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Troublesome trade-offs: balancing urban activities and values when securing a city-centre governmental quarter.
Get PDFBackground Homeland security measures increasingly affect urban life and activities. Standoff distance, which prevents unscreened vehicles from approaching within a certain distance of a building, is a widely applied measure when protecting buildings against attacks with vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices. This measure both is rather inexpensive and has few negative externalities when implemented in rural areas. Unfortunately, sites with protection needs often are situated in city centres. Methods We apply the so-called Security Function Framework to illuminate the externalities or the ‘troublesome trade-offs’ between protecting a high-value site against vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices and protecting other urban values. Results This paper demonstrates that standoff creates challenges for other important values, such as functional office spaces for all employees, deliveries and emergency vehicle access. Simultaneously, standoff creates opportunities for reinforcing social-responsibility requirements, such as accessibility for pedestrians and environmental considerations. Conclusions Security measures can have both negative and positive externalities and planning might alleviate some of the negative ones.publishedVersio
Environmental efficiency measurement and the materials balance condition reconsidered
Get PDFThis note takes up a shortcoming of Coelli et al.’s (2007) popular environmental efficiency measure and its extension to economic-environmental trade-off analysis (see Van Meensel et al. (2010)), namely that they do not reward emission reductions by pollution control. A new environmental efficiency measure that overcomes this issue and - similar to Coelli et al.’s efficiency measure - is in line with the materials balance principle is proposed and further decomposed into “technical environmental efficiency” and “material and nonmaterial allocative environmental efficiencies”. The new efficiency measure collapses into Coelli et al.’s efficiency measure if none of the considered Decision Making Units control pollutants. A numerical example using Data Envelopment Analysis is provided to further explore the properties of the new efficiency measure.acceptedVersio
Løsninger for effektiv og miljøvennlig varedistribusjon i Oslo. L 7.3 Demonstratoraktiviteter fra prosjektet Grønn Bydistribusjon i Oslo (GBO).
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Common patterns in aggregated accident analysis charts from human fatigue-related groundings and collisions at sea
Get PDFResearch has shown that there are potentially disastrous outcomes of human fatigue at sea. The conditions in which the seafarers have to operate are becoming more and more demanding. The study in this article attempts to aggregate accident charts derived from in-depth studies of human fatigue-related accidents to determine common patterns of interlinked fatigue factors. The accidents are analyzed by means of the Cognitive Reliability and Error Analysis Method (CREAM), which in the article has been modified for maritime accidents. The main fatigue factors identified are ‘shift work’, ‘irregular working hours’, ‘inadequate task allocation’, and ‘excessive demands’. The study reveals several differences between ship collision and grounding accidents and their corresponding fatigue factors. Human fatigue-related collision accidents are characterized by wrong/badly timed decisions, misconceptions, and poor communication between the vessels. Right before the collision the crew is often panicking and mistakes are easily made. In human fatigue-related groundings, the conditions are often monotonous and the navigating officer has either overlooked the upcoming seabed or simply fallen asleep. Safety climate issues are also identified as important contributors to human fatigue.publishedVersio
Forecasting inaccuracies: A result of unexpected events, optimism bias, technical problems, or strategic misrepresentation?
Get PDFBased on the results from a questionnaire survey and qualitative interviews among different actors involved in traffic forecasting, this paper discusses what evidence can be found in support of competing explanations of forecasting errors. There are indications that technical problems and manipulation, and to a lesser extent optimism bias, may be part of the explanation of observed systematic biases in forecasting. In addition, unexpected events can render the forecasts erroneous, and many respondents and interviewees consider it to be simply not possible to make precise predictions about the future. The results give rise to some critical reflections about the reliability of project evaluations based on traffic forecasts susceptible to several systematic as well as random sources of error.publishedVersio
Universell utforming i kollektivtransporten
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ergonomi og human factor — NEHF.acceptedVersio
A Review of Research on Driving Styles and Road Safety
Get PDFObjective: The aim of this study was to outline a conceptual framework for understanding driving style and, on this basis, review the state-of-the-art research on driving styles in relation to road safety. Background: Previous research has indicated a relationship between the driving styles adopted by drivers and their crash involvement. However, a comprehensive literature review of driving style research is lacking. Method: A systematic literature search was conducted, including empirical, theoretical, and methodological research, on driving styles related to road safety. Results: A conceptual framework was proposed whereby driving styles are viewed in terms of driving habits established as a result of individual dispositions as well as social norms and cultural values. Moreover, a general scheme for categorizing and operationalizing driving styles was suggested. On this basis, existing literature on driving styles and indicators was reviewed. Links between driving styles and road safety were identified and individual and sociocultural factors influencing driving style were reviewed. Conclusion: Existing studies have addressed a wide variety of driving styles, and there is an acute need for a unifying conceptual framework in order to synthesize these results and make useful generalizations. There is a considerable potential for increasing road safety by means of behavior modification. Naturalistic driving observations represent particularly promising approaches to future research on driving styles. Application: Knowledge about driving styles can be applied in programs for modifying driver behavior and in the context of usage-based insurance. It may also be used as a means for driver identification and for the development of driver assistance systems.acceptedVersio
Valuation of cycling facilities with and without controlling for casualty risk
Get PDFBarrier effects can impact cyclists’ travel time, level of comfort, and risk of accidents. When eliciting the valuation of these elements, simultaneous estimation is called for because the perceived level of comfort may depend on the accident risk. In this paper we present the results of a choice experiment in which cyclists traded off cycling time, separated tracks, intersections, and, in one additional choice experiment, casualty risk. We find that the utility of the two barrier-reducing attributes is almost halved when controlling for accident risk. We also translate the utility to a monetary scale, making the results applicable for cost-benefit analysis.submittedVersio
Urban entrepreneurialism and car-use reduction
No full textTønnesen, A. (2015). Urban entrepreneurialism and car-use reduction. Planning Theory & Practice, 16(2), 206–225. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649357.2015.1026924Local decision-makers face a wide range of pressures over questions of urban development. Among these is to pursue urban economic growth, while simultaneously responding to environmental demands to reduce car usage. There is, however, a lack of empirical studies analysing urban entrepreneurialism in conjunction with car-use reduction. This paper focuses on city-centre development and regulation of retail trade in two Norwegian cities. The underlying logic is that while compact city development and concentration of commerce in the urban core are ways to reduce car usage, there are also pressures drawing shopping to the city outskirts. The paper highlights the conflicting spatial interests involved in policies for car-use reduction, as evident in discussions as to how to regulate parking throughout the urban area. The paper also shows how municipal policy for car-use reduction is affected by private actors and neighbouring municipalities. Ultimately, the cases illustrate how local decision-making is influenced by the balance of pressures for and against environmental policy. In this way, analysis of inter-municipal competition over retail trade, inhabitants and investments, provides important insights into urban policy and practice.Urban entrepreneurialism and car-use reductionacceptedVersio
The impact of Universally accessible public transport–a before and after study
No full textThe article studies the effects of universal design measures in public transport. It is based on an eva-luation conducted by the authors in 2010-2012 - a before and after study of measures partfunded by a Norwegian government funding program for improved accessibility in six different cities. The article employs a two-pronged empirical approach; quantitative surveys of all passengers on the affected routes (supplemented by interviews with drivers and personnel), and qualitative case studies with individual public transport users with disabilities. The first part of the article describes how universal design measures are perceived by and affect passengers in general, and discuss whether such measures may lead to an increase in the number of passengers. The second part considers how such measures influence the experience of travelling for passengers with disabilities, and what it takes for disabled passengers to be able to use public transport on par with other citizens. We conclude that previous surveys, which have not included control cases and questions, have probably overestimated passenger effects of universal design measures, as the results are affected by demographic factors. We still find that the measures have a positive impact on patronage. Like earlier studies, we find that the majority of respondents having trouble using public transport, report that this is due to bringing a pram or heavy luggage. We hy-pothesize that positive effects on passenger numbers due to reduced expulsion, (i.e. that certain groups are able to continue using public transport for a longer period when it is universally designed) may mean that effects on passenger numbers can increase over time. We find that in terms of social economics, universal design is profitable even with fairly low passenger numbers. The case studies demonstrate that although universal design measures contribute to enabling persons with disabilities to use public transport, such measures should be analyzed as parts of a transport system, not separately . The various elements of the system, including the people employed in it, must continuously work together to maintain universality. This goes for maintenance as well as for services provided by drivers. To secure mobility for people with disabilities, it is also essential that the systemis predictable and that accessibility is from door-to-door, not only from bus-stop to bus-stop.draf