Search results for "Transport engineering"
showing 10 items of 196 documents
The BAC factor method: Application to a real Italian not-residential building
2016
The paper focuses the evaluation of the impact of Building Automation Control (BAC) systems on not-residential buildings. In particular, this work shows how the control, monitoring and automation actions considered by the European Standard EN 15232 can influence the electric and thermal energy consumptions of the University of Palermo DEIM (Department of Energy, Information Engineering and Mathematical Models) building. After evaluating the building energy consumptions, by using the CEI Guide 205-18, the BAC systems are chosen and sized and an economic evaluation of their installation cost is also carried out.
Load forecast on intelligent buildings based on temporary occupancy monitoring
2016
The modeling of energy consumption in buildings must consider occupancy as a relevant input, since it plays a very important role in the overall building's energy consumption. Frequently, buildings lack of permanent occupancy monitoring solutions. However, they may include data sources that are correlated with real building occupancy. This study proposes a new methodology for energy consumption modeling, supported by these alternative data sources, such as the number of vehicles in a parking lot. The aim is to mitigate investment in permanent occupancy monitoring solutions. The proposed methodology makes use of short-term real occupancy monitoring for model fitting, to enable the developmen…
Is naturalistic driving research possible with highly instrumented cars? Lessons learnt in three research centres.
2011
This paper provides an overview of the experiences using Highly Instrumented Cars (HICs) in three research Centres across Europe; Spain, the UK and Greece. The data collection capability of each car is described and an overview presented relating to the relationship between the level of instrumentation and the research possible. A discussion then follows which considers the advantages and disadvantages of using HICs for ND research. This includes the obtrusive nature of the data collection equipment, the cost of equipping the vehicles with sophisticated Data Acquisition Systems (DAS) and the challenges for data storage and analysis particularly with respect to video data. It is concluded th…
Modeling traffic safety at urban four leg-signalized intersections
2013
According to the state-of-the-art of the methodologies, the development of safety performance functions (SPFs) for road sections and intersections requires the employment of statistical models to predict expected crash frequencies on the basis of traffic volumes and site characteristics to be surveyed and used as input to models. Nevertheless, literature reports several studies on issues deriving from data features or methodological approaches that may invalidate the efficiency of the models and the accuracy of the estimates. Drawing inspiration from the above mentioned considerations, the objective of this study is to develop safety performance functions for a sample of urban four leg-sign…
Performance Analysis of Basic Turbo-Roundabouts in Urban Context
2012
AbstractA turbo roundabout is a new type of canalized multilane intersection in which the physical separation between lanes helps to prevent side collisions when crossing the roundabout. This paper presents an estimation of capacity, delays and level of service of basic turbo roundabouts in undersaturation conditions, considering both vehicle flow and pedestrian traffic. The traffic performance model was developed by evaluating the capacity for each entry lane. Owing to the geometric features of the intersection, the total entry capacity is obtained by considering different values of the pedestrian impedance factor and degree of saturation at both the right-turn and left-turn lanes.
The potential of rotorcraft for intercity passenger transport
2007
Abstract There are many high-speed rail projects in Europe at different stages of development. They are supported on environmental grounds and as a means of reducing congestion on other modes, including aviation. High-speed rail, however requires major investment costs, takes a long time to come online, and involves considerable financial risks. A potential alternative that overcomes some of these problems makes use of rotorcrafts. This paper assesses the potentiality of civil rotorcrafts as part of the air transport system. Discrete mode choice models are used to forecast traveller choice behaviour when the rotorcraft is introduced and financial evaluations performed looking at the operati…
Crossing a Multi-Lane Street: Irrelevant Cars Increase Unsafe Behavior
2011
Before crossing a road or an intersection, road users have to determine among the surrounding traffic whether or not they have enough time to safely complete their maneuver. Temporal judgments have been investigated for single cars approaching an intersection, however, close to nothing is known about how street-crossing decisions are being made when several vehicles are simultaneously approaching in two adjacent lanes. We conducted a simulator experiment in which observers indicated whether or not they had enough time to complete safe street crossing. Traffic gaps were presented either with a single or two oncoming cars on different lanes, in such a way that in all cases, only the shortest …
Embedding “roadside equipment” in the environmental assessment of transportation system: the case of safety barriers
2014
The work arises from the consideration that the environmental impact of a road cannot be limited to the analysis of its constituent materials, even if correctly analyzed in their life cycle. In fact, a given road not only consists of the pavement and subgrade, but also includes several different components and accessories (e.g., road marking, drainages, safety barriers, etc.) that contribute to set a road infrastructure in operative condition. As a matter of fact, only limited attention has been paid in the scientific literature to roadside components, unlike pavement and traffic flow. In the present work, the environmental burden of one of these components, i.e., the safety barrier has bee…
Estimation of air pollutant emissions in flower roundabouts and in conventional roundabouts
2013
Abstract The road pollutant emissions, above all in urban context, are correlated to many infrastructural parameters and to traffic intensity and typology. The research work on road junction geometry, carried out in European research centres, has recently allowed to design new road intersection types which are of undoubted interest, especially in terms of traffic functionality and safety, like the flower roundabouts (in which right-turn manoeuvres do not conflict with the circulating flow). The main objective of this paper is to propose a model for the estimation the capacity, delay, levels of service and the pollutant emissions into flower roundabouts. A comparative analysis between conven…
Methodological frontier in operational analysis for roundabouts: a review
2016
Several studies and researches have shown that modern roundabouts are safe and effective as engineering countermeasures for traffic calming, and they are now widely used worldwide. The increasing use of roundabouts and, more recently, turbo and flower roundabouts, has induced a great variety of experiences in the field of intersection design, traffic safety, and capacity modeling. As for unsignalized intersections, which represent the starting point to extend knowledge about the operational analysis to roundabouts, the general situation in capacity estimation is still characterized by the discussion between gap acceptance models and empirical regression models. However, capacity modeling mu…