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Transport Systems: Safety Modeling, Visions and Strategies

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A special issue of Infrastructures (ISSN 2412-3811).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2021) | Viewed by 36921

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Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Krzysztof Goniewicz

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Guest Editor

Department of Security, Polish Air Force University, 08-521 Dęblin, Poland
Interests: crisis management; disaster management; disaster preparedness; disasters; safety; health security; CIMIC
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Robert Czerski

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Guest Editor

Military University of Aviation, Deblin, Poland
Interests: transportation; transport system; aviation safety

Dr. Marek Kustra

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Guest Editor

Military University of Aviation, Deblin, Poland
Interests: safety/security in aviation; UAV; airport; safety/quality management system; threats in aviation

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Transport, in general, is vital for the prosperity and functioning of society. To identify opportunities for future action, we must examine how transport grew and how problems became more pronounced.

This Special Issue will include papers describing the synthesis of current theory and practice of planning, design, operation, and safety of modern transport, with special focus on future visions and strategies of transport sustainability, which will be of interest to scientists dealing with transport problems and generally involved in traffic engineering as well as design, traffic networks, and maintenance engineers.

Other major areas of interest with regard to transport include but are not limited to:

Sustainability interpretation in transport infrastructure
Public transport systems
Intelligent transport systems
Transportation planning
Road transport network
Air transport industry
Technical innovations
Green transportation

I invite you to consider submitting your contribution to this important discussion. Together, we can move the discussion forward with our questions, challenges, and solutions.

Dr. Krzysztof Goniewicz
Dr. Robert Czerski
Dr. Marek Kustra
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Infrastructures is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

transport systems
transport network
sustainable development
safety

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Published Papers (10 papers)

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Research

12 pages, 1506 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Citizens’ Perceptions in Relation to Transport Systems and Infrastructures: A Nationwide Study in the Dominican Republic

by Francisco Alonso, Mireia Faus, Boris Cendales and Sergio A. Useche

Infrastructures 2021, 6(11), 153; https://doi.org/10.3390/infrastructures6110153 - 25 Oct 2021

Cited by 22 | Viewed by 3829

Abstract

One of the challenges currently faced by emerging countries is to get their citizens to decide to use sustainable transport for their regular trips, in order to reduce the current vehicular pollution rates. The objective of this descriptive research is to examine the perceptions of Dominicans regarding the state of the country’s transport systems and road infrastructure. For this purpose, a nationwide survey procedure was performed. This cross-sectional research used the data retrieved from a sample of 1260 citizens aged over 18, proportional in gender, age, habitat, and province of the Dominican Republic. The results showed how Dominicans believe that, compared to other road features, pedestrian roads and public transport vehicles remain in a very poor condition. Further, citizens report to be more interested about the improvement of road infrastructures than in the implementation of any other set of measures performed to promote sustainable road mobility, including those related with alternative transport means. Finally, this study claims for the need of fostering educational, communicative and participative actions and measures aimed at increasing the value given to sustainable transportation, and the relevance of integrate potential structural and vehicular improvements with those related to human behavior in mobility. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Transport Systems: Safety Modeling, Visions and Strategies)

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16 pages, 474 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Scoping Study on Driver’s Perspective of Distracting Factors

by Taleb M. Al-Rousan, Abdullahi A. Umar, Aslam A. Al-Omari, Yahia A. Khalaylah, Hamza M. Alkuime and Ayoub H. Al-Rousan

Infrastructures 2021, 6(10), 139; https://doi.org/10.3390/infrastructures6100139 - 30 Sep 2021

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2460

Abstract

Distracting activities while driving are common and can result in errors that threaten road users’ safety. The main objectives of this study were to investigate drivers’ perspectives of the factors contributing to distraction, determine the relative rank of types of distractions, recognize the road factors and environmental effects that make distractions more dangerous, and identify the most effective measures to reduce driver distractions. A survey was conducted to assess Jordanian drivers’ experiences with distracted driving, and what solutions they believed could be implemented to solve the problems. The study’s outcomes revealed that drivers perceive visual distractions as the most dangerous, followed by cognitive, manual, and auditory distractions, respectively. It was also found that “mobile phone texting or dialing” was ranked the top most dangerous visual and manual distracting factor. “Baby is crying or kids are fighting in the back seat” was perceived by all demographic groups as the riskiest auditory factor. Regarding cognitive distraction, four factors were perceived as the most serious, of which “Baby is crying”, “Driving while angry or sad or agitated”, “Talking on a cell phone—even a hands-free one” and “Conversing with passengers” were determined to be the top four distracting factors. The results also revealed that drivers believe that “laws and enforcement” is the most effective measure to reduce distractions while driving. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Transport Systems: Safety Modeling, Visions and Strategies)

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12 pages, 3930 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Assessment of Traffic Sign Comprehension Levels among Drivers in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, UAE

by Taleb M. Al-Rousan and Abdullahi A. Umar

Infrastructures 2021, 6(9), 122; https://doi.org/10.3390/infrastructures6090122 - 31 Aug 2021

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 5658

Abstract

Road traffic signs are part of the road infrastructure components meant to ensure the safe use of roads by motorists and pedestrians alike. A good knowledge and comprehension of road signs helps ensure smooth flow of traffic, improves safety for other motorists and provides drivers with good reaction time to comply with the message dictated by the signs. Abu Dhabi, being the capital of the UAE, brings together people from all over the world for work, business or tourism. Abu Dhabi has quality roads and traffic signage together with an efficient police force that enforces adherence to traffic rules. Despite all these and the reduced fatalities in absolute terms, traffic violations have been increasing exponentially, resulting in five million traffic fines in 2019 for a population of about 2.9 million inhabitants. This study sought to assess motorists’ comprehension of the various traffic signs used across the UAE. The results of the survey (N = 200) revealed that the drivers were able to correctly identify 77% of the road signs in the survey. It was also found that the respondents failed to correctly identify traffic signs within the specific category referred to as “advance warning signs”. Respondents’ education, nationality, gender, and marital status did not have any statistically significant effects on the results compared to earlier studies. It is recommended that more attention be focused on driver education and training. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Transport Systems: Safety Modeling, Visions and Strategies)

13 pages, 546 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Characteristics of Crashes Caused by Distracted Driving on Rural and Suburban Roadways in Jordan

by Taleb M. Al-Rousan, Abdullahi A. Umar and Aslam A. Al-Omari

Infrastructures 2021, 6(8), 107; https://doi.org/10.3390/infrastructures6080107 - 29 Jul 2021

Cited by 20 | Viewed by 3521

Abstract

The objective of this study was to identify the most salient driver faults that cause crashes on some Jordanian rural and suburban roadway segments, to examine crashes with distracted driving as the driver’s fault, and to investigate the differences between crashes caused by distracted driving. Data for more than 10,200 crashes on nine roadway segments (five rural and four suburban) were accessed from the relevant government agency, but only n = 2472 were used for analysis after controlling for crashes specified as being caused by drivers’ distracted driving. IBM SPSS version 22 was used to perform descriptive analysis and independent samples’ t-tests. The results revealed that distracted driving was the second most common driver fault to cause crashes and the second main cause of fatalities and injuries on both rural and suburban roadways. Distracted driving on rural highways appears to be more fatal, whereas it caused more crashes with severe injuries on suburban roads. The variables at junction, road grade, number of lanes, weather condition, crash type, and number of vehicles involved were found to be statistically significant but with a small effect size. The following categories showed high percentages of distracted driving crashes on rural and suburban roadways: males, drivers 25–39 years old, non-holidays, weekdays, tangent sections, two-way divided roads, not at junction, level roads, two-lane roads, clear weather, dry surface, daylight, and automobile vehicles showed high percentages of distracted driving crashes on rural and suburban roadways. Differences between crashes on rural and suburban roadways caused by distracted driving were found to be small. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Transport Systems: Safety Modeling, Visions and Strategies)

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12 pages, 4244 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Utilizing UAVs Technology on Microscopic Traffic Naturalistic Data Acquirement

by Apostolos Anagnostopoulos and Fotini Kehagia

Infrastructures 2021, 6(6), 89; https://doi.org/10.3390/infrastructures6060089 - 16 Jun 2021

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2424

Abstract

Research into collecting and measuring reliable, accurate, and naturalistic microscopic traffic data is a fundamental aspect in road network planning scientific literature. The vehicle trajectory is one of the main variables in traffic flow theory that allows to extract information regarding microscopic traffic flow characteristics. Several methods and techniques have been applied regarding the acquisition of vehicle trajectory. The forthcoming applications of intelligent transport systems on vehicles and infrastructure require sufficient and innovative tools to calibrate existing models on more complex situations. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are one of the most emerging technologies being used recently in the transportation field to monitor and analyze the traffic flow. The aim of this paper is to examine the use of UAVs as a tool for microscopic traffic data collection and analysis. A comprehensive guiding framework for accurate and cost-effective naturalistic traffic surveys and analysis using UAVs is proposed and presented in detail. Field experiments of acquiring vehicle trajectories on two multilane roundabouts were carried out following the proposed framework. Results of the experiment indicate the usefulness of the UAVs technology on various traffic analysis studies. The results of this study provide a practical guide regarding vehicle trajectory acquirement using UAVs. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Transport Systems: Safety Modeling, Visions and Strategies)

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18 pages, 5335 KiB

Open AccessArticle

by Tor-Olav Nævestad, Beate Elvebakk and Karen Ranestad

Infrastructures 2021, 6(5), 72; https://doi.org/10.3390/infrastructures6050072 - 11 May 2021

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2710

Abstract

About 36% of fatal road accidents in Norway involve at least one driver who is “at work”. It has been argued that the implementation of rules clearly defining the responsibility of road transport companies to prevent work related accidents, by implementing safety management systems (SMS), could lead to increased safety. In the present study we tested the validity of this suggestion, by examining the influence of different sector rules on work-related accident prevention in Norwegian road and maritime transport. In contrast to the road sector, the maritime sector has had rules requiring SMS for over 20 years, clearly defining the shipping companies responsibility for prevention of work-related accidents. The aims of the study were to: (1) examine how the different sector rules influence perceptions of whether the responsibility to prevent work-related accidents is clearly defined in each sector; and (2) compare respondents’ perceptions of the quality of their sectors’ efforts to prevent work-related accidents, and factors influencing this. The study was based on a small-scale survey (N = 112) and qualitative interviews with sector experts (N = 17) from companies, authorities, and NGOs in the road and the maritime sectors. Results indicate that respondents in the maritime sector perceive the responsibility to prevent work-related accidents as far more clearly defined, and they rate their sector’s efforts to prevent accidents as higher than respondents in road. Multivariate analyses indicate that this is related to the scope of safety regulations in the sectors studied, controlled for several important framework conditions. Based on the results, we conclude that the implementation of SMS rules focused on transport companies’ responsibility to prevent work-related accidents could improve safety in the road sector. However, due to barriers to SMS implementation in the road sector, we suggest starting with a simplified version of SMS. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Transport Systems: Safety Modeling, Visions and Strategies)

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26 pages, 3251 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Evaluation of Microsimulation Models for Roadway Segments with Different Functional Classifications in Northern Iran

by Amir Masoud Rahimi, Maxim A. Dulebenets and Arash Mazaheri

Infrastructures 2021, 6(3), 46; https://doi.org/10.3390/infrastructures6030046 - 15 Mar 2021

Cited by 17 | Viewed by 3500

Abstract

Industrialization, urban development, and population growth in the last decades caused a significant increase in congestion of transportation networks across the world. Increasing congestion of transportation networks and limitations of the traditional methods in analyzing and evaluating the congestion mitigation strategies led many transportation professionals to the use of traffic simulation techniques. Nowadays, traffic simulation is heavily used in a variety of applications, including the design of transportation facilities, traffic flow management, and intelligent transportation systems. The literature review, conducted as a part of this study, shows that many different traffic simulation packages with various features have been developed to date. The present study specifically focuses on a comprehensive comparative analysis of the advanced interactive microscopic simulator for urban and non-urban networks (AIMSUN) and SimTraffic microsimulation models, which have been widely used in the literature and practice. The evaluation of microsimulation models is performed for the four roadway sections with different functional classifications, which are located in the northern part of Iran. The SimTraffic and AIMSUN microsimulation models are compared in terms of the major transportation network performance indicators. The results from the conducted analysis indicate that AIMSUN returned smaller errors for the vehicle flow, travel speed, and total travel distance. On the other hand, SimTraffic provided more accurate values of the travel time. Both microsimulation models were able to effectively identify traffic bottlenecks. Findings from this study will be useful for the researchers and practitioners, who heavily rely on microsimulation models in transportation planning. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Transport Systems: Safety Modeling, Visions and Strategies)

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10 pages, 429 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Performance Evaluation of Electric Trolley Bus Routes. A Series Two-Stage DEA Approach

by Ioannis E. Tsolas

Infrastructures 2021, 6(3), 44; https://doi.org/10.3390/infrastructures6030044 - 15 Mar 2021

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2984

Abstract

A common concern for bus operators is efficiency measurement in order to monitor transit performance. The purpose of this paper is to propose a series two-stage data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach integrated with bootstrapping in order to evaluate the performance of electric trolley bus routes of Athens and Piraeus, Greece. Production and sales efficiency were measured in the first and second stages, respectively. In the light of the results, the routes assessed have a comparable higher DEA-based efficiency in both stages when compared to the perfect possible performance, but production and sales efficiency are not associated. Nevertheless, arterial bus routes have a marginally better performance in the production process on average, whereas the feeder–local bus routes produce a slightly better sales performance. The proposed modeling approach is an addition to the current literature, and can be employed by managers and operators. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Transport Systems: Safety Modeling, Visions and Strategies)

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13 pages, 3180 KiB

Open AccessArticle

On BRT Spread around the World: Analysis of Some Particular Cities

by Salvatore Trubia, Alessandro Severino, Salvatore Curto, Fabio Arena and Giovanni Pau

Infrastructures 2020, 5(10), 88; https://doi.org/10.3390/infrastructures5100088 - 20 Oct 2020

Cited by 28 | Viewed by 5382

Abstract

The goal of civil engineering has always been the research and implementation of methods, technologies, and infrastructures to improve the community’s quality of life. One of the branches of civil engineering that has the strongest effect on progress is transport. The quality of transport has a profound economic and social impact on our communities regarding trade (freight transport) and city livability (public transport systems). However, innovation is not the only way to improve the features above-mentioned, especially public transport, considering that it is usually beneficial to enhance and repurpose vehicles with appropriate adjustments to offer more efficient services. Other perspectives that influence public transport systems are the costs and times of design and construction, maintenance, operating costs, and environmental impact, especially concerning CO₂ emissions. Considering these issues, among the various types of existing public transport systems, those of the so-called Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) offer worthwhile results. The BRT system is a type of public road transport operated by bus on reserved lanes, and it is significantly profitable, especially from an economic point of view, in areas where there are existing bus routes. Nonetheless, for the construction of works minimization, it is closely linked to other features that improve its usefulness, depending on the vehicles’ quality such as capacity, but above all, the propulsion or driving autonomy that would guarantee high efficiency. This paper introduces an analysis of some BRT systems operating worldwide, presenting the background, general technical features, and the correlation with autonomous vehicles. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Transport Systems: Safety Modeling, Visions and Strategies)

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10 pages, 1093 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Piecewise-Defined Function for Modelling Traffic Noise on Urban Roads

by Mariano Gallo

Infrastructures 2020, 5(8), 63; https://doi.org/10.3390/infrastructures5080063 - 29 Jul 2020

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2993

Abstract

In this paper, a piecewise-defined function is proposed to estimate traffic noise in urban areas. The proposed approach allows the use of the model even in the case of very low or zero flows for which the classical logarithmic form is not suitable. A model based on the proposed approach is calibrated for a real case and compared with the results obtained with a model based only on the logarithmic form. The results obtained show how the proposed piecewise-defined function, linear for low traffic flows and logarithmic for medium-high volumes, is able to better represent real noise pollution levels in all conditions. The proposed approach is particularly useful when comparing two plan scenarios from the point of view of noise effects. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Transport Systems: Safety Modeling, Visions and Strategies)

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