Active transportation’s place within transportation engineering has continued to grow. Pedestrian infrastructure has always been a consideration, but bicycle infrastructure was generally an afterthought. Where it was once not considered whatsoever in road design or for planning purposes, it is now normal to see its inclusion, often prominently, in transportation master plans as an effective method of transportation demand management, in the promotion of healthy lifestyles and the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles. There are some important implications related to attempts to increase the cycling mode share for commuters and increasing cycling in general. It would seem obvious that different types of cycling infrastructure would have different effects on the number and frequency of collisions involving cyclists. That relationship was explored though an examination of applicable research. The establishment of different types of cycling infrastructure also are likely to have an effect on the amount of commuters who would be willing to switch to that mode. Their willingness to switch, even if it is not full-time, is likely based upon their own perceived safety and comfort levels with the different types of infrastructure options. This was the second focus of examination. Finally, there is a discussion of the methods in which jurisdictions within New Brunswick can incorporate active transportation infrastructure and the potential effect on vehicular traffic. New Brunswick is in a cold weather climate; Fredericton sees average daily temperatures below freezing for 4 months per year (Environment Canada, 2017). These conditions will also affect cycling commuting numbers and this will be considered in the discussion.
Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) will bring advantages such as enhanced mobility, increased safety, and eliminated hassles of finding a parking spot. AV users can exit from their vehicles at their final destinations, and send the vehicles to find a parking spot themselves. This self-parking capability of AVs is considered as their most beneficial advantage in the World Economic Forum survey by approximately 50% of respondents (Mitchell, 2019). The self-parking capability not only provides the opportunity to park AVs farther from the final destination (Nourinejad &Amirgholy, 2018) but also can decrease the area needed for parking and revitalize valuable lands allocated to parking. Since passengers do not present in the AVs when they enter a parking lot, the required room for opening an AV's doors becomes redundant. This along with the elimination of elevators and staircases can decrease the average space per vehicle by 2 square meters (Techworld, 2016). Another essential strategy to decrease land utilization is stacking AVs behind each other in car-parks as shown in Figure 1. Although this kind of design reduces land utilization and increases parking capacity, it causes a blockage if the barricaded AV wants to leave earlier, and the parking operator must relocate blocking vehicles. Nourinejad et al. (2018) investigate the design of such parking facility layouts. They divide a car-park into a number of islands and gaps. The islands are used to store vehicles and the gaps are used for vehicles to maneuver in and out of parking spots. Each island is made of some stacks as shown in Figure 1. The inter-island gaps are used as waiting area for blocking AVs. In this way, the blocking AVs move to the inter-island gap and wait there to make a clear path for the summoned AV to exit the facility.
In this study, we propose a new estimation approach which uses aggregate market-level operational data to estimate air passengers’ ground transport mode choice. Unlike the abovementioned traditional survey approach, this method does not need any individual-level attributes and preferences. The estimation simply replies on those easily observed market-level data, namely the ridership, fare, schedule, in-vehicle travel time of each airport ground transport mode, and airport passenger traffic. This significantly lowers the data requirement. In addition, this empirical approach utilizes the information on the continuous airport passenger-flow and discretely scheduled airport ground transport modes, which substantially improves estimation efficiency. Specifically, the indirect utility of a choice alternative to access or egress the airport is developed to account for the effects of fare, in-vehicle travel time, schedule delay and other service quality characteristics. We estimate the choice probability of each individual passenger, and aggregate these individual probabilities into a total predicted ridership for each scheduled airport ground transport service. We estimate the utility function using nonlinear least squares, which minimizes the empirical differences between the estimated and true ridership for each scheduled airport ground transport service.
Forecasting airport and ferry passenger traffic can be problematic when one of the exogenous variables is politically determined, rather than determined by the market. In particular, fuel costs, which typically make up the largest non-labour cost for airlines, are influenced by geopolitical and policy developments rather than fundamental market dynamics. Because of their impact on airline and ferry operating expenses, fuel costs are an important supply-side consideration for projections of future passenger traffic. The unpredictability, volatility and uncertainty surrounding the future price of a politically-dependent and policy-motivated variable such as fuel prices makes it difficult to provide medium and long-term projections of passenger traffic. This paper will examine the use of stochastic forecasting techniques using Monte Carlo simulation methods to develop traffic forecasts where oil and fuel prices can vary widely and unpredictably. The Monte Carlo modelling process also allows for the inclusion of risk factors to quantify and model that uncertainty. An illustrative forecasting example is developed to demonstrate the stochastic forecasting process and quantify an illustrative selection of risk factors pertaining to oil price volatility. The results show that the stochastic forecasting approach provides meaningful information regarding the range of impacts uncertain and volatile factors to traffic development may have and provides additional insight into the risk associated with future shock events and uncertainty.
At present, the priority signal control strategy of transit is aimed to improve the efficiency of bus transit as a target, and they take little account of the effect on social vehicles. YM Bie (2011), in order to reduce the influence of bus signal priority on the social vehicles, a finite signal priority strategy considered saturation constraint is proposed and simulated by VISSIM simulation. D Qiu (2014), the method of calculating the congestion rate based on the critical queuing length is proposed. Based on this, a priority traffic control strategy for single intersection is designed based on the value of congestion rate. The experimental results show that the method can effectively alleviate the congestion of non-priority vehicles while improving the traffic efficiency of buses. However, existing research is implemented by adjusting the critical green light time in real time. Historical analysis data are used as the method for judging the green light time in the subsequent period. The real-time performance is poor, and the response of the bus signal priority strategy has a certain lag. Therefore, this paper calculates the green light time based on the shortest cycle duration and the best cycle duration, so as to determine the range of compressible green light time. Based on the critical saturation constraints, we formulated conditional response to bus signal priority control strategy, green light extension strategy, red light early break strategy, and combined strategy.
New forms of mobility are transforming the transportation landscape globally. As the landscape evolves, it will become increasingly viable for travellers to meet most of their mobility needs through purchasing rides or seats, instead of the traditional purchasing of vehicles. The concept of selling mobility rather than vehicles is experiencing renewed interest, thanks to recent developments in digital technology that allow for greater levels of personalization and integration across multiple transport services. With this early trend in traveller attitudes and behaviour, there is an opportunity for government agencies to analyse opportunities for participation before this transition matures (Smith et al., 2019). The objective of this paper is to help governments define their roles as it pertains to Mobility as a Service (MaaS), the term used to describe an integrated platform for payment, multi-modal trip planning, and incentives. The levels of MaaS integration will be an effective measuring stick as platforms and services are expanded. There are several multi-modal trip planners that exist (or are being developed) that indicate that Level 1 integration is already maturing. The companies Moovit, TomTom, and Microsoft recently announced a partnership to introduce a comprehensive multi-modal trip planner that will incorporate driving, parking and transit options in a single package (Moovit, 2019). Level 2 Payment Integration and Level 3 Contractual Integration are also both being explored and in some regions are being deployed at a small scale (Masabi, 2018). An example of this is the company Whim, who have developed subscription plans in Helsinki, Finland to provide discounted use of taxi, car-share, and ride-source services along with unlimited transit access, as a method of steering travellers away from vehicle ownership (MaaS Global, 2016). Level 4 Policy Integration will be the final frontier for governments and private entities working together to achieve regional goals through incentives and discounts, resulting in more shared and sustainable travel and fewer private vehicles on the road (Sarasini, Sochor, & Arby, 2017). This paper will focus on how government agencies can participate in transitioning MaaS beyond Level 0 and 1, to a more integrated state that maximizes traveller experience and meets public objectives.
In the long history of economic regulation of the transport of Western Canadian grain, the current regulatory environment, created by the Maximum Revenue Entitlement (MRE), has been in effect since August 1, 2000. The MRE, as a regulatory framework, is statutorily enabled through the Canada Transportation Act [CTA], namely Sections 150-152 and the list of ‘eligible grains’ and products to which the regulation applies as listed in Schedule II of the Act. Although the administrative application of the regulation has evolved over time, specifically through the successive determinations of the Canadian Transportation Agency, the statutory foundation has remained static and untouched; even in the face of two major independent statutory reviews of the legislation which both recommended a gradual elimination of the regulation. This paper does not present a specific argument regarding the MRE as a policy, its effects, its administration, etc. Rather, this paper surveys the way in which the MRE was treated under two comprehensive reviews of the Canada Transportation Act (in 2001 and 2015), summarizes how stakeholders viewed the regulation at those two specific junctures in time and what the two Review Panels recommended in their respective final reports. No major reform of the MRE was undertaken by government following the 2001 CTA Review, while a legislative package, in the form of Bill C-49, the Transportation Modernization Act was the government’s response to the 2015 CTA Review (and subsequent Transportation 2030 vision consultation). Introduced on May 16, 2017, the Bill took over one year to move through the legislative process, finally passing on May 23, 2018. The provisions within Bill C-49 represent the first legislative changes to the MRE in its 17-year existence.
This paper reviews the noteworthy developments in Canadian transportation in 2018. It briefly examines the state of the industry in various transportation subsectors (air, rail, water and road) by examining the statistics for 2018. It then examines regulatory and policy developments that have occurred in each of the subsectors such as the passage of new laws, other transportation bills, and proposed policy, etc. It then briefly touches on developments on other transportation fronts.
Of central interest to this paper, because of uncertainty about the speed of climate change and the irreversibility of infrastructure investment, it can be advantageous to wait for better information before making large investments. With this as background, we investigate the optimal timing and scale of adaptation and capacity investments in the face of uncertainty about the likelihood of disasters. We adopt a two-period model and Bayesian learning whereby a port and shippers update their prior probability of a disaster in period 2 based on what happens in period 1. We analyze how optimal capacity and adaptation investment interact with each other, how the two types of investments affect port fees, and how different governance structures and corresponding objective functions affect a port’s investment decisions. The study offers managerial insights for ports and their stakeholders to develop appropriate capacity and adaptation management strategies to climate change. Although the focus is on seaports, the general lessons also apply to protective investments for other types of vulnerable infrastructure.
The primary objective of this paper is to assess the role of port efficiency as a determinant of maritime transport costs in Canada. Linear and log-log regression models of container freight rates as a function of port utilization indicators (PUIs) are developed to determine which, if any, of the ports’ activities are related to container freight rates. Unlike previous studies that relied on proxy measures, this study tests several empirical measures of port efficiency, which have been collected by Canadian port authorities over several years.
Never before had technology pressured us to look from a different angle as autonomy is overwhelming in society. The Convention on International Civil Aviation of 1944, in its Article 8, allows pilotless aircrafts to fly with special authorization by a contracting state (ICAO, 2011) with anticipated amendments of its 18 Annexes in the coming days (Uniting Aviation, 2018). Also, the Convention on Road Traffic of 1968 amended its Article 8 in 2014 so as to explicitly allow automated driving technologies on the road, provided that a driver can override them (UNECE, 2016). Moreover, the International Standards Organization (ISO) released, on November 2018, the “ISO Draft International Standards for Drone Operations”. Following the footsteps of the aircrafts and automobiles, the sea began to consider autonomy system at sea, that is, maritime autonomous surface ships (MASS). However, despite libraries of useful articles on autonomy at sea, there remains an absence of work which investigates the translation of remote controllers (RC) into law, and then through international and national policy. This article aims to clarify the status of RC by examining the technical and legal aspect of MASS, in the context of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the IMO conventions, and Canadian law.
This paper has two purposes. The first is to provide a context for current challenges in the development of spill response plans in Canada by examining key features of the spill response planning policies in the UK, US and Canada since the Exxon Valdez spill of 1989. The second purpose is to use the development and content of Greater Vancouver Integrated Response Plan (GVIRP) as a case study of progress and issues in the development of Canadian area spill response plans. GVIRP 1 was signed off on 6 July 2017, GVIRP 2 was signed off on 19 December 2018, but there is only one matter of substantive difference between them, so reference is made simply to GVIRP.
In the past year, the region of Metro Vancouver undertook two separate large-scale projects related to transportation pricing. The Mobility Pricing Independent Commission (MPIC) explored opportunities for road usage charging, while TransLink’s Fare Policy Review explored pricing of the transit system. It’s worth exploring what these studies revealed in terms of the need to adopt performance-based pricing.
This paper shares Metro Vancouver’s approach towards studying congestion charging, and particularly the approaches used to build and evaluate a range of congestion charging scenarios. An independent commission was assembled in June 2017 with the task of studying mobility pricing and providing recommendations for the region by spring 2018. The Commission’s recommendations were guided by three core objectives: reduce congestion, promote fairness, and support transportation investment. A number of innovative approaches were undertaken by the project team in order to further understand these objectives and fulfill the requirements of the Commission. This includes building, analysing, and evaluating the performance of a range of congestion charging scenarios. This work was a critical component towards informing the Commission’s recommendations, which consist of a set of principles to help guide the development of a coordinated mobility pricing policy for Metro Vancouver, and some illustrative concepts of what a congestion charging system could look like that adheres to these principles and meets the Commission’s objectives.
The overall goal of this paper is to advance understanding of how to consider equity in transportation policy decisions. Recognition that an ‘equitable’ transportation system is a desirable end goal is growing in transportation policies and public statements by transportation authorities. Two key challenges to developing and evaluating policies related to equity are: There is no clear definition, in practice or theory, of what constitutes an equitable transportation policy, and; No standards, goals or performance measures exist, against which agencies can measure progress or success in achieving transportation equity (Martens, Golub & Robinson, 2012). In this paper, we seek to clarify the concepts of equity with respect to transportation decision making and advance understanding of how to consider equity in transportation policy decisions. ‘Equity’ with respect to the transportation system can be described generally as a concern with the distribution of transportation-related benefits and costs and whether that distribution is ‘equitable’ or ‘inequitable’.
The High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lane is a new strategy implemented by the Ontario Government’s Ministry of Transportation to manage the transport of goods and people across the central region. The HOT strategy adopted by the government is an adjustment to the current successful operation of High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lane. The HOT lane is an extension of the HOV lane, where individuals can exploit the HOV lane for a specified price, regardless of vehicle occupancy level. The reason for its implementation is attributed to the fact that individuals would be willing to pay for a less congested lane and benefit from faster travel times, while also reducing the number of vehicles in the GPL. This is believed to be a means of reducing congestion and carbon emissions within the network (Government of Ontario, Ministry of Transportation, 2016). However, there is no empirical evidence to support such a claim. Therefore, this paper investigates the impact of the newly implemented HOT Lane on the Queen Elizabeth Way (QEW). In particular, we have analysed the current Level of Service (LoS) on the QEW for both HOV lanes and GPLs to investigate the impacts that a HOT policy might have on the traffic flow. Towards that end, firstly, we reviewed the best practices of HOT and HOV lanes policy implementation to understand their operations. Secondly, using data from Central Region's Fourth Line and QEW, we have analyzed the LoS of the QEW for a weekday operation prior to and after the HOT policy implementation. Lastly, based on the results, we recommend different policies to maximize the utilization of the HOT/HOV lanes while promoting care sharing.
Autonomous vehicles (AVs) are a new and innovative technology that are being pilot-tested across the world, and present a potential solution to the transportation issues faced by those who are automobile dependent but unable to drive themselves. One demographic seen as a potential user group for AVs are rural older adults (persons aged 65 years and older) who, due to health effects of aging, may no longer be able to meet their transportation needs independently by driving (Kalra, 2016), necessitating their reliance on others to provide transportation. By extension, it could be expected that AVs would be called upon to supplement or replace the transportation provided by others. Car-based Volunteer Driver Programs (VDPs) are being used throughout the Province of New Brunswick to meet some of the transportation needs from rural populations, which include some older adults, who are unable to rely on their own car for transportation. It could be expected that the types of trips taken by VDPs users would be equivalent to the types of trips that would be demanded from AVs. This makes the study of VDP use an effective proxy to understanding the potential AVs have for meeting user needs. The challenge is that it is unclear to what degree AVs could supplement or replace trips as VDP drivers themselves are likely providing some type of service beyond the driving task, but there is little to no information available on what types of assistance are being provided in this context. This paper summarizes the initial results of a study of 37 volunteer drivers (response rate of 62%) who responded to a survey to determine the role that they play (beyond the driving task) in providing assistance to program users in order to provide insight into the practicality of AVs to meet the needs of prospective AV users.
This presentation explores occupational health and safety challenges involved in Arctic shipping and fishing activities. Findings from an analysis of occupational health and safety standards applicable to Canadian Arctic shipping and fishing activities leads us to enquire whether functional equivalence of health and safety protection for seafarers and fishers is a desirable and a feasible option, taking into account the next stage of development of international maritime safety standards, including a Polar Code phase 2 and related amendments to the International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers (STCW).
November 24, 2018 was a very good day for the 900 residents of Churchill, Manitoba. On that day, for the first time in a year and a half, a freight train arrived in the town (Redekop 2018). This paper travels back in time, in a study of events preceding that historic day. It starts in the past and ends with a little speculation on the future. The next section provides a brief history of the Hudson Bay Railway (HBR) and the Port of Churchill, with special reference to six major events that occurred between 1995 and 2018. This is succeeded by a short section on theory and method. The final section discusses the saga of HBR and Churchill; looking at the history through the lens of balance theory. This section also includes implications for theory and policy, along with a look to the future.
The purpose of this research paper is to make recommendations on the construction of an all-weather connector road between northern Saskatchewan (La Loche, SK) and the Athabasca Oil Sands region (Fort McMurray, AB), based upon the perspective of the elected leaders living in northwest Saskatchewan. The scope of this all-weather connector road is interprovincial; therefore, continued collaboration is critical as success will require coordination among the municipal, provincial, federal, and Indigenous governments. In this report, I make several recommendations to the northern municipalities, regional representative associations, and the Standing Senate Committee on Banking, Trade, and Commerce to sustainably govern the interprovincial northern corridor right-of-way research, initial planning, funding, and development. Memorandum of Intent and Cooperation agreements between all rightsholders should be established to recommence advocating for this interprovincial connector road. The research found that the Indigenous traditional territory and kinship relationships that cross through provincial geopolitical jurisdictions is fundamental to incorporate into northern transportation and infrastructure strategies. This research paper may be used as a tool to once again promote the socio-economic value of the proposed connector road and potentially other northern corridor right-of-way projects.
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