Heavy reliance on private car contributes to various environmental and traffic problems such as pollution and congestion. Measure aimed at reducing private car usage will be more effective when there is an understanding of the underlying causes in the form of the barriers and motivators. This research was conducted to establish the barriers and motivators to using public transport in the La Lucia Ridge Office Estate. In addition to that it looked into the measures that can be employed to remedy the limited or non-utilization of public transport thereby reducing traffic congestion and encourage sustainable urban living. The data used in this research is based on the research that was conducted in La Lucia Ridge Office Estate in 2012. The data was gathered through the use of questionnaires. The questionnaires were administered in public places in LLROE and were targeting both private car and public car users. The analysis of the results found that the majority of respondents in the LLROE use private car as their main mode of transport and for those who use public transport the bus was their main mode of transport followed by minibus taxis. The results also revealed that the cost for both private car and public transport users was the key determinant in the choice of mode being utilised. In addition to that the unavailability of public transport at the time of respondents’ going to or from work was also another key issue. The analysis also revealed that the respondents were happy with variety of public transport mode for the LLROE. In trying to establish measures to remedy the situation the study revealed that respondents would support the measures that were suggested in order to improve the use of public transport and reduce congestion and promote sustainable urban living. This research is a valuable contribution in the field of public transport and would serve as a point of reference for other areas experiencing similar challenges. / Thesis (MBA)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2013.

<p> The substitution of electrical energy for gasoline as a transportation fuel is an initiative both with a long history, and one made both pressing and important in today's policy discussion by renewed interest in plug-in vehicles. The research presented in this dissertation attempts to inform the policy discussion for governments, for electric utilities, for the makers of electric cars, and for the industries developing and planning charging infrastructure. To that end, the impacts of variations to several possible system design parameters, on several metrics of evaluation, are assessed. The analysis is based on a dataset of vehicle trips collected by Georgia Institute of Technology, tracking almost 500 vehicles that commute to, from or within the Atlanta city center, comprising Atlanta `commuter-shed'. By assuming that this dataset of trips defines the desired travel behavior of urban and suburban American populations, the effects of travel electrification in personal vehicles can be assessed. </p><p> Several significant and novel findings have emerged from this research. These include the conclusion that at-work charging is not necessarily the logical next step beyond home-charging, as it will in general add little to the substitutability of electric vehicles. In contrast, high power en-route charging, combined with modest power home charging is shown to be surprisingly effective, potentially requiring of EV drivers a total time spent at en-route recharging stations similar to that for liquid fueled cars. From the vehicle marketing perspective, a quantification of the hybrid household effect, wherein multi-vehicle households own one EV, showed that about a quarter of all households could adopt a vehicle with 80 miles of range with no changes to travel patterns. Of interest to grid management, this research showed an apparent maximum fleet-wide load from unregulated charging of about 1 kW per vehicle, regardless of EVSE power or EV battery size. This contrasts with a potential late night load spike an order of magnitude higher under certain time-of-use charging algorithm implementations. Finally, an EVSE and EV power capacity of 10-12 kW was shown to be a likely optimum if grid services from modulated charging are being considered.</p>

The research analyzes the operating performance of three commercially available curbside automated pedestrian detectors (APDs) (infrared and stereovision, passive infrared, and a microwave detector) for the actuation of pedestrian walk phases as a function of winter weather and temperature variations at signalized intersections in terms of detector selectivity and sensitivity. Two sites were selected for field analysis in Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada. Based on a sample of 8,225 detections at the two sites, the research found that overall sensitivity rates of the APDs ranged from 62 to 98 percent while selectivity rates were generally below 50 percent. Regardless of site, the infrared/video APD had the second highest sensitivity and highest selectivity rates of all APDs analyzed. The infrared APD had the highest sensitivity and lowest selectivity rates, and the microwave APD had the lowest sensitivity and second highest selectivity.

Winnipeg, Canada received $20.4 million from the three levels of government to augment the city’s active transportation infrastructure. Like many North American cities, Winnipeg is an automobile-focused centre that experienced little funding or development towards active transportation until recently. Winnipeg’s current active transportation system is insufficient, poorly conceived, and fractured. As cities move towards environmentally friendly initiatives, Winnipeg has an opportunity to build comprehensive and safe access to all parts of the city through active transportation. Concentrating on the bicycle as the primary transportation mode, this study examines the current status of Winnipeg’s active transportation network and searches for areas of improvement/development. This study identifies critical areas needing improvement and offers solutions by integrating input from Winnipeg’s cycling community, standards established by government/industry bodies, and successes from other jurisdictions. Key issues include bicycle facilities, safety and education and their integration into an effective and comprehensive bicycle transportation network.

<p> Due to the declining purchasing power of fuel tax revenue, the Highway Trust Fund is insufficient to operate and maintain the surface transportation system in the U.S. Alternative sources of revenue, other than the fuel tax, should be considered to address the insolvency of the funding system. Mileage fees and value pricing have long been attractive options to researchers and decision-makers, but they often raise equity concerns. This paper aims to design and evaluate equitable and progressive distance-based user charge policies, and focuses specifically on income-based fee rate structures. Three variable-rate vehicle-miles traveled (VMT) fee scenarios with respect to income are introduced and all policy scenarios are tested with a statewide transportation model in Maryland. Results show that income-based VMT fees can well protect lower-income households while generating more revenue. However, a standard fee structure based on Ramsey pricing does not work as well as the fixed-percentage incremental fee structure. The latter is progressive across all income groups while ensuring that equity and revenue goals are met.</p>

The thesis traces the development of transportation policy formation at regional and local levels of government in the Detroit region since 1945. Three postwar transportation policy climates are identified. The first, to the early sixties, was marked by a reasonable degree of regional consensus on freeways as the basis of regional transportation policy. The second, covering the period to the 1970's, saw this consensus begin to break down. The subsequent period to the present has been marked by an almost total collapse in regional consensus on transportation policy. Within the maintenance of a sensitivity to the dangers inherent in structuralist Marxist theorizing, the hypothesis is explored that class relationships have been of primary influence in accounting for this "macro dynamic" of transportation policy formation. The role of physical planners and implications for planning theory is a particular focus of study. The research concludes that, at a time when "grand" Marxist theorizing is coming under criticism, the primacy of class relationships as an explanatory variable can be sustained in the case of Detroit but in terms of the development of a more adequate theory of planning the research points to the need for supplemental theory construction on the discretion and influence of planners within the class pattern (as opposed to determination) of events.

Laboratory studies show that turbulence controls the size of flocs by disrupting those flocs which exceed a critical diameter. Estuarine floc sizes have been shown to vary with the spring/neap cycle and turbulence has been suggested as the mechanism. A survey of the tidal variations of cohesive sediment floc size distributions and turbulence parameters has been undertaken in the Tamar estuary in south-west Britain. In-situ particle size distributions have been obtained using a 'marinised' version of the 'Malvern' laser diffraction sizing system. Turbulent current speeds were obtained using 10 cm diameter annular electromagnetic current meters. Velocity data is analysed using the inertial dissipation method to provide turbulent dissipation rates. Turbulence and size data, along with profiles of current, salinity, temperature and suspended solids concentration, record the passage of turbidity maximum and salt intrusion over four complete tidal cycles. Time series of observed particle size distributions vary smoothly over timescales of about one hour and these variations are linked to the flow conditions. Eight subsections of the tidal cycle were selected over which size distributions and flow conditions were slowly varying and the size distributions were time averaged over these subsections, and the resulting distributions compared. Size distributions in the turbidity maximum are strongly influenced by the mean current speed and this is found to be due to the different resuspension characteristics of newly formed aggregates and consolidated primary particles. Distributions are less dependent on tidal range at other stages during the tidal cycle. The size dependence of settling velocities strongly influences the size distribution of particles reaching the bed during the final stages of erosion of the salt intrusion, when the salt/fresh interface descends at a rate less than the settling velocity of large flocs but greater than that of small particles. This tends to sharpen the downstream edge of the turbidity maximum and preferentially retain floc aggregates in the upper reaches of the estuary.

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This thesis investigates the role of media and information communication technology (ICT) in Japanese society, exploring how, in their various ways of engaging with the media in everyday life, Japanese audiences reflexively 'create' and 'recreate' their sense of self and the social groups to which they belong. Changes in everyday life, linked to the proliferation of media forms and coupled with the communications revolution, underscore the complex relationships between people's lives and the media. The primary aim of this thesis is to analyse the complex and diverse ways in which audiences engage with media in the context of domestic social change and globalisation. I provide an integrated framework for understanding the complexity and dynamism of individuals, social groups, and cultures, replacing the concept of 'audience activity' with 'audience engagement', and the paradigm of the active audience with the paradigms of everyday life and complexity. Further, this analysis of the Japanese audience can serve as a modest step towards the de-Westernisation of media studies. In the process, key Japanese emic concepts are employed, adapting them in ways that reject as myth the homogeneity of the Japanese, in order to highlight culturally specific ways of constructing self and other. Methodologically, the qualitative approach employed is intended to complement the characteristic quantitative emphasis in audience research within Japanese academia. Specifically, the present study is an ethnography of so-called 'modern' Japanese families having in the media-rich Tokyo Metropolitan Area. The research demonstrates how (l) multiple dimensions of audience engagement, (2) the transformation of the notion of uchi (social groups) in a media-rich environment, and (3) the role of media and ICT in the process of self-creation are related to complex processes of globalisation and social change in Japan. From an analysis of this relationship I indicate future possibilities for Japanese society and the future of globalisation addressing the cultural, social, and political question of universalism set against cultural specificity.

The missing component in studies that have attempted to assess the affects of advanced-telecommunications on urban form, and/or the location of economic activity in space, is the consideration and application of the urban system. Thus, in an attempt to justify the urban system as a framework for analysis as well as establish the context of the study, chapter 1 identifies the general characteristics of the urban system from the regional and spatial economic perspective. While the increased ability with which to interact across space and the Internet have and will no doubt continue to have wide ranging implications in, for example, a social and political context, the perspective of this study is purely a spatial economic one.