NPP utilities. The top down structure of VSM mirrors the basic needs of an organization, but the demands of responding to the safety requirements of an organization requires an understanding of the effects of the time response limits placed upon an organization. These requirements dictate changes to the VSM organization designed for normal commercial organizations, where time for decisions and actions are not so important and these changes are addressed. Although in normal commercial organizations risk assessment is considered, in the NPP utility and HROs business it is extremely important, since poor decisions with respect to risk can affect the viability of the organization. The thesis covers the use of risk assessment technology to improve management decision-making. Currently, the industry uses risk assessment techniques for total plant risk (more for licensing purposed) and for plant state risk assessment. The contribution of the thesis is seen as contributing to improvements in the understanding of VSM and making some modifications to it. The importance of time response of organizations in combating accidents and its human performance background is demonstrated and the mechanisms whereby performance is improved by the use of procedures and training is explained

Is the responsibilization of the cyber security risk reasonable and judicious?

Cyber criminals appear to be plying their trade without much hindrance. Home computer users are particularly vulnerable to attack by an increasingly sophisticated and globally dispersed hacker group. The smartphone era has exacerbated the situation, offering hackers even more attack surfaces to exploit. It might not be entirely coincidental that cyber crime has mushroomed in parallel with governments pursuing a neoliberalist agenda. This agenda has a strong drive towards individualizing risk i.e. advising citizens how to take care of themselves, and then leaving them to face the consequences if they choose not to follow the advice. In effect, citizens are “responsibilized .” Whereas responsibilization is effective for some risks, the responsibilization of cyber security is, we believe, contributing to the global success of cyber attacks. There is, consequently, a case to be made for governments taking a more active role than the mere provision of advice, which is the case in many countries. We conclude with a concrete proposal for a risk regulation regime that would more effectively mitigate and ameliorate cyber risk