Modeling Long Term Impacts of Freeway Traffic Incidents on Travel Time Reliability

The objective of this study is to calibrate models of relationships between Travel Time Reliability measures and incident and traffic characteristics for a given highway segment

Examining the basis for change in Clark County non-conforming zone change process, was it needed?

This study reviews Clark County\u27s non-conforming zone change process from 1990 to 2002. A non-conforming zone change, sometimes known as a non-conforming zone boundary amendment is a proposed request that is not within the range of residential densities and/or non-residential intensities indicated on the applicable land use plan map, master plan, or concept plan. This research explores and examines two questions raised by the Clark County\u27s new implementation plan, which was approved in April 2003 to amend the non-conforming zone change process. 1) Clark County assumed there was a public perception that non-conforming zone changes were being approved without regard to the master plan. Was this assumption correct? 2) Are decisions in approving non-conforming zone changes consistent among all levels of decision making? According to the new implementation plan, the change is an effort to improve the negative public perception that land use plans are unimportant because of the continuous number of approved non-conforming zone changes. In addition, the ordinance indicates the need to improve public participation in the non-conforming zone change process. The changes in the new non-conforming zone change process have been principally based on the assumption that the old regulations were not effective. There is no clear knowledge of what was deemed effective or ineffective in the old process because neither data nor interviews were collected to support the statements and subsequent changes made. In order to test the two hypotheses: 1) Yes, there were too many non-conforming zone changes approved that did not adhere to the master plan, and 2) Yes, consistency of decisions among levels of decision making is low. This research evaluates and analyses randomly selected 687 non-conforming zone change reports in Clark County. The results from the non-conforming zone change reports will be used to propose recommendations that can be used by the Clark County Department of Comprehensive Planning to help improve the planning process in general, restore public confidence, and improve the public\u27s involvement in the non-conforming zone change process

The Impacts of Emergency Vehicle Signal Preemption on Urban Traffic Speed

We used GPS data from paratransit vehicles to evaluate the impact of emergency vehicles on urban traffic speeds. The results indicate that speed variance is significantly higher during emergency preemption and the mean speeds of traffic flowing in the same direction as the emergency vehicle and on crossing streets are lower during preemption than during normal conditions. Regression results indicate that traffic on major arterials and traffic in the opposite direction of the emergency vehicle tend to have higher speed during signal preemption. Signal preemption during peak periods and duration of preemption had a significant negative impact on traffic speeds. Also, the transition time has a negative impact on traffic speeds. The authors recommend further research on how to optimize (minimize) the preemption duration as well as transition time. Also, the impact of median type and number of lanes should be evaluated

Адміністративно-правовий статус органів державного фінансового контролю в умовах реформування міжбюджетних відносин

Попова, С. М. Адміністративно-правовий статус органів державного фінансового контролю в умовах реформування міжбюджетних відносин / С. М. Попова, І. В. Касеко // Наше право. - 2015. - № 2. - С. 35-41.Попова С. М., Касенко І. В. "Адміністративно-правовий статус органів державного фінансового контролю в умовах реформування міжбюджетних відносин." Наше право 2 (2015): 35-41.У статті досліджено напрямки зміни адміністративно-правового статусу органів державного фінансового контролю в Україні. Для цього запропоновано закріпити в новій редакції Конституції України повноваження Рахункової палати Верховної Ради України як вищого органу державного фінансового контролю та розширити сферу застосування внутрішнього фінансового контролю в умовах реформування міжбюджетних відносин.In the article the direction of change of administrative and legal status of state financial control in Ukraine. For it is proposed to fix the new edition of the Constitution of Ukraine powers of the Accounting Chamber of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine as the supreme body of state financial control and expand the scope of internal financial control in the conditions of reforming intergovernmental fiscal relations.В статье исследованы направления изменения административно-правового статуса органов государственного финансового контроля в Украине. Для этого предлагается закрепить в новой редакции Конституции Украины полномочия Счетной палаты Верховной Рады Украины как высшего органа государственного финансового контроля и расширить сферу применения внутреннего финансового контроля в условиях реформирования межбюджетных отношений

Adaptive Road Crack Detection System by Pavement Classification

This paper presents a road distress detection system involving the phases needed to properly deal with fully automatic road distress assessment. A vehicle equipped with line scan cameras, laser illumination and acquisition HW-SW is used to storage the digital images that will be further processed to identify road cracks. Pre-processing is firstly carried out to both smooth the texture and enhance the linear features. Non-crack features detection is then applied to mask areas of the images with joints, sealed cracks and white painting, that usually generate false positive cracking. A seed-based approach is proposed to deal with road crack detection, combining Multiple Directional Non-Minimum Suppression (MDNMS) with a symmetry check. Seeds are linked by computing the paths with the lowest cost that meet the symmetry restrictions. The whole detection process involves the use of several parameters. A correct setting becomes essential to get optimal results without manual intervention. A fully automatic approach by means of a linear SVM-based classifier ensemble able to distinguish between up to 10 different types of pavement that appear in the Spanish roads is proposed. The optimal feature vector includes different texture-based features. The parameters are then tuned depending on the output provided by the classifier. Regarding non-crack features detection, results show that the introduction of such module reduces the impact of false positives due to non-crack features up to a factor of 2. In addition, the observed performance of the crack detection system is significantly boosted by adapting the parameters to the type of pavement

Incorporating vehicle mix in stimulus-response car-following models

The objective of this paper is to incorporate vehicle mix in stimulus-response car-following models. Separate models were estimated for acceleration and deceleration responses to account for vehicle mix via both movement state and vehicle type. For each model, three sub-models were developed for different pairs of following vehicles including “automobile following automobile,” “automobile following truck,” and “truck following automobile.” The estimated model parameters were then validated against other data from a similar region and roadway. The results indicated that drivers' behaviors were significantly different among the different pairs of following vehicles. Also the magnitude of the estimated parameters depends on the type of vehicle being driven and/or followed. These results demonstrated the need to use separate models depending on movement state and vehicle type. The differences in parameter estimates confirmed in this paper highlight traffic safety and operational issues of mixed traffic operation on a single lane. The findings of this paper can assist transportation professionals to improve traffic simulation models used to evaluate the impact of different strategies on ameliorate safety and performance of highways. In addition, driver response time lag estimates can be used in roadway design to calculate important design parameters such as stopping sight distance on horizontal and vertical curves for both automobiles and trucks

Nonlinear Acceleration and Deceleration Response Behavior in Stimulus-Response Car-Following Models

This study developed a nonlinear family of car-following models that emulate driving behavior in congested freeway traffic conditions. The study developed separate sub-models for acceleration and deceleration responses. The study calibrated these models using individual vehicle trajectory data for automobile following automobile collected on a segment of Interstate 101 in Los Angeles, California. The study used nonlinear regression with robust standard errors to estimate the model parameters and to obtain their distributions across drivers. The stimulus response thresholds that delimited the acceleration and deceleration responses were determined based on Signal Detection Theory. The results indicated that the average driver\u27s response time lag was lower for the deceleration response than for the acceleration response. This result was expected, since deceleration response is related to safety, therefore, drivers tend to respond faster than for acceleration response. The acceleration response is related to drivers\u27 desire to attain maximum speed, which is a less critical need than deceleration response. Due to similar reasons, the results also showed that the average stimulus response threshold was lower for deceleration response than acceleration response. Furthermore, the deceleration response had higher magnitude of parameters than the acceleration response, which further indicated that, on the average, drivers were more aggressive when required to decelerate than when they wanted to accelerate. Additionally, drivers\u27 response to negative stimuli is sometimes further aided by the activation of brake lights for a leading vehicle that is braking

System selection, benefits, and financial feasibility of implementing an advanced public transportation system

A procedure for selecting a suitable backbone radio communications system necessary for the implementation of advanced public transportation system technologies is presented. This procedure was used by the Regional Transportation Commission of Clark County, Nevada, in preparation of a radio communications master plan for the Las Vegas Citizens Area Transit system. The procedure recognizes the importance of taking into account not only the relative costs of the alternative candidate systems, but also other important factors such as the degree of system control by the transit agency, confidence in system development and technical practicality, potential for future expansion, and technical simplicity. Several alternative technologies for radio communications are reviewed and evaluated. Selection of the recommended system is based on the procedure that assigns relative weights to the important factors and gives each candidate system a score for each factor. The system with the highest total score is recommended for implementation. Potential system benefits are discussed and financial feasibility of the recommended system is evaluated by computing the annual rate of return on invested capital. Analysis shows that the system can pay for itself and also produce significant net savings in operation and capital costs. Although the analysis considered only potential savings in fleet size, an annual rate of return of over 21% on the invested capital has been shown to be achievable. Such savings can enable transit agencies to provide the same level of service at significantly reduced cost or expand the service without increasing operating costs