The Analysis of the Factors Influencing the Severity of Bicyclist Injury in Bicyclist-Vehicle Crashes

Transportation and technological development have for centuries strongly influenced the shaping of urbanized areas. On one hand, it undoubtedly brings many benefits to their residents. However, also has a negative impact on urban areas and their surroundings. Many transportation and technological solutions lead, for example, to increased levels of pollution, noise, excessive energy use, as well as to traffic accidents in cities. So, it is important to safe urban development and sustainability in all city aspects as well as in the area of road transport safety. Due to the long-term policy of sustainable transport development, cycling is promoted, which contributes to the increase in the number of this group of users of the transport network in road traffic for short-distance transport. On the one hand, cycling has a positive effect on bicyclists’ health and environmental conditions, however, a big problem is an increase in the number of serious injuries and fatalities among bicyclists involved in road incidents with motor vehicles. This study aims to identify factors that influence the occurrence and severity of bicyclist injury in bicyclist-vehicle crashes. It has been observed that the factors increasing the risk of serious injuries and deaths of bicyclists are: vehicle driver gender and age, driving under the influence of alcohol, exceeding the speed limit by the vehicle driver, bicyclist age, cycling under the influence of alcohol, speed of the bicyclist before the incident, vehicle type (truck), incident place (road), time of the day, incident type. The obtained results can be used for activities aimed at improving the bicyclists’ safety level in road traffic in the area of analysi

Editorial: Calculation of Passenger Car Equivalents at Roundabouts

Editorial on the Research Topic: Calculation of Passenger Car Equivalents at Roundabouts About this Research Topic: Calculation of Passenger Car Equivalents (PCEs) for heavy vehicles represents the starting point for the operational analysis of road facilities and other traffic management applications. PCEs are used to consider the presence of heavy vehicles in the traffic stream and are expressed as multiples of the effect of an average passenger car. Moreover, the highly curvilinear nature of the roundabout design, both in urban and rural environment, has significant effects on the paths that heavy vehicles would travel; as a consequence, the interaction between the physical and performance characteristics of the heavy vehicles and the geometric features of roundabouts can produce higher impacts on traffic operations than other at-grade intersections. The PCEs at roundabouts can be affected by numerous and specific factors, which include geometric and traffic properties, and other factors (e.g. location and environment, driver behaviour), the effect of which can be significant under conditions of unlimited traffic with high saturation degrees of the traffic streams. Based on these considerations, this Research Topic aims to verify the effect of geometric and traffic-related determinants on the calculation of PCEs for heavy vehicles at modern (i.e. single-lane and multi-lane roundabouts) roundabouts and alternative types of roundabouts (i.e. turbo and flower roundabouts). Since only a few studies were based on field data or have calibrated PCEs for roundabouts, academics and practitioners during the last decade have been using microscopic traffic simulation to calculate the PCEs on roundabouts. Thus, many challenges and research themes are still open for modern and alternative roundabouts, including: how to determine the PCE of different types of vehicle that reflect the actual traffic conditions in presence of motorized and non-motorized vehicles, or how to evaluate the transferability of the Highway Capacity Manual (HCM) recommendations for heterogeneous traffic conditions to adequately explain the traffic complexities of a mixed-traffic state, or how to optimize the working parameters of microscopic traffic simulation models in view of PCEs calculations, or how to assess the likely changes to traffic flow characteristics that may result from the introduction of new technologies for vehicles and how to assess the effects on fleet composition and level of service determinations. This Research Topic welcomes contributions addressing all aspects of simulation of PCEs for modern and alternative roundabouts geared toward solving the above questions. As such, we solicit submissions of research papers dealing with themes that include, but are not limited to: • Prediction of entry lane capacity for roundabouts in heterogeneous traffic conditions and model calibration; • Estimation of capacity for roundabouts based on percentages of heavy vehicles in entering and circulating flows; • Prediction of the entry capacity based on the difference in driver’s gap acceptance behavior between cars and heavy vehicles; • Planning and designing of roundabouts under mixed-traffic flow conditions; • Case studies. https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/8991/calculation-of-passenger-car-equivalents-at-roundabout

Identification of factors increasing the risk of pedestrian death in road accidents involving a pedestrian with a motor vehicle

Walking is a basic form of activity for every human being and has many advantages, including health, economic and environmental benefits. Every journey made using various means of transport begins and ends on foot. As is well known, the group of road users particularly exposed to the risk of serious injury in road accidents, apart from cyclists, also includes pedestrians. These are the so-called vulnerable road users. Pedestrians are a group of road users that is often deprecated by many drivers of motor vehicles, but very important in road traffic. Pedestrian injuries and pedestrian fatalities have enormous social and economic consequences. The problem of high pedes-trian risk on Polish roads is well known and has been widely described in the scientific literature last few years. However, the reasons for this state of affairs have not been fully explained, as evidenced by the statistics of road traffic incidents. Despite many studies in this area, the causes indicated in the research often differ depending on the area of analysis, the environment in which the incident took place, location, participants of the incident, environmental conditions, behaviorism and many other features. Therefore, the main goal of the article was to determine the factors influencing the formation of fatalities in road traffic accidents among pedestrians in acci-dents involving pedestrians and motor vehicles in the Silesian Voivodeship (Poland) in 2016-2021. The logit model presented in the article allowed for the conclusion that the main attributes influencing the increasing the risk of pedestrian death in road accidents involving a pedestrian with a motor vehicle include such features as driving under the influence of alcohol by the driver, exceeding the speed limit by the vehicle driver, when the road incident involves a heavy vehicle (truck, bus), a pedestrian is a male, pedestrian is over 60 years old, is under the influence of alcohol, the incident took place outside built-up area, at night, i.e. from 10:00 p.m. up to 6:00 a.m, in other than good weather conditions. The obtained results can be used in various activities, campaigns aimed at improving the safety of pedestrian traffic in the area of the analysis

Safawidzkie adaptacje chińskich talerzy typu kraak

Decorative motives known from the Chinese blue-and-white porcelain began to appear massively on Persian ceramics between the 14th and 17th century. Interestingly, the initial role of adaptations being a  substitute for an expensive original became something more – a source of inspiration for making new vessels decorated not only in cobalt blue but also in colorful slips. The article is dedicated to an analysis of Persian adaptations of Chinese kraak porcelain made during the Safavid period (1501-1732). Due to the fact that the process of adaptation was very complex and there is no 1:1 copy of a kraak dish in Iran, author in her research has to focus on comparing individual motifs instead of the whole vessels. She introduces new categorization of the adapted designs and divides them into 4 groups depending on how close they resemble the Chinese origi nals: in group 1 called literal adaptations the motifs are most similar to the originals; in group 2 named edited adaptations are those that have an element added or taken away; in group 3, altered adaptations, the designs undergo changes in style but still bear the basic characteristics of the originals; in group 4, free adaptations, are those that only resemble the Chinese ones

Estimation of Passenger Car Equivalents for Two-Lane and Turbo Roundabouts Using AIMSUN

The paper addresses issues related to Passenger Car Equivalents (PCEs) at roundabouts. Compared to other road units, the curvilinear elements of roundabout geometric design may impose greater constraints on vehicular trajectories and have a significant effect on the swept envelope of heavy vehicles. Specifically, the aim of the paper is to present the methodological approach which used traffic microsimulation to estimate PCEs. Focus is made on a case study which considered the conversion of a two-lane roundabout into a basic turbo roundabout with comparable size. Empirical capacity functions for both roundabouts were derived as target values to which simulated capacities by lane were compared. In order to estimate the PCEs a criterion of equivalence based on the amount of capacity used by cars and heavy vehicles is presented. AIMSUN allowed to simulate traffic conditions with different percentages of heavy vehicles at both roundabouts. Thus, variation of traffic conditions where mixed fleets operate was explored. A comparison was made between the PCEs estimated for each entry lane characterized by similar mechanism of entry maneuver. The results indicated there is a need to distinguish the impact of heavy vehicles when operational performance of a two-lane roundabout or a turbo-roundabout should be examined. Especially when circulating flows increase, a higher PCE value is expected than the value that the Highway Capacity Manual proposes for roundabouts

La erosión de la mirada. Reflexiones sobre la intimidad en la era de la vigilancia

[ES] La erosión de la mirada investiga la creciente normalización de la vigilancia en la sociedad actual. Partiendo de la premisa de que cualquier vigilancia prolongada deberá influir necesariamente en el comportamiento de cualquier sociedad o individuo, analizamos exactamente en qué ámbitos afectará, centrándonos en el ámbito de la intimidad. Consideramos que este es el que más afectado se verá por el fenómeno de la transparencia. La investigación bebe tanto de fuentes teóricas como artísticas, entendiendo que se complementan entre sí para dar una visión global de lo que constituye la vigilancia en la actualidad.[EN] The erosion of the gaze investigates the growing normalization of surveillance in contemporary society. With the fact that any prolonged surveillance will necessarily influence societal and individual behaviour as our starting point, we analyze exactly what areas will be affected, focusing especially on the realm of intimacy. We realize this is the one that will be most affected by the phenomenon of transparency. The investigation uses both theoretical and artistic sources, due to them being constantly connected, thus giving a general view of what constitutes surveillance in the present day.Robinson Macioszek, L. (2020). La erosión de la mirada. Reflexiones sobre la intimidad en la era de la vigilancia. Universitat Politècnica de València. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/158653TFG

A Methodological Framework to Assess Road Infrastructure Safety and Performance Efficiency in the Transition toward Cooperative Driving

There is increasing interest in connected and automated vehicles (CAVs), since their implementation will transform the nature of transportation and promote social and economic change. Transition toward cooperative driving still requires the understanding of some key questions to assess the performances of CAVs and human-driven vehicles on roundabouts and to properly balance road safety and traffic efficiency requirements. In this view, this paper proposes a simulation-based methodological framework aiming to assess the presence of increasing proportions of CAVs on roundabouts operating at a high-capacity utilization level. A roundabout was identified in Palermo City, Italy, and built in Aimsun (version 20) to describe the stepwise methodology. The CAV-based curves of capacity by entry mechanism were developed and then used as target capacities. To calibrate the model parameters, the capacity curves were compared with the capacity data simulated by Aimsun. The impact on the safety and performance efficiency of a lane dedicated to CAVs was also examined using surrogate measures of safety. The paper ends with highlighting a general improvement with CAVs on roundabouts, and with providing some insights to assess the advantages of the automated and connected driving technologies in transitioning to smarter mobilit

Assessing the Environmental Performances of Urban Roundabouts Using the VSP Methodology and AIMSUN

In line with globally shared environmental sustainability goals, the shift towards citizen-friendly mobility is changing the way people move through cities and road user behaviour. Building a sustainable road transport requires design knowledge to develop increasingly green road infrastructures and monitoring the environmental impacts from mobile crowdsourced data. In this view, the paper presents an empirically based methodology that integrates the vehicle-specific power (VSP) model and microscopic traffic simulation (AIMSUN) to estimate second-by-second vehicle emissions at urban roundabouts. The distributions of time spent in each VSP mode from instantaneous vehicle trajectory data gathered in the field via smartphone were the starting point of the analysis. The versatility of AIMSUN in calibrating the model parameters to better reflect the field-observed speed-time trajectories and to enhance the estimation accuracy was assessed. The conversion of an existing roundabout within the sample into a turbo counterpart was also made as an attempt to confirm the reproducibility of the proposed procedure. The results shed light on new opportunities in the environmental performance evaluation of road units when changes in design or operation should be considered within traffic management strategies and highlighted the potential of the smart approach in collecting big amounts of data through digital communities

Analysis of vehicle pedestrian crash severity using advanced machine learning techniques

In 2015, over 17% of pedestrians were killed during vehicle crashes in Hong Kong while it raised to 18% from 2017 to 2019 and expected to be 25% in the upcoming decade. In Hong Kong, buses and the metro are used for 89% of trips, and walking has traditionally been the primary way to use public transportation. This susceptibility of pedestrians to road crashes conflicts with sustainable transportation objectives. Most studies on crash severity ignored the severity correlations between pedestrian-vehicle units engaged in the same impacts. The estimates of the factor effects will be skewed in models that do not consider these within-crash correlations. Pedestrians made up 17% of the 20,381 traffic fatalities in which 66% of the fatalities on the highways were pedestrians. The motivation of this study is to examine the elements that pedestrian injuries on highways and build on safety for these endangered users. A traditional statistical model's ability to handle misfits, missing or noisy data, and strict presumptions has been questioned. The reasons for pedestrian injuries are typically explained using these models. To overcome these constraints, this study used a sophisticated machine learning technique called a Bayesian neural network (BNN), which combines the benefits of neural networks and Bayesian theory. The best construction model out of several constructed models was finally selected. It was discovered that the BNN model outperformed other machine learning techniques like K-Nearest Neighbors, a conventional neural network (NN), and a random forest (RF) model in terms of performance and predictions. The study also discovered that the time and circumstances of the accident and meteorological features were critical and significantly enhanced model performance when incorporated as input. To minimize the number of pedestrian fatalities due to traffic accidents, this research anticipates employing machine learning (ML) techniques. Besides, this study sets the framework for applying machine learning techniques to reduce the number of pedestrian fatalities brought on by auto accidents