Sustainability

This report explores opportunities for employing autonomous driving technology to dampen stop-and-go waves on freeways. If successful, it could reduce fuel consumption and emissions. This technology was tested in an on-road experiment with 100 vehicles over one week. Public stakeholders were engaged to assess the planning effort and feasibility of taking the technology to the next level: a pilot involving 1000+ vehicles over several months. Considerations included the possible geographical boundaries, target fleets of vehicles, and suitable facilities such as bridges or managed lanes. Flow...

Eventos hidroclimáticos extremos tem se tornado mais recorrente nas últimas décadas na bacia Amazônica. Ainda, o quarto relatório do IPCC mostra que um grande número das projeções dos modelos atmosféricos concorda na tendência de incrementos na frequência e valor destes extremos. No intuito de analisar esses eventos, sob o impacto dos efeitos das mudanças globais na bacia do Rio Madeira, foram desenvolvidas análises de series de tempo das projeções futuras de descargas. Este trabalho apresenta projeções de descargas máximas com base nas vazões geradas pelo Modelo Hidrológico de...

Almost every automobile company is producing vehicles with Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) systems that allow a vehicle to do automatic vehicle following in the same lane. The ACC system is designed for driver comfort and safety and to operate with manually driven vehicles. These characteristics of ACC were found to have beneficial effects on the environment and traffic flow characteristics [1, 2, 3] by acting as filters of a wide class of traffic disturbances. It has been argue that the smooth response of ACC vehicles to high acceleration disturbances or large position errors creates large...

Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) have generated considerable enthusiasm in the transportation community as a potential means to improve roadway safety, reduce congestion, enhance the mobility of people and goods, and reduce energy consumption and vehicle emissions. In order to estimate these potential benefits, new and improved analytical techniques and simulation models are being developed for ITS. In terms of environmental effects, the University of California, Riverside, College of Engineering-Center for Environmental Research and Technology (CE-CERT) has developed a...