Book Review: Stephen Ison and Tom Rye (eds.): The Implementation and Effectiveness of Transport Demand Management Measures; an International Perspective

The growing difficulties with managing congestion in road traffic have steadily increased attention for transport management approaches that focus on reducing the need for travelling and switching modes to alternative mobility options. The set of measures available to transport professionals for bringing about such a change in travel behaviour constitutes the domain of Transport Demand Management (TDM). This book deals with TDM, in particular those measures that associate with commuting-induced road congestion. “The book seeks to review the nature of particular TDM measures, their effectiveness and issues relating to implementation and how the barriers to the implementation of the respective measures may be overcome” (p. 2). Especially the special attention for issues of implementation is interesting, since all too often transport planners tend to mainly emphasize effectiveness of interventions in the transport system, while neglecting the difficulties involved with bringing proposed interventions to reality

Introducing Advanced Driver Assistance Systems

The introduction of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) in road traffic induces many complex questions. One of them is whether or not present legislation frameworks are able to accommodate a smooth development and market implementation of ADAS. This is strongly related to the aspect of traffic safety. The various aspects related to this issue are categorised based on an exploration of the functionality and possible failure of ADAS. Next, some problem categories are more in-depth elaborated. In particular attention is paid to the need for establishing safety requirements to the design and marketing of ADAS as well as the issue of liability regulation. It is concluded that decision making on safety requirements mainly takes place at an international level. However, so far hardly any requirements regarding ADAS have been laid down in compulsory rules yet. It is further concluded that current legal frameworks in both the fields of vehicle safety standards and liability provide for (some) flexibility towards technical developments regarding ADAS, i.e. these frameworks do not contain many ‘hard rules’ obstructing the introduction of ADAS. Concerning the safety regulation of ADAS it is argued that the speed of technological developments and the innovative and specific nature of ADAS technology generate various tensions. These tensions should have consequences for the weight that is put on public and private intervention mechanisms and the relation between preventive safety standards and reactive regimes such as product liability and post-market controls

Comparative study of Cl₂, Cl₂/O₂, and Cl₂/N₂ inductively coupled plasma processes for etching of high-aspect-ratio photonic-crystal holes in InP

An extensive investigation has been performed on inductively coupled plasmaetching of InP. An important motivation for this work is the fabrication of high-aspect-ratio holes for photonic crystals. The essential chemistry is based on Cl₂ with the addition of N₂ or O₂ for sidewall passivation. The influence of different process parameters such as gas flows, temperature,pressure, ion energy, and inductively coupled plasma power on the hole geometry is presented. It is concluded that photonic crystals can be etched with Cl₂ only; however, temperature and pressure control is critical. Adding passivation gases largely broadens the window in the parameter space for hole etching. Most importantly, etching of narrow holes can be carried out at higher temperatures where the etching is mass limited and spontaneous etching of InP by Cl₂ occurs.Part of this research is supported by NanoNed, a technology program of the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs

Editorial Advanced Driver Assistance Systems

The application of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), in particular Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), is expected to improve the performance of road transportation significantly. Public policy makers, among others, are therefore increasingly interested in the implementation of these systems. Available knowledge on various implementation issues is growing, but still limited. This is due to the complex interactions between technological re- quirements, market introduction, impacts on driver behaviour and traffic performance and policy priorities. This article provides a framework for ADAS implementation, reviews recent developments in this field and introduces the contributions to this special issue

2D InP photonic crystal fabrication process development

We have developed a reliable process to fabricate high quality 2D air-hole and dielectric column InP photonic crystals with a high aspect ratio on a STS production tool using ICP N2+Cl2 plasma. The photonic crystals have a triangular lattice with lattice constant of 400 nm and air-hole and dielectric column radius of 120 nm. Large efforts have been devoted on developing a proper mask. We obtained a perfect, clean and vertical profiled SiNx mask. The next main effort is InP pattern transfer in Cl 2+N2 plasma. Etching selectivity, smooth sidewall and etch profile are directly related to plasma process condition, besides the quality of SiNx mask. We have optimized the N2+Cl2 plasma condition to obtain high aspect ratio, vertical profile and smooth sidewall InP structures. Cylindrical holes (2 micron depth) and rodlike pillars (2.4 micron height) are uniformly fabricated. An aspect ratio of 18 for 100nm trench lines has been obtained. AFM measurement evidences that etched surfaces are smooth. The root mean square roughness of pillar and hole is 0.7 nm and 0.8 nm, respectively. The optical transmission characterization of ridge waveguides has been carried out. Transmission spectrum of 1 micron wide waveguide has been obtained

Photonic crystal slot nanobeam slow light waveguides for refractive index sensing

We present the design, fabrication, and photoluminescence experiment of InGaAsP photonic crystal slot nanobeam slow light waveguides with embedded InAs quantum dots. The strong confinement of electric field in the slot region is confirmed by the measured record high sensitivity of 7 x 10 (2) nm per refractive index unit RIU to the refractive index change of the environment. A cavity, formed by locally deflecting the two beams toward each other, gives an even higher sensitivity of about 9x10(2) nm/RIU.The authors acknowledge the support from the BrainBridge project ZJU-TU/e and Philips Research collaboration, AOARD, and the National Natural Science Foundation of China Grant No. 60907018