Multi-Criteria Analysis and Decision-Making Approach for the Urban Regeneration: The Application to the Rimini Canal Port (Italy)

In recent decades, urban settlements have been greatly affected by globalisation, climate change, and economic uncertainty. When designing cities, these factors should be taken into account and adapted to the different contexts involved. The redevelopment of degraded urban areas is the first step toward achieving the sustainability aims set out in the Sustainable Development Goals. In this context, evaluation methods are required in the decision-making process, considering different social, economic, and environmental aspects to define the correct policies and actions for city redevelopment. In this paper, an evaluation methodology is proposed in order to obtain a priority scale of interventions for urban regeneration. Starting from on-site inspections to better know the current scenario, a set of indicators is established to evaluate the urban quality. Criticalities and potentials emerge through SWOT analysis and, with the ANP-BOCR method, the priority scale of the identified scenarios is defined. This decision-making approach was applied to the case study of the Rimini Canal Port, in the northeast of Italy, which is a degraded area of the city. This methodology is a tool that can be used in the future by decision makers (DMs) for the redevelopment of small port areas within similar urban contexts

Light vehicle model for dynamic car simulator

Driving simulators have been becoming little by little a suitable tool oriented to improve the knowledge about the domain of driving research. The investigations that can be conducted with this type of tool concern the driver's behaviour, the design/control of vehicles, testing assistance systems for driving and the roadway infrastructure's impact. The benefits of simulation studies are many: lack of any real risk to users, reproducible situations, time savings and reduced testing costs. In addition, their flexibility allows to test situations that do not exist in reality or at least they rarely and randomly exist. The topic of the present work concerns the development of a brand new dynamic model for an existing car simulator owned by LEPSIS laboratory (Laboratoire d'Expliotation, Perception, Simulateurs et Silulations – Laboratory for Road Operations, Perception, Simulators and Simulations) belonging to COSYS (COmposants et SYStems), which is a department of IFSTTAR institute (Institut Français des Sciences et Technologies des Transports, de l'Aménagement et des Réseaux – French Institute of Science and Technology for Transport, Spatial Planning, Development and Networks) site. Once uses and advantages of driving simulators are listed and described, imperfections and limitations of the existing driving vehicle model belonging to the two Degrees of Freedom (DoF) driving simulator of the laboratory are highlighted. Subsequently, structure of the brand new vehicle model, designed by means of Matlab Simulink software, are illustrated through the theoretical framework. Since the vehicle model must refer to a real one, an instrumented Peugeot 406 has been chosen because all its technical features are provided and inserted both on the present model and Prosper/Callas 4.9 by OKTAL software to create a highly sophisticated and accurate virtual version of the commercial car. The validation of this new vehicle model is performed, where the results returned by several different driving scenarios are compared with the ones provided by Prosper software. All the scenarios are simulated with both existing and new vehicle model uploaded in the driving simulator, and the outputs are subsequently compared with the ones returned by Prosper in order to demonstrate the improvements done. Finally, being the number of outputs provided by the new model definitively higher with respect to previous one, additional validations concerning the further results are accomplished

Application of Mining Waste Powder as filler in Hot Mix Asphalt

Asphalt concrete mixtures are composed of two main components: aggregates and binder. The fraction of aggregates passing through the 63\u3bcm sieve is traditionally considered as filler. During years, several researches have shown the importance and the influence of filler in controlling the physical and mechanical properties of Hot Mix Asphalts (HMAs). The main objective of this research is to investigate and to assess the effects given by the use of Mining Waste Powder (MWP) within HMAs in total substitution of traditional limestone filler. The MWP used in this study is a residual of the tungsten extraction process in Panasqueira (Portugal) mine. The evaluation of properties conferred by the presence of the MWP filler within asphalt mixtures is based on a physical and mechanical laboratory characterization. For this purpose, tests have been performed both on bituminous mastics and on HMAs. Results indicate that the use of MWP in total substitution of limestone filler does not negatively affect the performances of HMAs and their bituminous mastics

Comparative Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Porous Asphalt Mixtures with Sustainable and Recycled Materials: A Cradle-to-Gate Approach

: The road and construction sectors consume a large number of natural resources and energy, contributing significantly to waste generation and greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). The use of recycled aggregate from construction and demolition waste as a substitute for virgin aggregate is a current practice in the construction of new road sections. Additionally, in recent years, there has been an increasing focus on finding alternatives to bitumen for binders used in asphalt mixes. This study investigates and compares the impacts associated with two porous asphalt mixtures produced with CDW aggregates, virgin aggregates, and a polyolefin-based synthetic transparent binder through an LCA methodology. A cradle-to-gate approach was employed. Model characterization for calculating the potential environmental impacts of each porous asphalt mixture was performed using the ReCipe 2016 assessment method at the midpoint and endpoint levels. The results are presented with reference to a baseline scenario corresponding to a porous asphalt mixture, confirming the benefits associated with the use of recycled aggregates and in some cases the benefits of not using bitumen-based binders. This work contributes to the understanding of the importance of choosing the least environmentally damaging solution during the production or rehabilitation of road pavement infrastructure

Evaluation of Cycling Safety and Comfort in Bad Weather and Surface Conditions Using an Instrumented Bicycle

Understanding how vulnerable road users (cyclists and pedestrians) behave enables the construction of better roadways with adapted geometric and surface design which leads to improve cycling safety and comfort. This study examines the behavior of cyclists using an instrumented city bicycle that allows collecting exact data about bicycle dynamics, trajectory, and speed, as well as essential information to study the behavior of the cyclists, their reaction to the different features of the road surface and geometric design, and their interaction with other road users such as pedestrians, vehicles and other cyclists. 22 cyclists participated in an experiment following a predetermined route in Stockholm, Sweden. The route consisted of a circuit with different types of cycling facilities in order to study the different interactions (cyclist-car and cyclist-pedestrian), the circuit was divided into 3 zones: the first is mixed traffic, the second is a separate cycling lane and the third is shared pedestrian-cycling path. The results show significant data to evaluate cycling safety and comfort in snowy weather conditions and the perception-reaction behavior of cyclists; accordingly, the infrastructure-related risks were evaluated from subjective and objective points of view. In this paper, we propose a new concept to evaluate cycling behavior. This concept allows us to evaluate cyclists’ behavior through the calculation of Behavioral Risk Indicator (BRI) based on different risk factors owing to weather, road and traffic conditions, interaction with other road users and reaction to infrastructure drawbacks. The applications of the proposed concept allow us to evaluate the risks caused by multiple traffic factors and infrastructural drawbacks and study cyclist–bicycle–road interactions and their influences on cycling safety. In addition, the concept provides a new foundation for establishing cycling safety measures that could be applied to improve the infrastructure and reduce traffic accidents in order to attract more people to ride bicycles

A Study on Texture and Acoustic Properties of Cold Laid Microsurfacings

AbstractSlurry microsurfacing is an economical maintenance intervention that provides effective skid resistance and surface evenness in a thin layer, thus improving the road safety. Researchers aimed to develop an innovative application of slurry seal, capable of gathering in a single material some technical solutions for various functional and environmental aspects. The purposes of this intervention are: restoring skid resistance, sealing surface cracking, reducing tire/pavement noise, adding crumb rubber from tires as a recycling material and reducing atmospheric emissions using the cold technique. A 3D laser scanner device has been used to evaluate the surface texture and analyze the roughness parameters

How Do University Student Cyclists Ride? The Case of University of Bologna

In a general urban planning context, in which sustainable active mobility progressively takes up increasing attention, studies of cyclists’ attitudes and behaviors represent a relevant step to help any enhancing measures for urban cycling. Among different categories, university student cyclists represent a still unidentified class, despite the relevant impacts in terms of mass and variability of attitudes in urban areas. The novelty of this paper is to propose an innovative overview on the specific category of university student cyclists. The integrated methodology, based on direct observation through GPS detection, GIS processing, and qualitative survey, permits the evaluation of some interesting issues related to students’ propensity to cycling and their mobility patterns. The approach finds relevance in speed, frequency of movements, routing, and related infrastructure preferences. The methodology has been applied to a sample of more than 300 students of the University of Bologna who were allowed an original university-designed bicycle from February 2021 to June 2021. The analysis was applied in the Bologna urban area and allowed the evaluation of students’ preferences of using existing cycle paths, when available, the limited relevance of speed factors, the main distribution of commuter journeys concentrated in the main avenues directed to city center, and other behaviors

A Decision Support System for the safety evaluation of urban pedestrian crossings

This paper proposes an innovative methodology, based on a Decision Support Systems, for the safety evaluation of pedestrian crossings without traffic lights in urban neighborhood areas. It provides an on-site inspection performed using ad-hoc data check lists, and it allows to assign a safety rate to the pedestrian crossing, in order to define a priority list of interventions and to suggest which features need to be improved. This new approach can be useful and easy to use for public administration managers and local governances, when they need to allocate limited financial resources to several pedestrian crossings. It has been applied to 10 pedestrian crossings on two roads in the urban area of Bologna and the resulted ranking list has been used by the Municipality of Bologna in its Urban Road Safety Plan 2016-201

Rheological characterization of bituminous mastics containing waste bleaching clays

Bleaching clays are mostly used in food industries to clarify vegetal oils. After use they are generally dumped as waste (stage 1) or used in green innovative plants to feed biogas reactors (stage 2). In latter stage the initial residual oil content (ap-prox. 25% by mass) is reduced to less than 1% by the biological process. In this study the bleaching clays effects on bituminous mastics of a traditional binder course Hot Mix Asphalt have been investigated. The physical characteristics of the two bleaching clays and of a traditional limestone filler were also studied. DSR rheological tests at high and low temperatures were performed on mastics samples containing different amounts of fillers (limestone, stage 1 or stage 2). The addition of the different waste bleaching clays significantly affects the rheological behav-ior of the mastics: the filler from stage 2 increases the mastic stiffness improving the resistance to permanent deformations as shown by repeated creep tests, while the filler from stage 1 strongly interacts with the bitumen reducing the mechanical characteristics of the mastics at all temperatures

Safety roads: the analysis of driving behaviour and the effects on the infrastructural design

Road design should ensure the correct behaviour of drivers in terms of speed and level of attention. Nevertheless, in some cases users are not able to visualize the carriageway enough correctly, owing to the misled road layout or the loss of visibility. In this research, road safety management was assessed with the driving and visual behaviour of users, considering the impact of different configurations of pedestrian crossings and road signs in order to reduce accidents. Even if users focus their attention on the zebra crossing (60%) and the vertical sign (24%), 16% of them have had no perception of the pedestrian crossings. This result shows how pedestrian crossings represent critical points that could compromise the safety of vulnerable users also in relation to speed. In fact, driving behaviour highlights 50 km/h of the average speed at 100 meters before the crosswalk, which allows having a too short time to stop the vehicle in safety. Moreover, the maximum speed underlines that users drive beyond the limit imposed by the road’s rules. It is thus necessary to require the implementation of road infrastructure so as to modify the driving behaviour. Starting from the Road Safety Review, it was then possible to detect the critical issues and correlate a visual and kinematic analysis so as to intervene accurately