The thesis aims to describe main relationships between road traffic and its environmental impact. It has to explain general concept, definition of basic negatives and disadvantages of the road traffic environmental influence and ways how to face up to them. One of fundamental components of the thesis is represented by an chapter about road traffic's external costs and possible approaches of their elimination. It pushes ahead the internalizing externalities. Analytic part of the thesis refers to one concrete traffic fabric situated in the centre of medium-sized city with a view to changes of environment characteristics of the whole territory and to changes of traffic situation in the city. The fabric is monitored in the course of all phases -- from first suggestions for the final commissioning.

The thesis is divided into two parts. The first theoretical part defines the basic concepts related to combined transport and its current trends and supporting projects. It is focused on the structure of the European transport networks, with emphasis on road and rail transport. The practical part was developed in collaboration with the company PELMI, Ltd. and is focused on the analysis of the current situation of combined transport and price comparison of straight road and combined transport of containers. There is evaluation and definition of the conditions in which is advantageous / disadvantageous to move the containers road carriage to continental combined transport involving rail in conclusion.

In my diploma thesis I focus on use of carnet TIR within international road freight transport to Russian Federation. The objective of the thesis is to introduce crisis connected with partial non-acceptance of carnet TIR in Russia and analyze the impact of this crisis to economy and forwarders. The second objective is to introduce Ukraine crisis, which also had an impact to forwarders. Finally, I will introduce a forwarder, who transports goods to Russia regularly and describe the impact of crisis on him.

M.A. / This mini-dissertation deals with Herman Charles Bosman's depiction of racial prejudice among the different racial groups in South Africa in the period of the 1930s and 40s. The overarching issue of the narrator's racism forms the focus of discussion. Oom Schalk Lourens's storytelling techniques are a matter of cardinal importance that colours the entire interpretation of Mafeking Road. The introductory section of this study provides some biographical details about the author himself. This is followed by an exploration of Bosman's treatment of race and racial issues in three stories. Bosman's exploration of race relations involving blacks, Indians, whites as well as other minority groups is a reflection of his genuine concern for South Africa's future society as a whole. In the course of this study a brief analysis is also made of the author's portrayal of female characters. In the conclusion Bosman's overall achievement in terms of the major theme, race relations, is assessed. It is argued that the overt racism of Bosman's narrator Oom Schalk Lourens cannot be ascribed to the author himself; that it is the case, rather, that the author manipulates his narrator to achieve an ironic effect. In the final analysis, Bosman is critical of the racist attitudes his characters display, but his method is to satirise and debunk these attitudes gently and obliquely.

The Swedish road network is maintained by the Swedish Transport Administration, municipalities, and entrepreneurs with the goal of keeping the roads in satisfactory condition for traffic. The road operators are responsible for different roads and have several legislations that regulate construction and operation. One important aspect of winter road maintenance is the monitoring of the road situation ahead in order to call out resources for preventive measures. This study is performed at the company NIRA Dynamics with the purpose of going towards more digitized winter road information. The study explores different winter maintenance organizations in Sweden, investigates the importance of the information needed to be able to detect when roads are deemed too risky, and tries to gain an understanding of how the vehicle data provided by NIRA Dynamics best can provide a service for the winter road maintainers. This study is based on eight semi-structured interviews, user-tests aswell as a literature study. The findings of the study show that different winter maintenance organizations can differ a lot depending on the size and governing policies of the municipalities or entrepreneurs. The main differences can be found in their requirements and their method of monitoring the road situation ahead. The findings also show that the vehicle data is promising and has the potential to optimize and improve the overall winter maintenance planning. However, implementing and understanding the vehicle data in a real-world context requires collaboration from the different organizations to fulfill its value.

Glare is an important, but often overlooked parameter in lighting systems design. This parameter can significantly affect human biorhythm, causing a discomfort or in the worst cases it can dazzle drivers, which can lead to car accidents. Therefore, it´s necessary for lighting designers to consider glare in their designs, specifically threshold increment value. This thesis focuses on glare measurement caused by exterior lighting systems and comparison of usage different types of camera lens for threshold increment measurements with luminance analyser. For a better understanding of the whole issue, there is a part describing how human eye perceives light, which is followed by definition and division of the glare. Afterwards, there is part describing calculation procedure of the threshold increment, which serves as a basis for the practical part of the thesis. Practical part of the thesis is dedicated to experimental measurement of glare from exterior lighting system on Technická street, right behind VUT FEKT T12 building. The measurement is done using luminance analyser and the LumiDISP program, while 3 lenses are used for the measurements. The output of this thesis are values of threshold increment obtained by using 4 different methods (3 lenses) and subsequent comparison of the suitability of the lenses for the glare measurements. To supplement, a simulation of the measured lighting system in the Relux program and a subsequent comparison of the results with the measured values are performed.

This thesis investigates the use of an active anti-roll bar as a means of improving the handling of an off-road vehicle. The active anti-roll bar consists of a stiff anti-roll bar and a hydraulic actuator at the one end between the anti-roll bar and the rear axle of the vehicle. The system is designed so that the anti-roll bar can be preloaded in both directions by the actuator. The displacement of the hydraulic actuator is close loop controlled to be a function of the lateral acceleration of the vehicle, which is measured by an accelerometer. For this study, full vehicle simulations were done in ADAMS/View to predict the response of the proposed solutions. A Land Rover Defender 110 was used as the test vehicle to verify the results of the simulations. Constant radius tests and the severe double-lane-change manoeuvre, which are standard handling tests, were used to determine the vehicle’s handling performance. Handling performance was quantified by measuring the body roll angle during the manoeuvre and noting the maximum roll angle. The effect of the active anti-roll bar on ride comfort was measured by driving over Belgian paving at a constant speed. The results show that the proposed system reduces the body roll angle to zero up to a lateral acceleration of 0.4 g during steady state handling and provided a 74% improvement in maximum body roll angle during a double-lane-change-manoeuvre at 70 km/h. The system has no detrimental effect on the ride comfort of the vehicle. / Dissertation (MEng)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering / unrestricted

The aim of my work is to comment on the issue of narcissism, which is marked as an epidemic of our time. Narcissism is mostly psychological phenomenon and its generalization to society is difficult. In my preparatory studies on this topic within sociology, I could not find any solution, that would offer a change of position. In my attempt to achieve this, I went back to the original myth.

The thesis refers to the issue of road accidents and their prevention in the Czech Republic, seen as a negative phenomenon in modern society. It is divided into two relatively independent parts, theoretical and practical. The theoretical part focuses on a general description of traffic accident and states their main causes. Moreover, it deals with a road accident as a traumatic event having negative effects on life of involved people, especially on the human psyche. At the end of this part you can find basic principles of emergency intervention on casualties of road accidents and organizations which offer free help to road accident casualties. In the practical part of this work there is a study of road accidents that happened in the region of the Czech Republic from the point of view of their causes and the age of the driver.

Vehicle dynamic simulations form a significant part of the design and development process of vehicles. These simulations are used to study and improve the vehicle’s durability, ride comfort and handling capabilities. All forces acting on the vehicle are either generated in the tyre-road interface or are due to aerodynamic effects, where at low speeds the latter one can be ignored. The accuracy of the tyre model describing the forces on the tyre-road interface is thus of exceptional importance. It ensures that the simulation model is an accurate representation of the actual vehicle. Various approaches are adopted when developing mathematical tyre models. Many of these models are developed to study the handling capabilities of passenger cars over a smooth road. Passenger car tyres are the focal point as larger tyres introduce some difficulties due to their size and load rating. Off-road truck tyres also differ in their construction which will influence force and moment generation of the tyre. Research efforts are increasing to meet the need of tyre models that can describe the behaviour of the tyre over uneven terrain with sufficient accuracy. This thesis addresses the question of whether existing mathematical tyre models can accurately describe the forces and moments generated by a large off-road tyre while driving over rough terrain. The complexity of different mathematical tyre models varies greatly, as does the parameterisation efforts required to obtain the model parameters. The parameterization of most tyre models relies on some experimental test data that is used to extract the necessary information to fit model parameters. The selection of a suitable tyre model for a simulation is often dependent on the availability of such experimental data and the effort to identify the required parameters. In this study the parameterisation process for four different tyre models, are discussed in detail to highlight the difficulties in acquiring the test data and the effort to parameterize the model. The models considered are the One Point Contact, 3D Equivalent Volume contact, 3D Enveloping Contact and FTire model. Experimental measurements are conducted on a 16.00R20 Michelin XZL tyre. Laboratory tests, as well as field tests, over discrete obstacles and uneven hard surfaces are used for parameterisation and validation purposes. Simulation results are compared to experimental test data to determine whether the models could be used to describe the tyre road interactions with sufficient accuracy. Recommendations are made for tyre model selection and model accuracy for simulations over rough off-road surfaces. / Dissertation (MEng)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / gm2014 / Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering / unrestricted