Impact Analysis of Highway System on Wetland Vegetation in Northern China

Wetlands in northern China are complex ecosystems composed of grasslands, lakes, rivers and swamps, which have immense ecological values. When a highway system passes through a wetland, it has adverse effects on its ecosystem. However, in many cases, it is difficult to avoid a highway system pass through a wetland. Taking the Erka wetland in northern China as an example, nine survey lines, perpendicular to the highway, were set up. According to the distance from the highway, the plant multi-element information was collected. After the analysis of plant growth habits, spatial characteristics and profile features, the following four conclusions were drawn: (1) the highway system divided the plants habitat and made the vegetation communities on both sides develop anisotropically; (2) the highway system interfered with the interspecific competition of the nearby plant populations, making it easier for the plant communities with fast propagation speed, drought resistance and anti-interference to establish advantages; (3) the plant growth within 80 m of the highway was inhibited and (4) the wetland plant community succeeded to grassland plant community. In order to reduce the adverse impact of highway system on wetland ecosystems, it is suggested that in the follow-up highway upgrading project, either diversion of highway or construction of bridge or culvert excavation should be considered.

Cyclic connectivity index of fuzzy incidence graphs with applications in the highway system of different cities to minimize road accidents and in a network of different computers

A parameter is a numerical factor whose values help us to identify a system. Connectivity parameters are essential in the analysis of connectivity of various kinds of networks. In graphs, the strength of a cycle is always one. But, in a fuzzy incidence graph (FIG), the strengths of cycles may vary even for a given pair of vertices. Cyclic reachability is an attribute that decides the overall connectedness of any network. In graph the cycle connectivity (CC) from vertex a to vertex b and from vertex b to vertex a is always one. In fuzzy graph (FG) the CC from vertex a to vertex b and from vertex b to vertex a is always same. But if someone is interested in finding CC from vertex a to an edge ab, then graphs and FGs cannot answer this question. Therefore, in this research article, we proposed the idea of CC for FIG. Because in FIG, we can find CC from vertex a to vertex b and also from vertex a to an edge ab. Also, we proposed the idea of CC of fuzzy incidence cycles (FICs) and complete fuzzy incidence graphs (CFIGs). The fuzzy incidence cyclic cut-vertex, fuzzy incidence cyclic bridge, and fuzzy incidence cyclic cut pair are established. A condition for CFIG to have fuzzy incidence cyclic cut-vertex is examined. Cyclic connectivity index and average cyclic connectivity index of FIG are also investigated. Three different types of vertices, such as cyclic connectivity increasing vertex, cyclically neutral vertex and, cyclic connectivity decreasing vertex, are also defined. The real-life applications of CC of FIG in a highway system of different cities to minimize road accidents and a computer network to find the best computers among all other computers are also provided.

Driving Coverage of Charging Stations for Battery Electric Trucks Located at Truck Stop Facilities

Battery-powered electric trucks could soon be deployed on a large scale along long-haul routes on the U.S. trunk highway system. These vehicles have numerous advantages, including zero emissions, fuel savings, and lower maintenance costs, that make them attractive for motor carrier companies. However, the deployment of this technology depends on the development of a convenient network of fast-charging stations that can provide sufficient driving coverage along the Interstate highway system. The majority of existing fast-charging stations in rural areas currently are not adequate for the movement of large trucks. A potential solution is to install fast-charging stations at the vast network of rural truck stops. Truck stops are specifically designed for the movement of trucks and are already located on the routes with the highest truck demand. The main objective of this study was to develop a methodology for identifying the driving coverage provided if fast-charging stations were located at truck stop facilities along the U.S. Interstate highway system. The contiguous U.S.A. was taken as the study area. The study approach was based on a geographic information system network analysis with a specific focus on the service area. It was found that truck stop facilities could potentially provide 99.5% driving coverage for electric trucks on the Interstate highway system. This makes them opportune locations for future fast-charging stations. These findings may assist transportation planners and operators in defining strategies required for planning the deployment of long-haul electric trucks on the U.S. highway system.

Legal and Permit Loads Evaluation for Indiana Bridges

According to federal law, routine commercial vehicles must adhere to certain limits on their load configuration in order to operate legally on interstate highways. However, states may allow for heavier or different load configurations provided that bridges on the state and county highway system are load rated and, if necessary, posted with vehicles that appropriately represent these loads. The state of Indiana allows several classes of vehicles to operate with loads that exceed federal limits, and, presently, several LFD design loads are used to represent these exceptions as state legal loads. This study evaluates the MBE rating loads for their ability to encompass Indiana’s exception vehicles and recommends a set of state rating loads which can replace the current state legal loads and, combined with the MBE rating loads, satisfactorily encompass the load effects due to these exceptions. Comparing moment and shear envelopes on a representative set of bridges, the MBE rating vehicles were found to be insufficient for representing Indiana’s exception vehicles. Three new rating loads are proposed which encompass the exception vehicles efficiently and represent realistic legal loads. Conversely, acceptable HS-20 rating factors are also provided as an alternative to the adoption of these new vehicles. These rating factors, all 1.0 or greater, can ensure a similar level of safety by requiring a specific amount of excess capacity for the HS-20 design load.

Los Angeles: miasto ruchomych obrazów

Dla Europejczyka fascynacja Ameryką ma charakter zauroczenia dziwacznością. Przejawia się ona w rzeczywistości stanowiącej ponowoczesną mieszaninę fragmentarycznych doznań, które manifestują się w obrazie zarówno wielkich miast amerykańskich jak i architekturze przydrożnej. Autorka poddaje analizie horyzontalnie rozciągnięte Los Angeles jako żywiołowe widowisko ruchu ulicznego. Pomimo powstających wciąż nowych ikonicznych dzieł architektury, bezkształtność, amorficzność i rozproszenie formacji przestrzennych tego miasta nie pozwalają na prawidłowe odczytanie jego struktur. Z badań autorki wysuwa się wniosek, iż nie budynki czy historyczne miejsca, lecz właśnie ruch uliczny i system autostradowy stanowią głównie o charakterze tego miasta, którego wizerunek utrwaliło wielkie kino. Los Angeles: a city of moving images To Europeans, fascination with America is like being charmed by oddity. It manifests itself in a reality that is a postmodern mixture of fragmentary experiences that manifest themselves in the image of both large American cities and roadside architecture. I analyse the horizontally stretched Los Angeles as a lively spectacle of street traffic. Despite newer and newer iconic works of architecture, shapelessness, amorphousness and scattering of this city’s spatial formations does not allow for a proper reading of its structures. My study concludes that it is not buildings or historical sites but street traffic and the highway system that define the character of this city, whose image was enhanced by world-class cinema.

The Role of Data Visualization and Analytics of Highway Accidents

Thailand has been ranked as one of the most dangerous countries in terms of death from road accidents, representing ineffective road safety policies. The crucial mission of the Thai government is to provide safety and reduce accidents for road users on the highway system. This paper aims to explore the potential of using Business Intelligence (BI) in accident analysis. The availability of open accident data provides an opportunity for the BI, which can provide an advanced platform for conducting data visualization and analytics in both spatial and temporal dimensions in order to illustrate when and where the accidents occur. The accident data and provincial data were combined by using the Talend Data Integration tool. The combined data was then loaded into a MySQL database for data visualization using Tableau. The dashboard was designed and created by using Tableau as an analytical visualization tool to provide insights into highway accidents. This system is advised to be adopted by the Thai government, which can be used for data visualization and analytics to provide a mechanism to formulate strategy options and formulate appropriate contingency plans to improve the accident situation.

Application of Bayesian Hierarchical Negative Binomial Finite Mixture Model for Cost-Benefit Analysis of Barriers Optimization, Accounting for Severe Heterogeneity

The Wyoming Department of Transportation (WYDOT) initiated a project to optimize the heights of barriers that are not satisfying the barrier design criteria, while prioritizing them based on an ability to achieve higher monetary benefits. The equivalent property damage only (EPDO) was used in this study to account for both aspects of crash frequency and severity. Data of this type are known to have overdispersion, that is having a variance greater than the mean. Thus, a negative binomial model was implemented to address the over-dispersion issue of the dataset. Another challenge of the dataset used in this study was the heterogeneity of the dataset. The data heterogeneity resulted from various factors such as data being aggregated across two highway systems, and the presence of two barrier types in the whole state. Thus, it is not practical to assign a subjective hierarchy such as a highway system or barrier types to address the issue of severe heterogeneity in the dataset. Under these conditions, a finite mixture model (FMM) was implemented to find a best distribution parameter to characterize the observations. With this technique, after the optimum number of mixtures was identified, those clusters were assigned to various observations. However, previous studies mostly employed just the finite mixture model (FMM), with various distributions, to account for unobserved heterogeneity. The problem with the FMM approach is that it results in a loss of information: for instance, it would come up with N number of equations, where each result would use only part of the whole dataset. On the other hand, some studies used a subjective hierarchy to account for the heterogeneity in the dataset, such as the effect of seasonality or highway system; however, those subjective hierarchies might not account for the optimum heterogeneity in the dataset. Thus, we implement a new methodology, the Bayesian Hierarchical Finite Mixture (BHFMM) to employ the FMM without losing information, while also accounting for the heterogeneity in the dataset, by considering objective and unbiased hierarchies. As the Bayesian technique has the shortcoming of labeling the observations due to label switching; the FMM parameters were estimated by maximum likelihood technique. Results of the identified model were converted to an equation for implementation of machine learning techniques. The heights were optimized to an optimal value and the EPDO was predicted based on the changes. The results of the cost–benefit analysis indicated that after spending about 4 million dollars, the WYDOT would not only recover the expenses, but could also expect to save more than $4 million additional dollars through traffic barrier crash reduction.