Monitoring and Assessing the Environmental Noise along a Busy Traffic Corridor of Ahmedabad City, India

Noise pollution is a growing problem across the world and one which many people may not be aware of the impacts on their health. The environmental noise, and in particular the road traffic noise, remains a major environmental problem affecting the health and well-being of millions of people. With this background, a comprehensive ‘noise pollution assessment study’ was undertaken for a busy traffic corridor of Ahmedabad city of India. The traffic corridor which spans around 22.25 km passes through a mix of different areas like educational, commercials and residential. A two week long field survey was carried out on this corridor during 10-23 May, 2018 at 24 locations spread over the entire corridor. The assessment reveals that the average noise level always exceeded the prescribed guidelines of World Health Organization (WHO) for the daytime noise (75 dB (A) for Industrial area, 65 dB (A) for Commercial area, 55 dB (A) for Residential area and 50 dB (A) for Silence zones), which is quite alarming. For a major portion of the traffic corridor (79.6%), even the minimum noise level was above the permissible average noise level which is a matter of great concern. The highest noise level observed was 86.0 dB (A). Clubbing the ranks of the traffic corridor segments for the noise indicators like LAeq, Lmin, Lmax, L90, L50, L10 and LNP revealed that locations like Akhbarnagar followed by Naranpura were in the nosiest. Looking to implications of the high noise levels on the human health and productivity, it is important to initiate suitable mitigation measures. The present comprehensive study brings forth the spatial and quantitative aspects of noise pollution across the busy corridor of the city which would be of great help to the civic administration in understanding the magnitude of the problem and subsequently initiate suitable mitigative measures.

REFINED METHOD FOR CALCULATING HEADING ANGLES OF A VEHICLE AT THE END OF BRAKING

Reducing the number of road accidents is an urgent task, the solution of which can be achieved, including by improving the design of vehicles. One of the most common causes of road accidents is the occurrence of a car skidding during braking with its subsequent exit from the traffic corridor. The effective development of new vehicle safety systems that increase its directional stability during braking and the improvement of existing systems is possible only if there are reliable methods that take into account the main parameters of the vehicle that affect its stability during braking. The currently existing methods and expressions for calculating the heading angles of a car at the end of braking have a number of assumptions that facilitate the calculations. This does not diminish their value, but slightly reduces accuracy. The purpose of this work was to clarify the methodology for calculating the permissible and actual heading angles of the vehicle at the end of braking. Within the framework of the work, theoretical studies have been carried out, based on the analysis of existing research on this topic. Based on the analysis performed, it was found that the existing methods and expressions for calculating the heading angle of a car at the end of braking do not take into account the effect of differences in the track dimensions of the front and rear axles of the car, and the center of mass of the car is conventionally assumed to be located on the longitudinal axis of the car. Evaluation of the influence of these parameters on the accuracy of calculations has not been carried out at present, there are no expressions for calculating the permissible heading angle of the vehicle at the end of braking. As a result of theoretical studies, a refined technique was obtained, including expressions for calculating the actual heading angle of the vehicle at the end of braking under various braking modes. The previously specified parameters are taken into account in the expressions obtained. An equation was derived to calculate the permissible heading angle of the car at the end of braking, taking into account the dimensions of the car, its location relative to the edge of the carriageway and the width of the lane. The refined expressions and the resulting equation that form the methodology for calculating the heading angles of the vehicle at the end of braking represent the scientific novelty of this work. To increase the efficiency of calculations according to the proposed method, a computer program has been developed. The direction of further research is to assess the adequacy and accuracy of the proposed methodology using the developed program.

Railway Territorialities

This article examines transportation infrastructures’ capacity to produce and transform social space through a focus on the contested history of railway development in Valsusa, Italy. I draw on participant observation and interviews with local residents and activists during ethnographic fieldwork in 2014–2015. I first describe how railways helped form modern sociality in Valsusa in the twentieth century. Subsequently, I explore contrasting topological effects of a projected high-speed rail through the valley. For planners envisioning a trans-European space of exchange, the railway is a powerful way to “shrink” space; for local residents, this implies reducing Valsusa to a traffic “corridor.” Yet their protest generates new social relations and knowledges, giving rise to a notion of “territory” as unbound and connected to a transnational space of resistance to capitalist expansion.

Railway Territorialities

This article examines transportation infrastructures’ capacity to produce and transform social space through a focus on the contested history of railway development in Valsusa, Italy. I draw on participant observation and interviews with local residents and activists during ethnographic fieldwork in 2014–2015. I first describe how railways helped form modern sociality in Valsusa in the twentieth century. Subsequently, I explore contrasting topological effects of a projected high-speed rail through the valley. For planners envisioning a trans-European space of exchange, the railway is a powerful way to “shrink” space; for local residents, this implies reducing Valsusa to a traffic “corridor.” Yet their protest generates new social relations and knowledges, giving rise to a notion of “territory” as unbound and connected to a transnational space of resistance to capitalist expansion.

Estimates of Economic Cost of Congestion Travel Time Delay Between Onne-Seaport and Eleme-Junction Traffic Corridor

Travelers along the Onne-seaport to Eleme-junction road corridor in the hub of the oil and gas industry in Port-Harcourt, Nigeria, have continued to experience very serious traffic congestion travel time delays, culminating into loss of man-hours and declining productivity. This study estimated the economic cost of traffic congestion travel time delay along the corridor, with a view to providing economic justification for developing traffic management policies and road infrastructure, to remedy it. A mixed research approach was adopted in which data was sourced through field survey and from secondary sources. The gross output model was used to estimate the output losses occasioned by productive time losses related to traffic congestion. The study established that the average daily traffic congestion travel time delay along the traffic corridor by travelers in trucks, car, bus and taxi modes are 104.17 minutes, 46.60 minutes, 58.5 minutes and 56.4 minutes respectively. The estimated daily aggregate economic cost of output losses associated with traffic congestion time delay on the corridor is 46049809.8 naira (210923.5USD) for all modes. This justifies any investment in traffic congestion remedial strategies along the route.