Browsing by Subject "Benchmarks"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    Assessing the extent of transport social exclusion among the elderly
    (Journal of Transport and Land Use, 2009) Titheridge, Helena; Achuthan, Kamalasudhan; Mackett, Roger; Solomon, Juliet
    “Social exclusion” is a concept that has become increasingly prominent in the UK and else- where in the last ten years. Social exclusion occurs as a result of a series of problems that prevent people from being able to participate in activities that are considered normal in their society. Some of these problems are related to issues of accessibility. This paper outlines work carried out in the context of the AUNT-SUE (Accessibility and User Needs in Transport in Sustainable Urban Environments) project to develop and model an appropriate set of accessibility benchmarks for older people. Results confirmed that the travel patterns of older people are very different from those of the average person in the UK and that it was necessary to tailor accessibility benchmarks to the characteristics of this group. A set of benchmarks was developed based on ability to undertake different types of activity. these benchmarks are currently being incorporated into AMELIA, a GIS-based tool for assessing the effect of different policy actions on accessibility. Issues that have arisen include how to model the myriad micro-level cir- cumstances that affect the mobility of older people. Some initial analysis has shown that these details can make a substantial difference to the assessment of the accessibility of a destination. Examples are drawn from St Albans in Hertfordshire, UK.
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    Identifying Methods and Metrics for Evaluating Interagency Coordination in Traffic Incident Management
    (Center for Transportation Studies, University of Minnesota, 2009-05) Feyen, Robert G.; Eseonu, Chinweike I.
    One role of state-level Departments of Transportation (DOT) is traffic incident management (TIM): managing incidents that impact traffic flow on interstate highways and involving multiple agencies (e.g., police, fire). This study found DOTs collect basic TIM performance measures (e.g., lane clearance times), but many do not record additional measures, consistently review the collected data or analyze it unless needed to answer specific questions. Since performance evaluation of interagency coordination is one area of TIM in which little success has been attained (FHWA, 2003), process improvement methods from operations management may prove useful. To illustrate, interagency incident response for a disabled vehicle (no injuries or property damage) is modeled as a process in which appropriate resources (e.g., state police, tow) must coordinate to safely remove the vehicle and restore normal traffic flow. Completing these events requires the resources to perform specific functions, each taking more or less time depending on various factors (e.g., weather, time of day). Response time data can highlight geographic areas or process segments with highly variable event times, leading to investigation and recommendations to reduce variability and, ultimately, traffic delays. Based on this approach, recommendations are made for data collection and analysis of appropriate TIM performance measures.
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    Performance measures for public transport accessibility: Learning from international practice
    (Journal of Transport and Land Use, 2017) Curtis, Carey; Scheurer, Jan
    There is a growing recognition by city policymakers that urban public transport systems can be developed in such a way that travelers can be offered an alternative to car-based travel. How to evolve the public transport system for this purpose is a significant challenge and raises questions of accessibility and quality largely absent from current planning evaluation. This paper explores the use of accessibility performance measures, both to assess the extent of current public transport accessibility and as a potential metric for future planning and investment. The Spatial Network Analysis for Multimodal Urban Transport Systems (SNAMUTS) tool is employed for analysis of accessibility. A sample of 21 international cities is assessed, representing a range of transport and land-use policy contexts from best to ordinary practice, including those held up as exemplars in public transport infrastructure, service planning, and delivery in Europe and North America. The findings show that the incidence of successful metropolitan public transport systems, as measured by patronage, can be linked to accessibility performance measures of network and service configurations.