29,968 research outputs found
Making in-class skills training more effective: the scope for interactive videos to complement the delivery of practical pedestrian training
No full textSkills and awareness of young pedestrians can be improved with on-street practical pedestrian training, often delivered in schools in the United Kingdom by local authorities with the intention of improving road safety. This training is often supplemented by in-class paper based worksheet activities which are seen to be less effective than practical training in that they focus on knowledge acquisition rather than directly improving the correct application of safe pedestrian skills at the roadside. Previous research indicates that interactive video tools have the potential to develop procedural skills whilst offering an engaging road safety educational experience, which could positively impact on road crossing behaviour.In this paper, the design and development of a hazard-identification interactive road safety training video targeting child road crossing skills is presented. The interactive video was shown to be an engaging training resource for 6-7 year old children. The tool’s scope for improving pedestrians’ roadside skills is considered along with the wider implications for interactive video to aid safety training in other areas
When congestion can be useful: modelling driver diversion behaviour in road traffic networks
No full textThe ability to accurately predict driver route choices is an important part of traffic assignment, the process of forecasting traffic flows on roads across a region. Many assignment methods only consider the presence of recurrent forms of congestion, such as during rush hour periods, and fail to incorporate non-recurrent congestion effects caused by irregular events such as road traffic accidents. This paper proposes an agent based driver route choice model which includes driver reactions to the presence of non-recurrent congestion, supposing that drivers learn relationships between congestion locations and adjust their expectation of network travel times en-route, potentially choosing to divert. By simulating an example network with mixed populations consisting of agents capable of diverting and not, the result is found that initially increasing the proportion of diverting agents from zero is beneficial to the system as might be expected, reducing the number of vehicles navigating the incident affected area, but beyond a tipping point agents can no longer perceive the presence of congestion prior to diverting and network performance decreases. The model not only demonstrates the conflict between agents adopting travel time reducing behaviour and its impact on system performance, but it also highlights the importance of modelling driver knowledge appropriately to reproduce plausible phenomena in simulation
Train overcrowding: investigating the use of better information provision to mitigate the issues
No full textCrowded trains are a feature of many railway networks, and adversely affect both train passengers and rail operators. For passengers, the lack of space or inability to get a seat can lead to a lack of physical comfort, reduced productivity and increased stress. Crowded trains can also lead to problems boarding and alighting, increasing dwell times and making it harder for operators to provide a reliable service. It is therefore desirable to reduce crowding levels, but it isn’t always practical to achieve this by increasing capacity and other measures need to be considered. Some passengers have shown willingness to change their behavior to avoid crowding, for example by waiting for a later train, and measures to encourage such behavioral changes more widely could be beneficial overall. Better information provision could be one such measure, and a stated preference survey was undertaken on a commuter and airport service in order to investigate this further. It was found that the provision of information about crowding levels and seating availability on alternative trains would encourage some passengers to wait for a less crowded train. While the willingness of passengers to wait for a later train varied with both trip purpose and with the origin station, the findings suggest that real-time information would improve the passenger experience and could form the basis of a revenue neutral demand-management system. The implications for station design are particularly pertinent for countries such as the USA where significant investment in new passenger rail systems is expecte
The development of child pedestrian training in the United Kingdom 2002–2011: a national survey of local authorities
No full textApproximately two thirds of the children killed or seriously injured on Great Britain’s roads are child pedestrians. Recognizing this issue, the Department for Transport introduced and evaluated a pilot child pedestrian training scheme, Kerbcraft, from 2002 to 2007. Kerbcraft aimed to teach roadside pedestrian skills to children between age 5 and 7 and was successfully trialled across 75 local authorities in England and Scotland. The UK government has since recommended Kerbcraft as the best practice example for roadside child pedestrian training. This article revisits a sample of local authorities that participated in the pilot and presents the findings from a new survey: identifying the status of child pedestrian training and assessing how the delivery, evaluation, and learning mechanisms have changed since the pilot. The results suggest that following on from the Kerbcraft scheme, the majority of local authorities continue to provide pedestrian training but in an adapted form—often delivering less training than that suggested by the Kerbcraft model. The implications are discussed
An evaluation of child pedestrian training in the UK: the scope for interactive technologies to aid teaching
No full textSixty four per cent of the children killed or seriously injured (KSI) on the roads of Great Britain are child pedestrians. Recognition of this issue by the Department for Transport resulted in the introduction of a pilot child pedestrian training scheme, “Kerbcraft”, from 2002-2007. Kerbcraft, which aimed to teach roadside pedestrian skills, was trialled in 75 local authorities across England and Scotland, and was successful in improving child pedestrian behaviour at the roadside. This paper presents the findings from a new survey of these 75 local authorities, identifying what training is currently given, in what ways the learning and delivery mechanisms have changed since the original pilot, and the extent to which scheme evaluation and interactive gaming are and could be used in child pedestrian training.The results suggest that the majority of local authorities continued to provide pedestrian training but in an adapted form; often shortening schemes without considering the resulting impact on participants? knowledge and skills acquisition. Accompanied by a widespread lack of effective evaluation it is difficult to ascertain the effectiveness of these schemes compared to Kerbcraft. Given central government road safety funding cuts of 40%, along with a lack of effective evaluation, child pedestrian training could be one area at risk, and supplementary materials may be required to add value to training schemes in the future. This paper argues that interactive video environments could be one addition to the range of training aids available to child pedestrians.<br/
Towards safer roadside behavior on the school journey through interactive video training
No full textActive travel in the form of walking can contribute to recommended levels of daily exercise and is linked to increased health and wellbeing. Promoting active modes for school travel, such as walking, has become commonplace in recent years. In the United Kingdom, Safe Routes to Schools programs demonstrate one method of promoting walking, whilst attempting to ensure the safety of children during their school journey through interventions which include child pedestrian training. The quality of child pedestrian training programs in the United Kingdom has suffered in recent years due to austerity measures and time pressures forcing local authorities to reduce the amount of practical training and increase the amount of less effective, but cheaper, paper-based classroom activities. This paper considers the effectiveness of an interactive video which has been developed as an alternative to these paper-based activities designed to target and improve the crossing behavior of children between parked cars. In an exploratory study targeted at elementary school aged children, significant improvements in certain crossing behaviors were demonstrated as a result of training with the interactive video, indicating its potential to significantly improve the range of resources currently available for use by road safety training 15 professional
Evolution of adaptive route choice behaviour in drivers
No full textTraffic assignment, the process by which vehicle origin-destination flows are loaded on to discrete paths traversing a road network, has been traditionally approached as a non-linear optimisation problem where it is expected that travellers will each minimise their own travel time. While such models are suitable for obtaining an `average’ expected network state, traffic conditions on a day to day basis are inherently uncertain due to variations in travel patterns and incidents such as vehicle breakdowns, roadworks or bad weather resulting in fluctuations in realised traffic flows. Further, such models do not consider the transition from one `average’ state to another when an aspect of infrastructure is changed such as a new road opening or the introduction of long term roadworks. This paper therefore examines the evolution of driver route choice over time in stochastic time-dependent networks, specifically focusing on how individual experience of network conditions guides future decisions and its relationship with en-route switching opportunities. Existing algebraic and empirical models of route choice evolution are assessed (particularly using discrete whole path choices to assess benefits of information provision) and it is proposed that incorporating adaptive path routing based on expected correlations in traffic flow behaviour is more suitable than fixed path models for capturing the extent of observed uncertainty in network conditions. We present this issue and explore through simulation a model where drivers adapt expected road link travel times for a given trip based on a combination of previous experience and discovered link travel times on that trip. We show how adaptive behaviour produces travel times which are on average faster than non-adaptive behaviour, confirming the potential of this modelling approach. <br/
Quantifying the factors which affect rail’s operational energy consumption
No full textPublished data for the operational energy consumption, and related emissions, of a given type of train can be extremely variable. This is thought in part to be due to a reliance on limited empirical data and simulations which require a number of assumptions, but some variation in practice is still to be expected. Factors which affect the operational energy consumption of a train include driving style, features of the route and service and temporal factors such as the time of day and the time of year. In Great Britain, a number of Train Operating Companies (TOCs) have fitted meters to the electric trains they operate, in order to better monitor electricity consumption. Two such operators have provided sets of recorded energy data, along with related data about the operations and schedules of the trains. It has been possible to generate a set of energy consumption data on a per seat-km basis, linked with a number of known routes and services. In some cases, sufficient data were also available to make inferences about the influence of the driver. This comprehensive dataset, comprising over 45,000 sample journeys, has enabled the relative importance of the possible factors which can lead to variation in operational energy consumption to be investigated. It is found that aspects of the route and service are important, especially the stopping density of suburban services. This might help enhance modal comparisons, and rail planners may be able to optimise the service patterns to reduce energy consumption accordingly
The evolution of driver route switching behavior in stochastically perturbed networks
No full textTraffic assignment, the process of ‘assigning’ expected vehicle origin-destination flows to discrete routes traversing a road network, has traditionally been approached as an optimization problem yielding one fixed set of ‘equilibrium’ road link flows. This approach has been criticized for oversimplifying both traveler behavior representation and the effects of stochastic variations in network conditions. Here the connection is explored between day-to-day driver learning models and correlated perturbations occurring spatially around the network on simulated ‘days’. As elsewhere in the literature, a perturbation is defined as any incident which increases travel time along the perturbed stretch of road for the same level of demand. Equipped with a plausible correlation learning mechanism, drivers are modeled inferring downstream road conditions without the need for signage provision such that strategic en-route path switching can occur with the goal of potentially avoiding delays. It is found that when drivers can undertake strategic behavior the negative impact of perturbations is lessened due to some drivers diverting upstream to avoid them, meaning that potentially delayed routes are seen as relatively more attractive when compared against the outcome when no driver is modeled as being able to switch as is captured by existing assignment techniques. Thus even on days where no perturbations occur, initial driver route choices differ when compared against traditional algorithmic assignment results
Engraved portrait of James Nayler (1618–1660)
No full textEngraved portrait of James Nayler (1618-1660) by Robert Grave (1768-1825). Inscribed, 'Born at Ardesloe, near Wakefield, in Yorkshire. Was an Independent and served Quarter Master in ye Parliament Army, about the Year 1641. turn'd Quaker in 1651. Punish'd as a Blasphemer 1656. Author of many Books & Dyed at Holm in Huntingtonshire 1660. Aged 44.
- …
