Evaluation of Slovakia’s R1 expressway enhancement impacts on local socio-economic development: expert panel approach

Transport infrastructure development is considered one of the basic structural preconditions of competitiveness, growth and economic development in Slovakia. Transport network upgrading in the country has recently been focused mainly on road and motorway networks. The goal of this paper is to contribute to existing approaches to transport infrastructure impact assessment. The paper presents selected results of qualitative research focused on an analysis of the R1 expressway (as a part of TEN-T network) and its impacts on the economic, social and environmental dimensions of life at the local territorial level. The paper also seeks to answer the basic question, whether and to what extent the new section of the expressway brings any stimuli to regional or local development. Qualitative research realized by field sociological methods has shown new data and information necessary for a complex assessment of transport infrastructure impacts on social and economic development of regions. We assume that these impacts should not be based purely on mathematic and statistical research methods.

Improving Traffic Flow Efficiency at Motorway Lane Drops by Influencing Lateral Flows

Lane drops are a common bottleneck source on motorway networks. Congestion sets in upstream of a lane drop as a result of the lane changing activity of merging vehicles. This causes the queue discharge rate at the bottleneck to decrease and drop below the capacity, leading to capacity drop and further congestion. The objective of this study is to minimize the total travel time of the system by controlling lateral flows upstream of the lane drop. This is equivalent to maximizing the exit flows at the bottleneck. An optimization problem is formulated for a 3–2 lane drop section with high inflow. The problem is solved for different test cases where the direction of lateral flows being controlled is varied. An incentive based macroscopic model representing the natural lane changing scenario is used as a benchmark for comparison. The results showed that by influencing the lateral flows upstream of the bottleneck, the queue discharge rate increased by more than 4.5%. The total travel time of the system was consequently found to be reduced. The improvements in performance were primarily a result of the distribution of lane changing activity over space and the balancing of flow among the lanes which lead to the decrease in the severity of congestion. The findings reveal a potentially effective way to reduce the severity of congestion upstream of lane drop bottlenecks during high demand which could be implemented using roadside and in-car advisory systems.

The impact of urban proximity, transport accessibility and policy on urban growth: A longitudinal analysis over five decades

Transport accessibility is assumed to be a main driver of urbanisation. Like many other metropolitan regions, the Randstad, the population and economic core of the Netherlands has experienced significant urbanisation, transport network expansion and spatial policies aimed to channel urban growth. This paper investigates the long-term relationships between the development of railway and motorway networks, urbanisation, and spatial policies, by using a panel dataset consisting of grid cells measured at six time points from 1960 to 2010. Generalised Estimating Equations analysis was applied to model the built-up area. Predictors include proximity to and accessibility by transport infrastructure, vicinity of urban areas, and spatial policies. Results indicate that road and rail accessibility alike, stably influenced urbanisation, but less than proximity to urban areas. Spatial policies played a significant role in channelling new urbanisation, while preserving the centrally located green and mainly rural area. Remarkably, the legacy of earlier policies is still significant despite shifts in predominant Dutch spatial policies. The findings are expected to be relevant for comparable poly-nuclear areas.

Accident Costs in Regard to the Length Of Motorway – Croatian Experience

The basic objective of this research is to explore the contribution of development of motorway networks to minimization of accident costs. Results of the study are based on Croatian experience. The possibility of a statistically negative correlation between gradation in the total motorway length and traffic accident costs will be investigated through observation of variations in the total length of motorway and the number and type of accidents that occured. Different scientific methods were applied in the research, including the method of induction and deduction, the method of abstraction and the method of correlation and regression analysis. The resulting knowlegde may be of help to traffic authorities, both on micro and macro levels.

BIO-DEVELOPMENT OF MOTORWAY NETWORK IN THE NETHERLANDS: A SLIME MOULD APPROACH

Plasmodium of a cellular slime mould Physarum polycephalum is a very large eukaryotic microbe visible to the unaided eye. During its foraging behavior the plasmodium spans sources of nutrients with a network of protoplasmic tubes. In this paper we attempt to address the following question: Is slime mould capable of computing transport networks? By assuming the sources of nutrients are cities and protoplasmic tubes connecting the sources are motorways, how well does the plasmodium approximate existing motorway networks? We take the Netherlands as a case study for bio-development of motorways, while it has the most dense motorway network in Europe, current demand is rapidly approaching the upper limits of existing capacity. We represent twenty major cities with oat flakes, place plasmodium in Amsterdam and record how the plasmodium spreads between oat flakes via the protoplasmic tubes. First we analyze slime-mould-built and man-built transport networks in a framework of proximity graphs to investigate if the slime mould is capable of computing existing networks. We then go on to investigate if the slime mould is able calculate or adapt the network through imitating restructuring of the transport network as a response to potential localized flooding of the Netherlands.