Cordon tolls and competition between cities with symmetric and asymmetric interactions

The aim of this paper is to model the impacts of competition between cities on both the optimal welfare generating tolls and upon longer-term decisions such as business and residential location choices. The research uses a dynamic land use transport interaction model of two neighbouring cities and analyses the impacts by setting up a game between the two cities to maximise the welfare of their own residents. The work builds on our earlier research which studied competition in a small network using a static equilibrium approach for private car traffic without accounting for the land use responses to the change in accessibility. This paper extends the earlier work by setting up a dynamic model which includes active modes of travel and the more usual car and public transport in a realistic twin city setting and assesses the longer term relocation responses. This paper firstly sets out the competition between two hypothetical identical cities i.e. the symmetric case; and then sets out the real world asymmetric case in which the cities are of different size representative of Leeds and Bradford in the UK but equally applicable elsewhere too. It was found that the level of interaction between the two cities is a key determinant to the optimal tolls and welfare gains. Our findings show that the competition between cities could lead to a Nash Trap at which both cities are worse off in terms of welfare gains. On the other hand, we found that cities, if regulated, would gain in terms of welfare and yet charge only half the toll compared with tolls under competition. We then show that the effect of competition increases with increased interaction between cities. In terms of residential location, cities with higher charges benefit from an increase in residents, though as with other studies, the relative change in population in response to cordon charging is small. The policy implications are threefold – (i) while there is an incentive to cooperate at local authority level, this is not achieved due to competition; (ii) where cities compete they may fall into a Nash Trap where both cities will be worse off compared to the regulated solution; and (iii) regulation is recommended when there is a strong interaction between the cities but that the benefits of regulation decrease as interaction between cities decreases and the impact of competition is lessened

Calibration and validation of parking search time function

Large off-street car parks are traditionally modelled as self-standing traffic zones representing origins/destinations in standard network assignment models. However, such a treatment precludes the drivers from choosing alternative car parks as it assumes the car parks are their final destinations. This paper discusses the feasibility of bringing car park choice and the effects of capacity within a traditional network assignment model. The search time within car parks depends on the car park occupancy and can be represented by a flow-delay type function on the car park occupancy/capacity. This research calibrates the search-time function based on practically observed occupancy and search time at two city-centre car parks in Leeds, England. The analysis follows a simple fixed search-time method as well as a sophisticated variable search-time method. The results are validated against the observed occupancies at the car parks. A car park specific constant was introduced to account for the unobserved preference for a given type of parking facility. In a multiperiod assignment, when car park occupancies are passed on dynamically, both fixed and variable search-time approaches are seen as an improvement over the standard approach, with the variable search time outperforming the fixed time approach

Improving the Accessibility to Leeds Bradford International Airport

The accessibility to the airport is essential for air travellers since the late arrival will take a consequence to the missing flight and losing amount of money of the travel cost. During peak period, the punctuality to arrive to Leeds Bradford International Airport (LBIA) tends to be more vulnerable due to delays and queues in particular junctions in the road network. To improve the accessibility during this period, several improvements in the road network have been carried out and simulated using SATURN (Simulation and Assignment of Traffic in Urban Road Networks). The result shows that the improvement in the network managed to reduce the generalised cost of travel hence it brings user benefits for the air travellers. Through this study it is found that the junction improvement has brought monetary benefits equal to 153.67 pounds from 261 trips to LBIA which occurred during morning peak period (08.00-09.00 AM

Rat brain thioltransferase: regional distribution, immunological characterization, and localization by fluorescent in situ hybridization

Thioltransferase (TTase) is a member of the family of thiol-disulfide oxidoreductases that are involved in the maintenance of sulfhydryl homeostasis in cells by catalyzing thiol-disulfide interchange reactions. One of the major consequences of oxidative stress in brain is the formation of protein-glutathione mixed disulfides (through oxidation of protein thiols), which can be reversed by TTase during the recovery of brain from oxidative stress. We therefore examined the presence of TTase in brain regions from rat. In the rat, TTase activity in the whole brain was comparable with the corresponding activity in liver, but significantly higher in hippocampus. The enzyme activity was significantly lower in striatum and cerebellum compared with activity in whole brain. Rat brain TTase shared immunological similarity with the human red blood cell enzyme, but not with the pig liver enzyme. The constitutive expression of the mRNA to TTase was demonstrable by northern blotting. Localization of the TTase mRNA in rat brain by fluorescent in situ hybridization showed the presence of high amounts of mRNA in the olfactory bulb, cortex, and hippocampus and its predominant localization in the neurons. TTase mRNA was also present in Purkinje cells in the cerebellum, in giant reticular neurons in the midbrain, and in the striatal and thalamic neurons. This study demonstrates the constitutive presence of a functional TTase system in brain and delineates the regional and cellular localization of the enzyme in rat brain

The effects of diffusion on an exonuclease/nanopore-based DNA sequencing engine

Over 15 years ago, the ability to electrically detect and characterize individual polynucleotides as they are driven through a single protein ion channel was suggested as a potential method for rapidly sequencing DNA, base-by-base, in a ticker tape-like fashion. More recently, a variation of this method was proposed in which a nanopore would instead detect single nucleotides cleaved sequentially by an exonuclease enzyme in close proximity to one pore entrance. We analyze the exonuclease/nanopore-based DNA sequencing engine using analytical theory and computer simulations that describe nucleotide transport. The available data and analytical results suggest that the proposed method will be limited to reading bases, imposed, in part, by the short lifetime each nucleotide spends in the vicinity of the detection element within the pore and the ability to accurately discriminate between the four mononucleotides

Realizzazione e caratterizzazione di strutture sandwich di acciaio con core in schiuma di Al

Il presente lavoro descrive i risultati ottenuti nella realizzazione di pannelli a struttura sandwich costituiti dapelli in acciaio AISI 316 e un core in schiuma di lega AlSi10. In particolare descrive una metodologia per larealizzazione del legame metallurgico tra pelli e core durante il processo produttivo. La produzione dei pannelli,è stata effettuata in due fasi: nella prima fase è stato realizzato un precursore composito, per la cui realizzazionesono stati valutati diversi metodi di pressatura, sia a caldo che a freddo, formato dalle pelli di acciaio e da un corecostituito da un precursore schiumabile in lega AlSi10; nella seconda fase, il composito è stato fatto schiumare inforno a 640 °C. L’interfaccia acciaio - schiuma in AlSi10 è stata studiata attraverso microscopia SEM, microanalisiEDS e spettroscopia XPS. I risultati rivelano una interfaccia tra pelli e core di circa 40 ?m in cui è avvenutal’interdiffusione delle specie chimiche presenti nell’acciaio e nella lega AlSi10

Preferences for electric motorcycle adoption in Bandung, Indonesia

Due to an alarming threat of air pollution and climate change, governments around the world are now actively promoting electric vehicles. The case for vehicle electrification is even more important in big cities of developing countries, where motorcycle is a dominant mode of travel. To promote electric motorcycles successfully, we need to understand the factors that would drive the consumer choices when buying a motorcycle. This study chose Bandung in Indonesia as the case study location, where nearly 75% of vehicles are motorcycles. This study conducted a survey of preferences from over 700 residents and included battery charging methods such as plug-in/battery swap at home/office, superfast charging at stations, and deployed an innovative modelling approach constraining the mixture of distributions for monetary attributes. The study found that quick recharge in 10 minutes and battery swap at station are preferred over the base method of plug-in at home/work. The battery swap at home has been perceived the same as plug-in home/work and the respondents are indifferent to this option