Opening out and closing down: The treatment of uncertainty in transport planning’s forecasting paradigm

© 2019, The Author(s). Since the 1960s, development of the transport system has been framed by the notion of forecasting future demand. Yet the past decade or more appears to signal some significant changes to the role of travel in society which are having a material impact on how much people travel (and may travel in the future). Coupled with the potential for major technological changes and a range of climate adaptation scenarios, the future of mobility presents today’s decision making on transport strategy and investment with a broader set of uncertainties than has previously been considered. This paper examines current mainstream practice for incorporating uncertainty into decision-making, through an illustrative case study of the highly codified approaches of the Department for Transport in England. It deconstructs the issue by first focussing on different ways in which there is an opening out or acceptance of new uncertainties and how this creates a (wider) set of potential futures. It then turns to consider how this set of futures is used, or not, in decision-making, i.e. the process of closing down uncertainty to arrive at or at least inform a decision. We demonstrate that, because the range of uncertainties has broadened in scope and scale, the traditional technocratic approach of closing down decisions through sensitivity testing is at odds with the greater breadth now being called for at the opening out stage. We conclude that transport decision-making would benefit from a rebalancing of technical depth with analytical breadth. The paper outlines a plausible new approach to opening out and closing down that is starting to be applied in practice. This approach must be accompanied by an opening up of the processes by which technical advice for decisions are reached and how uncertainties are understood and negotiated

Infrastructure measures versus ADAS for traffic safety - application of the Grey Relational Analysis evaluation method

Contains fulltext : 45213.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)Two of the main approaches to improve traffic safety are extensive redesign of the physical road infrastructure and large-scale implementation of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS). These strategies are to a large extent substitutes, but also partly complementary. This paper determines strategic road traffic safety scenarios, reviews some of the evaluation methods most commonly used in transportation research, and presents Grey Relational Analysis (GRA). GRA is a normalisation based method. It provides a simple and transparent calculation procedure from which a clear-cut ranking order of strategies derives. The application of ?GRA to the evaluation problem is addressed, and some preliminary results are reported, especially sensitivity analysis is discussed.06 november 200

Modelling and forecasting traffic safety improvement: infrastructure redesign vs driving assistance systems

Contains fulltext : 47129pub.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)10 p

Wireless Internet on Trains - Impact on Performance of Business Travelers

Contains fulltext : 47174.pdf (author's version ) (Open Access) Contains fulltext : 47174_pub.pdf (publisher's version ) (Closed access)Wireless Internet service (WIS) is finding increasing implementation in the Netherlands via several markets. Recently, the idea has emerged of providing WIS through public transport services. The impact of WIS on train travelers, particularly on business travelers, is, however, unknown. In a study to examine this impact, respondents were surveyed to find out how WIS might affect their travel and work performance. Respondents were also questioned about their willingness to pay for WIS and their preferred WIS characteristics. In general, respondents were positive about WIS and were willing to spend an average of €3.17 [Eur 1 = U.S. $1.28 (2006)] per trip for its use. Furthermore, they considered data security the most important WIS feature. Hence, it can be concluded that WIS deserves to be implemented in train services for business travelers as a means to enhance their travel and work performance during traveling

Advanced driver assistance systems : an overview and actor position.

This paper shows some details and acceptability aspects of three types of systems which are part of a comprehensive State of the Art review on Advanced Driver Assistance Systems: Navigation, Advanced Cruise Control & Stop and Go, and Intelligent Speed Adaptation systems. It was concluded that luxury car drivers considered the warning type of Intelligent Speed Adaptation acceptable and expected this to have a positive impact on road safety, and that truck drivers found the navigation functionality most attractive in general, and Advanced Cruise Control & Stop and Go functionality on motorways and rural roads. (Author/publisher