A significant responsibility of officials involved in transportation planning is ensuring people's accessibility to critical facilities such as multi-modal terminals and emergency shelters. This challenging task depends on the available transportation infrastructure as well as the overall population, traffic, roadway and regional characteristics. Such planning takes on additional complexity when aging populations are considered because any extra time they incur reaching these facilities can be especially confounding in light of their potential health and other safety concerns. As such, there is a need for state/federal transportation plans to have a transportation assessment component that specifically focuses on the accessibility of aging people ('the aging population' can be thought of as those people aged 65+ in this study) to critical facilities. To accomplish this goal, this study first describes a Geographical Information Systems (GIS)-based methodology for measuring the aging population-focused accessibility to multi-modal facilities in Florida. Spatially detailed population block- and county-based accessibility scores are calculated with respect to key intermodal facility types (airports, bus stations, and railway and ferry stations), and visually assessed via GIS maps. Second, a spatial optimization model is presented which focuses on maximizing the accessibility of aging populations to the emergency shelters. For this purpose, a p-median optimization model is proposed in order to minimize the transportation cost (travel time or roadway network distance costs between the origins –centroids of population blocks- and destinations –emergency shelters) in the transportation network, and therefore providing maximum accessibility for aging adults to the emergency shelters. In this context, different transportation costs are used: (a) roadway network distance, (b) free flow travel time, and (c) congested travel time. This model is also extended towards a capacitated p-median model with hubs, which makes it possible to conduct an extensive evaluation of possible intermediate hub locations that can have a significant effect on the accessibility of those shelters. The knowledge obtained from this accessibility analysis can successfully contribute to the development of more reliable aging population-focused transportation plans, as the analysis points to specific areas where accessibility could be improved as well as those candidate locations that can be serve as additional emergency shelters and intermediate hubs. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science. / Fall Semester 2015. / November 6, 2015. / Accessibility, Aging, GIS, Optimization, p-median, Spatial Optimization / Includes bibliographical references. / Eren Erman Ozguven, Professor Directing Thesis; Ren Moses, Committee Member; John O. Sobanjo, Committee Member.

The overall goal of this thesis was to provide a quantitative analysis of the operational and safety performances of roundabouts. The operational analysis of Florida roundabouts was conducted to determine the base capacity of different configurations of approaching lanes. Building upon the methodologies and findings of NCHRP 572 report, FHWA-SA-15-070 study and HCM 6th Edition, capacity models were calibrated to reflect Florida driving conditions for different roundabout lane configurations. The results indicated that Florida roundabouts were not congested, the gap acceptance parameters were within the range of the HCM 6th Edition with slightly higher average values of follow-up time. The study found out that the HCM 6th Edition models generally overpredicted the capacity of roundabouts in Florida. Safety performances were evaluated from the crash data of 34 roundabouts in Florida for a period of 5 years. The type of crashes, severity and contributing factors were analyzed to determine the relationship between the roundabout crashes severity with traffic and geometric parameters. Four types of crashes were found to be prevalent in the roundabouts (i.e. Rear-end, Angle, Sideswipe and Off-road crashes). The crashes were 77.4% PDO, 21.9% injury and only 3 fatal crashes. Results indicated that the crash severity was influenced by the number of vehicles involved in the crash, and diameters of the inscribed circle and central island. There was a 3.6 odds of a crash causing injury or fatality for an incident involving a single vehicle than it was for an incident involving more than one vehicle. The negative binomial model was developed to show the relationship between the total number of crashes at a roundabout with the traffic exposure, geometric, age, gender and weather parameters. The traffic volume (i.e. AADT) and inscribed circle diameter were significant variables in the proposed safety models at a 95% level of confidence. Generally the roundabouts were found to have few crashes consistent with the results from other studies. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Civil Engineering in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science. / Fall Semester 2018. / October 26, 2018. / OPERATIONS, ROUNDABOUT, SAFETY / Includes bibliographical references. / Ren Moses, Professor Directing Thesis; Eren Erman Ozguven, Committee Member; Maxim Dulebenets, Committee Member.

Traffic crashes are one of the leading causes of death, substantial economic loss, and severe injuries for drivers. They also put lives of people at risk, cause severe traumas and incapacitating injuries, which usually require a painful healing process. Over the last 25 years, many researchers have recognized the necessity of delving into the nature of the traffic crashes. This necessity arises from the fact that developing methodologies to reduce crashes is vital to provide the public with safe and reliable transportation. From a transportation safety perspective, this problem becomes even more challenging and complex when aging populations are considered due to their cognitive, behavioral, and health limitations. Moreover, the number of aging road users and crashes involving aging drivers on Florida roadways are expected to increase in the near future due to their growing population in the state, which makes studies on aging population-involved crashes even more critical. With this motivation, unlike previous crash-focused traffic safety studies mostly focusing on the general population, this dissertation attempts to understand the unique nature of aging population-involved (aging-involved) crashes. Note that by "aging-involved", the crashes involving at least one 65 years and older individual are meant in this dissertation. The utmost importance is given to answering the following question: How do the aging-involved crashes vary compared to other age group-involved crashes? Given the limitations of existing traffic crash studies on addressing the needs of aging populations, this dissertation proposes several novel methodological approaches with the following objectives: • to discover the geo-spatial differences between aging- and other age group-involved crashes based on the comparison of high risk crash locations, • to identify the statistically significant factors influencing the aging-involved crashes using a multiple binary choice model-based approach, • to disclose the differences between crashes involving 50-64 and 65+ drivers in terms of involvement characteristics, spatial distribution, and significant factors causing those crashes, • to stratify the aging drivers by dividing them into three subgroups (65-69, 70-74 and 75+) in order to explore the differences among aging drivers, who are oftentimes evaluated as a homogeneous group, • to provide a spatiotemporal comparative investigation of the crashes involving aging drivers, passengers, bicyclists, and pedestrians, • to determine the factors that drive both the crash occurrence probability and the crash rate of aging drivers, passengers, bicyclists, and pedestrians, • to understand where and how far away people have crashes compared to where they live, and what the statistical nature of proximity of crash spots to the residence locations of crash occupants is. To the authors' knowledge, such a comprehensive investigation of aging population-involved crashes has not been conducted previously in the traffic safety field, which represents the novel contribution of this work. For this purpose, several methodological approaches were applied on both different counties in the State of Florida as well as the whole state. Aging-involved crashes were spatially and temporally investigated using GIS-based methodologies in order to discover the significant factors that affect those crashes using statistical modeling approaches. The most important findings of this work can be summarized as follows: • Aging-involved crashes differ from other age group involved crashes both spatially and temporally. • Aging-involved crash density maps have a unique geo-spatial pattern, which is different than the patterns of other age groups' crash density maps. • Spatial distributions of aging adults and aging-involved crashes are strongly correlated as indicated by the population factor approach. • Aging drivers in different age cohorts such as 65-69, 70-74, and 75+ do not constitute a homogeneous group and rather heterogeneous in terms of crash involvement. • There are significant differences in the effect of significant causal and spatiotemporal factors on the crash involvement not only between 65- and 65+ drivers, but also between stratified age groups of 65+ drivers. • Significant spatiotemporal variations in crash rates of different types of aging roadway users (e.g. driver, pedestrian, etc.) were captured. • Traffic safety of 65+ population compel spatially and temporally tailored remedies in order to address issues emerge at different roadway segments at weekdays and weekends. • Facility variables such as health facilities, religious facility, and supermarkets are highly influential on 65+ crashes, and hence roadways around these facilities should be particularly scrutinized by road safety stakeholders. • High aging-involved crash rate roadways are found to vary spatially depending on whether it is weekday or weekend. • The information obtained from crash spot –residence location proximity analysis can help in developing methodologies that can integrate population into crash frequency prediction methods. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester 2018. / October 26, 2018. / Aging, GIS, Human Factors, Spatial Analysis, Statistical Analysis, Traffic Safety / Includes bibliographical references. / Eren Erman Ozguven, Professor Directing Dissertation; Arda O. Vanli, University Representative; Ren Moses, Committee Member; John O. Sobanjo, Committee Member; Lisa Spainhour, Committee Member.

Os modelos de redes de filas ainda são pouco utilizados na área de Logística e Transportes, apesar de algoritmos e ferramentas computacionais eficientes estarem disponíveis atualmente. Este trabalho objetiva justamente mostrar alguns desses modelos de redes de filas e aplica-los em exemplos específicos. Inicialmente, é feita uma breve revisão dos principais modelos e algoritmos encontrados na literatura, para, em seguida, resolver-se um problema de determinação de uma função de produção, usando um modelo de rede de filas em regime estacionário. Como segundo exemplo, é montado um modelo para análise de um sistema de transporte que opera com transientes, onde é utilizada a aproximação por filas determinísticas. Em ambos os casos, é realizada uma discussão sobre o conceito de saturação em uma rede de filas, sendo proposta extensão da definição do conceito para o caso de redes mistas de filas. / Queueing networks models have seldom been used in the Logistics and Transportation realm, although being very popular in modelling other complex systems in the Computer Sciences. This work intends to briefly describe the most common models of queueing networks and apply them in some particular cases. First of all, a production function for a logistic system is developed, using a stationary probability model. Then, a transportation system with trasients is analised, using a fluid approximation model. For both cases, the saturation concept for a closed chain is defined, and is extended for mixed queueing networks.

Transportation engineering has taken upon a new role; to empower the alternative modes of travel: walking, biking, and bus transit. In this new era, engineers are rethinking a network designed predominately for the automobile. The ultimate goal of this research is to create a process that can make a vehicle dominant corridor a desirable, livable thoroughfare by livability design and context sensitive performance measures. Balancing travel modes requires an account of vehicular traffic and the impact of reconfiguring existing conditions. The analysis herein is conducted by field data collection, transportation equations and microsimulation. Simulating traffic behavior will be the means to apply livable alternatives comparable to existing Southeast Florida conditions. The results herein have shown that micro-simulation can be utilized in transportation planning to reveal good livability alternatives. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2015 / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

The technology of wireless transformed societies and re-defined the nature of national and transnational communication when radio broadcasting to the public began in the early 1920s. This thesis focuses on the three main wartime radio stations (the BBC, Radiodiffusion and Radio Paris) broadcasting to and in France from June 1940 to November 1942. By studying the narratives of the broadcasting that lay at the heart of each radio station’s politics, motivation, propaganda and interaction with the population at large, the thesis will attempt to give these radio stations the recognition that they deserve in the historiography of wartime France, and, in doing so, make a major contribution to knowledge on radio propaganda. This thesis goes beyond existing literature by offering a comparative analysis of radio propaganda messages, thus deepening the understanding of the evolution of broadcasts in the context of the complex political and social impact of the war on the French population. The narratives reveal the political rhetoric and the perceived social norms during the German Occupation, as well as the exercise of power, which may be taken for granted. For each radio station, a key theme is identified as the overarching basis for analysis: food and the impact of food policy on families for the BBC; youth and its idealised role in the construction of a New France for Radiodiffusion; and youth and its perceived role in a German-dominated New Europe for Radio Paris. Written and audio archives in England and France were consulted as the principal source for the research conducted. This research is limited in that the conclusions drawn are largely dependent on the material available to researchers, material which is incomplete and often piecemeal.

Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

<p>This study investigates if and to what extent there is a statistically significant predictive relationship between cultural distance, and its subfactors (power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism/collectivism, and masculinity/femininity), and entry mode by Western Europe MNE into Eastern Asia. Using transaction cost economic theory, the quantitative study with a predictive correlational design was conducted on 490 cross-border mergers and acquisitions by MNE from seven Western European countries entering five Eastern Asian countries from 2005 to 2015. Data for the entry mode criterion was obtained from SDC platinum and Hofstede?s cultural dimensions were used as predictors. Hierarchical multiple regression was conducted on entry mode and cultural distance as a construct, and hierarchical multiple regression was conducted on entry mode and four cultural dimensions. The findings indicate that cultural distance has an inverted U-shaped predictive relationship with entry mode, R2 = .024, p = .001. As cultural distance increases MNE managers tend to use a higher equity entry mode until reaching a point after which any further increase in cultural distance a lower equity entry mode was used. It was also found that uncertainty avoidance has a positive predictive relationship with entry mode, R2 = .010, F(1, 488) = 5.157, p = .024, B = .034, p = .024. Additionally, entry mode is best predicted by a model with uncertainty avoidance and power distance, R2 = .022, p = .004. These findings indicate that using unindexed cultural dimensions may also demonstrate a significantly predictive relationship while providing additional contextual information than can be found with an indexed cultural distance construct.

<p>Owners face challenges in setting priorities between potential projects to maintain, rehabilitate, and improve their infrastructure. The estimated cost of each potential project is a factor that owners use in setting priorities between projects and in developing their long-term maintenance and construction project portfolio. Owners face a dilemma: considerable effort is needed to develop accurate estimates of the cost of each project, but this effort will be wasted if the particular project is not selected for the long-term plan. They therefore need estimating methods that will enable them to develop reasonably accurate early stage cost estimates without an excessive amount of effort. These early stage estimates are ?conceptual cost estimates? and ?feasibility cost estimates.? This research examines the tools that are available to owners for performing early stage cost estimates for infrastructure projects. It then compares alternative parametric functions that could be used for that purpose, using data from public agencies in California. These functions are the linear parametric, common exponential parametric, and modified Cobb-Douglas exponential parametric models. This research tests the models on 1 common type of project, pedestrian access facility projects on highways. In the United States (US) these projects result, directly and indirectly, from the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) that Congress passed in 1990. On highways, they produce three types of improvement: 1. wheelchair ramps at street corners to allow people in wheelchairs to cross streets at designated pedestrian crossings, 2. wheelchair-accessible sidewalks, and 3. audible signals at signalized intersections to inform visually impaired people when a pedestrian signal is in their favor. The author developed a data set of 39 pedestrian access facility projects on state highways in California, used multiple regression analysis to find 4 best-fit versions of each of the 3 functions (i.e., 12 alternatives in all), and evaluated them using the Choosing By Advantages (CBA) method. The author then benchmarks the preferred state highway cost estimating model identified in the CBA against 10 city-street pedestrian access facility projects that had been completed by 4 cities in the San Francisco Bay Area. He finds a significant difference between the state highway project cost data and the city street project cost data, and further rationalizes that these differences have their roots in both the contracting methods used by the agencies and the fact that Caltrans prepares detailed designs while cities do only minimal design. The data suggests that there is an opportunity to increase output and lower the costs of pedestrian access projects (and perhaps other types of highway projects as well) by decreasing the Caltrans design effort and transferring more of the design effort and consequent risk to contractors. This could be tested through experimentation on selected pedestrian access facility installations. This dissertation contributes to knowledge by providing a review of the place of conceptual and feasibility estimating both with respect to the overall project timeline and with respect to the methods used. It provides specific examples of the use of the various classes of estimates in the development of highway projects, and it provides a synthesis of the research on conceptual and feasibility estimating methods, most notably of parametric estimating. It then provides specific examples of parametric estimates on pedestrian access projects on California State Highways and in San Francisco Bay Area cities. Finally, it unveils the successful use by Bay Area cities of a minimal amount of design when developing design-bid-build contracts for pedestrian access facilities. The dissertation aims to provide an approach that could be used both for project-by-project conceptual estimating prior to the start of work on highway projects and for evaluating the overall credibility of the estimates on large portfolios of highway projects.

Master of Science / Department of Statistics / Michael J. Higgins / There have been a wave of recent interest in understanding the dynamics of vehicular emissions in university towns. Using data from a recent survey of Kansas State University students, faculty, and staff-which includes a detailed itinerary of a day’s worth of travel -I assess spatial and temporal trends of emissions at Kansas State University. By combining the survey data with secondary sources of data, including vehicular emissions data from Fueleconony.gov and trip distance information from Google, I obtain improved measure for the quantity of emissions produced during each trip. After an extensive cleaning of the data, I develop heat maps for emissions composed of shape files identifying zip-code boundaries and a raster layer. I find that most vehicular emissions are concentrated around campus, with the highest level of emissions occurring during rush hour. Furthermore, faculty and staff appear to, on average, produce more emissions than students. I also investigate how proposed methods for reducing emissions will affect these spatio-temporal trends. Specifically, I show that walking or biking short distances instead of driving may lead to a small overall reduction in vehicular emissions.