The 58.5-mile long Highway 101 corridor from the Bay Bridge to the SR 85/US-101 interchange in South San Jose accommodates just over 2.6 million trips on an average weekday. Travel delays on the US-101 corridor over the 2012-2016 five-year period increased by more than 91% (an average delay increase of over 18% per year). Given that California’s economy recently grew to become the sixth largest in the world, this waste of time stuck in traffic ranks among the most consequential economic inefficiencies in the world; workers in this region produce about 15 percent of California’s annual...
In studies undertaken by staff of the PATH Program concerned with automatic vehicle control (AVC) ceramic sensors (magnets) have been placed at or near the surface of both asphalt concrete (AC) and portland cement concrete (PCC) pavements. Thus far sensors have been installed at three locations: 1) AC pavement at the Richmond Field Station (RFS); 2) AC and PCC pavement on Interstate 15 in San Diego, CA; and 3) AC and PCC pavement on Interstate 80 near Donner Summit, CA. The installations at Donner Summit have been used for the guidance of snow plows during the winter months. With increased...
Technological innovations have recently changed many of the ways the private trucking industry operates. These changes have enabled trucking firms to monitor more closely the distribution of goods and services, improve productivity, and develop higher levels of customer satisfaction. Of these innovations, ITS related applications play an important role in creating benefits for the private sector. ITS technologies are also increasingly offering the potential to bring about change to state and national agencies charged with overseeing goods movement in trucking. Recent research has shown...
The amount of freight that can be fit on a vehicle depends on the vehicle's weight capacity and volume capacity. In this paper mathematical equations are developed for evaluating the impact of weight capacity and volume capacity on total vehicle-miles. It is shown that the number of vehicle loads needed to carry a large amount of material is minimized when all vehicles are filled to the same capacity constraint. This is accomplished by mixing light items with heavy items in vehicle loads. Following this policy can reduce the number of vehicle loads and vehicle-miles. Under ideal...
Since the enactment of the Americans with with Disabilities Act, in 1991, operating expenses for Demand Responsive Transit have more than doubled as demand for this mandated service has expanded. Many advanced technologies and management practices have been proposed and implemented to improve the efficiency of the service; but, evidence for the effectiveness of these actions has been based upon projections or small pilot studies. We present the results of a nationwide study involving 67 large transit agencies. We evaluate the impact of implemented technologies and practices upon...
This report examines the impact and feasibility of using urban railway system for freight movement. In particular, using the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system for FedEx Express air cargo movement is analyzed as a case study. Based on the framework constructed in the study of last phase, social impact (externalities), reliability, and infrastructure feasibility are considered. The social cost related to emission, energy consumption/efficiency, impact on road traffic and land use is considered. The reliability issue is examined from two aspects: transportation delay, and emergency...
This paper studies how items with different characteristics, and being demanded at different rates from a finite number of supply points, should be transported to a common destination. The items may differ in size and value, and the origins may differ in their spatial distribution, the kind of items they produce and the production rate. Depending on the application context, the common destination can represent a warehouse, a factory, a military base, a break-bulk terminal, a port or another kind of transportation terminal. Different kinds of items may call for separate transportation...
This report compares the performance of three double-cycling algorithms used to determine the sequence with which to load and unload containers from a vessel with a quay crane. Double cycling is a technique which can improve the efficiency of a quay crane and container port by unloading and loading containers in the same crane cycle. The three algorithms, the greedy strategy, the proximal strategy, and Johnson’s rule, are introduced and results from applying the three strategies to a set of simulated vessels are compared. While Johnson’s rule provides the minimum number of cycles required...
Electrified propulsion systems, such as fuel cells (FCs) and batteries, are a promising solution to decarbonize the shipping sector. In this paper, we have conducted a comprehensive analysis of two months' worth of real-world container ship power demand data. From this analysis, we propose a novel multi-time scale Energy Management System (EMS) approach for a hybrid FC/battery propulsion system. This approach enables the individual control of each FC stack while factoring in battery and FC degradation losses and fuel consumption costs. By exploring different time scales, we have assessed...
