How Effective are Toll Roads in Improving Operational Performance?

The main focus of this research is to develop a systematic analytical framework and evaluate the effect of a toll road on region’s traffic using travel time and travel time reliability measures. The travel time data for the Triangle Expressway in Raleigh, North Carolina, United States was employed for the assessment process. The spatial and temporal variations in the travel time distributions on the toll road, parallel alternate route, and near-vicinity cross-streets were analyzed using various travel time reliability measures. The results indicate that the Triangle Expressway showed a positive trend in reliability over the years of its operation. The parallel route reliability decreased significantly during the analysis period, whereas the travel time reliability of cross-streets showed a consistent trend. The stabilization of travel time distributions and the reliability measures over different years of toll road operation are good indicators, suggesting that further reduction in performance measures may not be seen on the near vicinity corridors. The findings from link-level and corridor-level analysis may help with transportation system management, assessing the influence of travel demand patterns, and evaluating the effect of planned implementation of similar projects

Processing, characterization and mechanical behavior of coir fiber reinforced epoxy Composites

Fiber reinforced polymer composites has been used in a variety of application as class of structure material because of their many advantages such as relatively low cost of production, easy to fabricate and superior strength compare to neat polymer resins. Reinforcement in polymer is either synthetic or natural. Synthetic fiber such as glass, carbon etc. has high specific strength but their fields of application are limited due to higher cost of production. Recently there is an increase interest in natural composites which are made by reinforcement of natural fiber. Because the natural fiber give good property at lower cost of production In this connection an investigation have been carried out to make better utilization of coconut coir fiber which is very cheaply and easily found in India. The objective of the present research work to study the mechanical properties of coconut coir reinforced with epoxy composites. The effect of fiber loading and length on mechanical properties like tensile strength, flexural strength, hardness of composites is studied. Also, the surface morphology of fractured surfaces after tensile testing is examined using scanning electron microscopy (SEM)

Repudiating Morals Legislation: Rendering the Constitutional Right to Privacy Obsolete

This article is set out in three parts. Part II outlines the difficulties with the right to privacy. Part III articulates the relationship between morals legislation and privacy, demonstrating that we no longer need the latter as long as the state eschews the former. Part IV argues that the Court in Lawrence articulates a new standard of rational review where specific appeal to morality is constitutionally suspect, allowing us to reject the right to privac