Agent-Based Simulation of urban goods distribution. A literature review

Agent-based simulation (ABS) appears to be a suitable tool for research and application in the field of city logistics. In this paper, an attempt was made to classify the current literature on ABS in urban freight distribution following some homogeneity criteria. A set of six criteria was adopted and relevant papers were classified accordingly. It emerges that agent-based simulation models are suitable for use in simulating urban freight distribution, identifying a set of agents (at most, one agent per stakeholder) that operate to achieve their objectives, following rules, interacting, and learning from experience. However, this approach is still to be fully developed: the applications provided in the literature are only for test cases, refer to small study areas and a limited number of agents

Road Safety Capacity Building in Belarus through the development of Road Safety Master Courses

The risk of traffic fatalities varies significantly across high, medium and low-income countries. Among the reasons for this in the latter ones, there is often a lack of road safety knowledge and political will. Road safety is a multidisciplinary topic and requires trained professionals able to identify and implement efficient measures in the areas of engineering, enforcement, education and emergency services, taking into consideration social and economic aspects as well. However, in some Eastern Europe Countries there are potential barriers to train adequately professionals, generally due to a lack of specialised training and training standardization. Such an example can be seen in Belarus where, although road safety is a key issue, it is not managed on an evidence-based approach and there seems to be insufficient funding for related research. An initiative towards increasing knowledge capacity is the Be-Safe project (EC Tempus), a joint effort between three EU Universities and four Belarusian Universities. The objective of this paper is to describe the methodology carried out in Be-Safe to develop and test for two years two 1st level Road Safety Master Courses (60 ECTS) in Belarus according to the Bologna process requirements. Initially, a User Needs Analysis was carried out to understand local conditions and needs in terms of teaching and research on road safety. The analysis highlighted a lack of research due to insufficient funding, linguistic barriers and inadequate international relationships. This isolation led to a need of updating contents and methods of courses for students as well as research topics. Then, expected learning outcomes and Masters' curricula, one for the Technical Universities and one for the Economics Universities, were defined and developed respectively. Finally, Masters' courses in four Belarusian Universities were tested. Quality results were ensured through a Quality Board and assessment tools to monitor the Masters' process as a whole

Accident data analysis and on-field inspections. Do they lead to similar conclusions?

Network Safety Ranking and Road Assessment Programme (RAP) are two procedures used in road infrastructure safety management to rank the road sections of a network according to estimated road safety performance. The former uses indicators based on road accidents and their consequences while the latter method is based primarily on inspections of the road infrastructure. The aim of this study was to verify whether there is a relationship between the indicators used within these methods, in order to evaluate if and under which conditions RAP scores contribute to the prediction of accident numbers. The adopted approach is based on the calibration and analysis of a wide array of models in order to reproduce the observed events-injury road accidents, fatalities and injuries-with reference to different aggregations of the original data and in the two reference situations: with and without EuroRAP (European Road Assessment Programme) indicators. From the obtained results, the introduction of the EuroRAP indicators ends up making the models that explain the frequency of accidents more convincing from a statistical point of view. These indicators, which summarise the road safety performance of a road section, could prove useful in replacing the covariates (e.g. presence of intersections, geometrical and functional features of roads) that are used in the calibration of accident prediction models. However, it should be stressed that not all types of accident are addressed by the EuroRAP approach, and this may represent a limitation for those roadways where such kind of accidents are frequently observed, like rear-end collisions on motorways. Probably, by including these accident types, the explanatory power of the EuroRAP variables would increase, at least on motorways

Regionalization of ports as a strategic leverage to improve competitiveness. A study on central italy ports and related hinterland

Nowadays, the success of a maritime port does not depend anymore on its traditional intrinsic points of strength, such as the internal capacity, but also on its ability to effectively integrate the development of its hinterland into business relations and supply chains. Mediterranean ports can get competitive, if specific "regionalization" processes are launched and supported. Key point for this strategy is the hinterland involvement: logistics and transports integration, railways, realization and development of dryports, terminals, distribution centres. All these are core elements for this purpose. The overall focus has changed from port performances to performance of the entire supply chain in the port-hinterland relationship. This is what it is going to do the Port of Civitavecchia, the most important port in Lazio Region, would like to become the central point into commercial, industrial and infrastructural development of central Italy. The development of railway terminal and of regional road network for the developing of intermodal logistics chain, of the industrial port activities (shipbuilding sector and oil bunkering), of trade relations with Fiumicino Airport and with the roman agroindustrial sector, of logistics relations with the dryport of Orte and with the intermodal terminal (road-railway) of Pomezia Santa Palomba, are some of the activities planned and undertaken by the port for improving the regionalization of Civitavecchia. Aim of this paper is to show and underline how these regionalization processes can increase the development, and so benefit the entire regional hinterland and the competitiveness and attraction of the entire port system. A model to estimate the regionalization effect has been designed by the authors and implemented to make a comparison analysis between Civitavecchia and competing ports. © 2021 Georg Thieme Verlag. All rights reserved

Impact of e-Safety applications on cyclists safety

Триподи А .; Персия Л .; Мета Е. Влияние приложений электронной безопасности на безопасность велосипедистовCycling is the most energy efficient and environmentally friendly transport mode, suitable especially for short distances. However, cyclists are considered as Vulnerable Road Users (VRUs) who show an high casualty rate; therefore, actions to promote cycling in cities should go together with improving road safety. ITS can be used to develop intelligent applications assisting cyclists and other road users to avoid, prevent, or mitigate accidents. This paper presents the results of the assessment of impacts of ITS on the safety of cyclists, realised in the framework of the EU co-funded project SAFECYCLE. Eleven applications were selected and analysed in term of benefits and costs. The analysis allowed comparing the potential impacts of these applications in four EU countries (the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and Czech Republic), having different mobility and social characteristics

Supplemental lysine sulfate does not negatively affect the performance of broiler chicks fed dietary sulfur from multiple dietary and water sources

Commercial broiler producers and nutritionists have questioned the performance consequences of sulfur (S) from various dietary and water sources combined in current commercial production. The combination of high-S feed ingredients, including dried distillers grains with solubles, and dietary additives that contain S, such as lysine sulfate or copper sulfate, has the potential to create high S exposure, especially when combined with high-S drinking water. The tolerance of growing broiler chicks to S was determined by supplementation of a corn-soybean-5% dried distillers grains with solubles diet with up to 1% lysine sulfate or an equal amount of S from sodium sulfide. An additional diet containing copper and zinc sulfate served as a positive control for the source of S and high-S inclusion. These diets were fed to chicks provided with normal (0.008% or 80 ppm) or high water S (0.113% or 1130 ppm). We hypothesized that the addition of S sources to a commercial diet would not reduce the performance of growing chicks given access to normal or high-S water. Data showed dietary S requirements were met and excess S was easily excreted, hence, under the experimental feeding conditions, supplementation with up to 1% additional lysine sulfate (or a similar product) did not reduce performance in comparison with chicks fed a lower S diet with access to normal or high-S water. The high-S diet from copper and zinc sulfate resulted in reduced water and feed consumption, although there were no effects on chick weight gain

Pedestrians influence on the traffic flow parameters and road safety indicators at the pedestrian crossing

The interaction between drivers and pedestrians at a pedestrian crossing is studied using the method of ergonomic design. The galvanic skin response (GSR) and changes of the heart rate of drivers have been measured to monitor any emotional state change when encountering a pedestrian at a pedestrian crossing. If the driver moves away from the pedestrian standing at the roadside edge, the driver experiences a minimal emotional change. However, if there is no vehicle speed and path variation, the driver experiences significant shift in the GSR and heart rate, thus highlighting a possible increase of the stress level. It was based on the research where the distance and current speed have a significant impact on the drivers and pedestrians with the following consequences for their health. To assess the influence of a pedestrian presence on the road on drivers, it was proposed to use the angular velocity of the vehicle with respect to pedestrians. The probability of the pedestrians presence in a dangerous condition for drivers at different distances and speeds of pedestrian crossing made it possible to find an optimal pedestrian position on the road. Thus, the paper proposed a safe distance for pedestrians on the road at a pedestrian crossing in order to reduce the driver stress level in the traffic flow