Priority Management for Urban Arterials. Transferability of Techniques: Methodology and Summary.

This paper describes the background and methodology employed in research funded by EPSRC to assess the effect of individual traffic control measures on urban arterials, both in isolation and in combination. The aim of the project was to test the transferability of the techniques developed in a DRIVE II project, PRIMAVERA, to a range of different types of urban corridor. Measures have been classed into three broad categories: Congestion Management, Public Transport Priority and Traffic Calming. The scope of these measures is wide, some operating at a junction level whilst others have an impact over a whole corridor. Measures from these categories are applied in a sophisticated microsimulation model of a series of hypothetical networks and four urban arterial corridors: three in Leeds and one in Leicester. The effects of the application of individual and integrated measures are assessed in terms of their efficiency, environmental and safety impacts using a form of Multi-Criteria Analysis. Travel time and other monetary costs are also taken into consideration. Whilst these results are of interest to local planners in the operation of each of the arterial corridors studied, a wider insight into the operation of urban arterials can be drawn from this study leading to more efficient control of the available road space

Environmental screening tools for assessment of infrastructure plans based on biodiversity preservation and global warming (PEIT, Spain).

Most Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) research has been concerned with SEA as a procedure, and there have been relatively few developments and tests of analytical methodologies. The first stage of the SEA is the ‘screening’, which is the process whereby a decision is taken on whether or not SEA is required for a particular programme or plan. The effectiveness of screening and SEA procedures will depend on how well the assessment fits into the planning from the early stages of the decision-making process. However, it is difficult to prepare the environmental screening for an infrastructure plan involving a whole country. To be useful, such methodologies must be fast and simple. We have developed two screening tools which would make it possible to estimate promptly the overall impact an infrastructure plan might have on biodiversity and global warming for a whole country, in order to generate planning alternatives, and to determine whether or not SEA is required for a particular infrastructure plan

Optimal Alignments for Designing Urban Transport Systems: Application to Seville

The achievement of some of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) from the recent 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development has drawn the attention of many countries towards urban transport networks. Mathematical modeling constitutes an analytical tool for the formal description of a transportation system whereby it facilitates the introduction of variables and the definition of objectives to be optimized. One of the stages of the methodology followed in the design of urban transit systems starts with the determination of corridors to optimize the population covered by the system whilst taking into account the mobility patterns of potential users and the time saved when the public network is used instead of private means of transport. Since the capture of users occurs at stations, it seems reasonable to consider an extensive and homogeneous set of candidate sites evaluated according to the parameters considered (such as pedestrian population captured and destination preferences) and to select subsets of stations so that alignments can take place. The application of optimization procedures that decide the sequence of nodes composing the alignment can produce zigzagging corridors, which are less appropriate for the design of a single line. The main aim of this work is to include a new criterion to avoid the zigzag effect when the alignment is about to be determined. For this purpose, a curvature concept for polygonal lines is introduced, and its performance is analyzed when criteria of maximizing coverage and minimizing curvature are combined in the same design algorithm. The results show the application of the mathematical model presented for a real case in the city of Seville in Spain.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad MTM2015-67706-

Environmental impact of combined ITS traffic management strategies

Transport was responsible for 20% of the total greenhouse gas emissions in Europe during 2011 (European Environmental Agency 2013) with road transport being the key contributor. To tackle this, targets have been established in Europe and worldwide to curb transport emissions. This poses a significant challenge on Local Government and transport operators who need to identify a set of effective measures to reduce the environmental impact of road transport and at the same time keep the traffic smooth. Of the road transport pollutants, this paper considers NOx, CO2 and black carbon (BC). A particular focus is put on black carbon, which is formed through incomplete combustion of carboneous materials, as it has a significant impact on the Earth’s climate system. It absorbs solar radiation, influences cloud processes, and alters the melting of snow and ice cover (Bond et al. 2013). BC also causes serious health concerns: black carbon is associated with asthma and other respiratory problems, heart attacks and lung cancer (Sharma 2010; United States Environmental Protection Agency 2012). Since BC emissions are mainly produced during the decelerating and accelerating phases (Zhang et al. 2009), ITS actions able to reduce stop&go phases have the potential to reduce BC emissions. This paper investigates the effectiveness of combined ITS actions in urban context in reducing CO2 and BC emissions and improving traffic conditions

Accessibility impacts of tod experiences in European metropolitan areas

The study investigates how Transit Oriented Development - TOD structure affect accessibility in cities with the aim of establishing whether TOD patterns of urban expansion, in terms of network connectivity and inhabitants and job density, could be associated with measures of rail accessibility. In particular the paper addresses the following overarching questions: is TOD informed structure related to high accessibility by rail public transport? Which features of TOD structure affect accessibility? The paper provides a cross- comparative empirical analysis of six metropolitan areas in Europe, where the TOD degree is measured as the amount of urban development clustering along rail corridors and stations; this feature is then related to cumulative opportunity measures of accessibility to jobs and inhabitants. The research demonstrate that accessibility increases in cities that are developed around the rail network and with higher value of network connectivity, but no correlation is found between accessibility and mean density values. The research furthermore provide an application of the node-place model demonstrating its useful potential in accessibility planning processes

Centrality and connectivity in public transport networks and their significance for transport sustainability in cities

The promotion of public transport as a backbone of mobility in urban agglomerations, or at least as an alternative to the dominance of the automobile, has become a prominent policy focus in most large cities around the world. However, while some cities have been successful in shifting car journeys onto rail and buses, others are struggling despite considerable effort to make public transport more attractive. This paper provides a brief overview of success factors for public transport and then takes the configuration of public transport networks as a vantage point for policy evaluation. The development of centrality and connectivity indicators for the public transport network of Melbourne's north-eastern suburbs delivers an instrument for assessing the congruence of the systems with the geographical structure of central areas and urban activities in these cities. It is hypothesised that a higher number of convenient transfer points and a choice of routes to users (network connectivity), as well as a high degree of spatial overlap and integration between public transport infrastructure and urban activity centres and corridors (centrality of facilities) will lead to a greater role for public transport in the mobility patterns of the city as a whole

Priority Management for Urban Arterials. Transferability of Techniques: Hypothetical Arterials.

A series of hypothetical corridors have been simulated, representing a range of junction spacings, capacity distribution, availability of parallel routes, bus flows and routing patterns. These have been used to test a range of traffic management measures designed to increase capacity, improve public transport operations and calm traffic. All measures have been assessed in terms of their impact on travel costs and conclusions have been drawn in terms of the appropriateness of different measures in differing contexts

The fourth dimension in landscape analysis: changing of heritage and ecological values in the Évora cultural landscapes.

Time is one of the most important driving forces in Landscape Ecology. Time along with geosystem, biosystem and socialsystem determines landscape heterogeneity which reveals itself in different patterns and functions. Cultural Landscapes are the result of the interactions between man and environment along time

How Effective are Toll Roads in Improving Operational Performance?

The main focus of this research is to develop a systematic analytical framework and evaluate the effect of a toll road on region’s traffic using travel time and travel time reliability measures. The travel time data for the Triangle Expressway in Raleigh, North Carolina, United States was employed for the assessment process. The spatial and temporal variations in the travel time distributions on the toll road, parallel alternate route, and near-vicinity cross-streets were analyzed using various travel time reliability measures. The results indicate that the Triangle Expressway showed a positive trend in reliability over the years of its operation. The parallel route reliability decreased significantly during the analysis period, whereas the travel time reliability of cross-streets showed a consistent trend. The stabilization of travel time distributions and the reliability measures over different years of toll road operation are good indicators, suggesting that further reduction in performance measures may not be seen on the near vicinity corridors. The findings from link-level and corridor-level analysis may help with transportation system management, assessing the influence of travel demand patterns, and evaluating the effect of planned implementation of similar projects

Impact of traffic management on black carbon emissions: a microsimulation study

This paper investigates the effectiveness of traffic management tools, includ- ing traffic signal control and en-route navigation provided by variable message signs (VMS), in reducing traffic congestion and associated emissions of CO2, NOx, and black carbon. The latter is among the most significant contributors of climate change, and is associated with many serious health problems. This study combines traffic microsimulation (S-Paramics) with emission modeling (AIRE) to simulate and predict the impacts of different traffic management measures on a number traffic and environmental Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) assessed at different spatial levels. Simulation results for a real road network located in West Glasgow suggest that these traffic management tools can bring a reduction in travel delay and BC emission respectively by up to 6 % and 3 % network wide. The improvement at local levels such as junctions or corridors can be more significant. However, our results also show that the potential benefits of such interventions are strongly dependent on a number of factors, including dynamic demand profile, VMS compliance rate, and fleet composition. Extensive discussion based on the simulation results as well as managerial insights are provided to support traffic network operation and control with environmental goals. The study described by this paper was conducted under the support of the FP7-funded CARBOTRAF project