Congestion and Safety: A Spatial Analysis of London

Spatially disaggregate Enumeration District (ED) level data for London is used in an analysis of various area-wide factors on road casualties. Data on 15335 EDs was input into a geographic information system (GIS) that contained data on road characteristics, public transport accessibility, information of nearest hospital location, car ownership and road casualties. Demographic data for each ED was also included. Various count data models e.g., negative binomial or zero-inflated Poisson and negative binomial models were used to analyze the associations between these factors with traffic fatalities, serious injuries and slight injuries. Different levels of spatial aggregation were also examined to determine if this affected interpretation of the results. Different pedestrian casualties were also examined. Results suggest that dissimilar count models may have to be adopted for modeling different types of accidents based on the dependent variable. Results also suggest that EDs with more roundabouts are safer than EDs with more junctions. More motorways are found to be related to fewer pedestrian casualties but higher traffic casualties. Number of households with no car seems to have more traffic casualties. Distance of the nearest hospital from EDs tends to have no significant effect on casualties. In all cases, it is found that EDs with more employees are associated with fewer casualties.

Lip rounding in Amoy and Mandarin high vowels: maximum dispersion, or adequate separation

There are two hypotheses about the relationship between phonological contrasts and phonetic feature scales. Some phoneticians propose that values are chosen so that contrasting phonemes are maximally separated, e.g., Lilijencrants and Lindblom, 1972, while others claim that they need only to be adequately separated, e.g., Maddieson, 1977. This paper tests the competing hypotheses by comparing lip position in Mandarin [i], [y], [u] with that of Amoy [i] and [u]. According to adequate separation, the lip spreadness/roundness of Mandarin will be more extreme than that of Amoy, since there are three high vowels in Mandarin but only two in Amoy. According to the maximum dispersion hypothesis, the degree of roundness should be the same in both languages. Amoy and Mandarin data were collected from three bilingual speakers. The results support the Adequate Separation Theory. This paper also tests Wood's (1986) claim that in a language with two high rounded vowels, /u/ and /y/, /u/ is more rounded than /y/. The result shows that this claim is not necessarily true

An analyses of pedestrian and bicycle casualties using regional panel data

An analysis is presented of pedestrian and bicycle casualties by using cross-sectional time series data for the regions of Great Britain. A fixed-effect negative binomial model is used that accounts for heterogeneity in the data and the distributional properties of count data. Various factors associated with those killed and seriously injured as well as with slight injuries are examined. These include the average age of vehicles in the region, the road length of various road classes, vehicle ownership in the region, per capita income, per capita expenditure on alcohol, age cohorts, and various proxies for medical technology improvements. Various specifications of the models are estimated. Generally, it is found that more serious pedestrian injuries are associated with lower-income areas, increases in percent of local roads, increased per capita expenditure on alcohol, and total population. Statistical effects are more difficult to detect in models with serious injuries for bicyclists, but alcohol expenditure is strongly associated with increased injuries. This work has implications for transport policy aimed at increasing the modal share of pedestrians and bicyclists. Further research is needed to clearly understand some of the trends found in the analysis, especially the effect of changes in medical care and technology on total injuries

Flow improvements and vehicle emissions: effects of trip generation and emission control technology

This paper examines whether road schemes that increase the availability of road space or which smooth the flow of traffic result in increased vehicle pollution. Economic theory indicates that increases in road space and the consequent decreases in travel time will tend to increase total vehicular travel, an effect known as induced travel. The net impacts on vehicle pollution have largely been a matter of conjecture with some arguing that policies to reduce congestion (by adding more road space) will reduce pollution by smoothing the flow of traffic and reducing stop and go traffic, while others argue that induced traffic will overwhelm this effect. This paper uses a micro-simulation model (VISSIM), integrated with a modal emissions model (CMEM), to evaluate the overall strategic policy question of how changes in available road capacity affects vehicle emissions. The analysis examines alternative vehicle fleets, ranging from a fleet with no emission control technology to relatively clean Tier 1 vehicles. Results show emission break-even points for CO, HC, NOx, fuel consumption and CO2. Increased traffic is found to quickly diminish any initial emission reduction benefits

Congestion and safety: a spatial analysis of London

A disaggregate spatial analysis, using enumeration district data for London was conducted with the aim of examining how congestion may affect traffic safety. It has been hypothesized that while congested traffic conditions may increase the number of vehicle crashes and interactions, their severity is normally lower than crashes under uncongested free flowing conditions. This is primarily due to the slower speeds of vehicles when congestion is present. Our analysis uses negative binomial count models to examine whether factors affecting casualties (fatalities, serious injuries and slight injuries) differed during congested time periods as opposed to uncongested time periods. We also controlled for congestion spatially using a number of proxy variables and estimated pedestrian casualty models since a large proportion of London casualties are pedestrians. Results are not conclusive. Our results suggest that road infrastructure effects may interact with congestion levels such that in London any spatial differences are largely mitigated. Some small differences are seen between the models for congested versus uncongested time periods, but no conclusive trends can be found. Our results lead us to suspect that congestion as a mitigator of crash severity is less likely to occur in urban conditions, but may still be a factor on higher speed roads and motorways

A spatially disaggregate analysis of road casualties in England

Spatially disaggregate ward level data for England is used in an analysis of various area-wide factors on road casualties. Data on 8414 wards was input into a geographic information system that contained data on land use types, road characteristics and road casualties. Demographic data on area-wide deprivation (the index of multiple deprivation) for each ward was also included. Negative binomial count data models were used to analyze the associations between these factors with traffic fatalities, serious injuries and slight injuries. Results suggest that urbanized areas are associated with fewer casualties (especially fatalities) while areas of higher employment density are associated with more casualties. More deprived areas tend to have higher levels of casualties, though not of motorized casualties (except slight injuries). The effect of road characteristics are less significant but there are some positive associations with the density of “A” and “B” level roads

The effect of the London congestion charge on road casualties: an intervention analysis

The introduction of the congestion charge in central London on the 17th of February, 2003, led to a reduction in congestion. One factor that has not been fully analysed is the impact of the congestion charge on traffic casualties in London. Less car travel within the charging zone may result in fewer traffic collisions, however, as the number of pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists increased after the introduction of the congestion charge, the number of traffic casualties associated with these groups may also have increased. Reductions in congestion can also lead to faster speeds. Therefore, there could be increases in injury severity for those crashes that do occur. An intervention analysis was conducted to investigate the effect of the congestion charge on traffic casualties for motorists, pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists, both within the charging zone and in areas of London outside the zone. This was done for killed and serious injuries (known as KSI in British terminology) and for slight injuries to examine whether there were any shifts in severity outcomes. Our results suggest no statistically significant effect for total casualties in London, but within the charging zone there has been a statistically significant drop in motorist casualties, and possibly an increase in cyclist casualties. There is an associated effect of an increase in casualties of motorcyclists and cyclists in some areas outside the charging zone, suggesting that changes in the design of the congestion charge may be needed to achieve reductions in casualties

Map-matching in complex urban road networks

Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) such as GPS and digital road maps can be used for land vehicle navigation systems. However, GPS requires a level of augmentation with other navigation sensors and systems such as Dead Reckoning (DR) devices, in order to achieve the required navigation performance (RNP) in some areas such as urban canyons, streets with dense tree cover, and tunnels. One of the common solutions is to integrate GPS with DR by employing a Kalman Filter (Zhao et al., 2003). The integrated navigation systems usually rely on various types of sensors. Even with very good sensor calibration and sensor fusion technologies, inaccuracies in the positioning sensors are often inevitable. There are also errors associated with spatial road network data. This paper develops an improved probabilistic Map Matching (MM) algorithm to reconcile inaccurate locational data with inaccurate digital road network data. The basic characteristics of the algorithm take into account the error sources associated with the positioning sensors, the historical trajectory of the vehicle, topological information on the road network (e.g., connectivity and orientation of links), and the heading and speed information of the vehicle. This then enables a precise identification of the correct link on which the vehicle is travelling. An optimal estimation technique to determine the vehicle position on the link has also been developed and is described. Positioning data was obtained from a comprehensive field test carried out in Central London. The algorithm was tested on a complex urban road network with a high resolution digital road map. The performance of the algorithm was found to be very good for different traffic maneuvers and a significant improvement over using just an integrated GPS/DR solution

A high accuracy fuzzy logic based map matching algorithm for road transport

Recent research on map matching algorithms for land vehicle navigation has been based on either a conventional topological analysis or a probabilistic approach. The input to these algorithms normally comes from the global positioning system (GPS) and digital map data. Although the performance of some of these algorithms is good in relatively sparse road networks, they are not always reliable for complex roundabouts, merging or diverging sections of motorways, and complex urban road networks. In high road density areas where the average distance between roads is less than 100 m, there may be many road patterns matching the trajectory of the vehicle reported by the positioning system at any given moment. Consequently, it may be difficult to precisely identify the road on which the vehicle is travelling. Therefore, techniques for dealing with qualitative terms such as likeliness are essential for map matching algorithms to identify a correct link. Fuzzy logic is one technique that is an effective way to deal with qualitative terms, linguistic vagueness, and human intervention. This article develops a map matching algorithm based on fuzzy logic theory. The inputs to the proposed algorithm are from GPS augmented with data from deduced reckoning sensors to provide continuous navigation. The algorithm is tested on different road networks of varying complexity. The validation of this algorithm is carried out using high precision positioning data obtained from GPS carrier phase observables. The performance of the developed map matching algorithm is evaluated against the performance of several well-accepted existing map matching algorithms. The results show that the fuzzy logic-based map matching algorithm provides a significant improvement over existing map matching algorithms both in terms of identifying correct links and estimating the vehicle position on the links

Positioning algorithms for transport telematics applications

This paper develops two integrated positioning algorithms for transport telematics applications and services. The first is an Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) algorithm for the integration of GPS and low cost DR sensors to provide continuous positioning in built-up areas. The second takes this further by integrating the GPS/DR output with map data in a novel a map-matching process to both identify the physical location of a vehicle on the road network and improve positioning capability. The proposed MM algorithm is validated using a higher accuracy reference (truth) of the vehicle trajectory as determined by high precision positioning achieved by the carrier phase observable from GP