Thesis (MScEng)--Stellenbosch University, 2013. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The importance of transport should not be underestimated. Transport progresses a person’s quality of life: it connects people to one another and provides access to work, services and recreational opportunities. However, post-apartheid South Africa is unfortunately still faced with a legacy of segregation. While the less-privileged, who mostly live at the fringe of Central Business Districts (CBDs), are captive users of public transport, the private vehicle trend, under the privileged, is becoming more evident. This research project thus proposes that a balanced and integrated sustainable transport system be promoted. That is, one that will aid South Africa in growing and improving its general socio-economical status by providing all its citizens with (equal) access to a balanced transport network. It is believed that, if a multimodal system is promoted, the deficiencies of the current heterogeneous non-integrated systems may be overcome. Therefore, if South Africa’s transport network is augmented with a multimodal platform, the nation will be able to move its citizens effectively and efficiently, without jeopardising the economy, social matters and the environment, today and in the future. Moreover, South Africa will also have the necessary stimulus to utilise the already available resources at its disposal by working together as ‘one’. This research project thus stipulates a (generic) sequential approach needed in achieving an integrated (sustainable) public transport system. The goal of this research project is to create awareness of the benefits that may arise from, and the implementation steps required in obtaining, such a multimodal platform. The focus area for researching the proposition made herein is the City of Cape Town’s (CoCT’s) land transport networks. The City has a management facility, with resultant transport data repository, known as the Transport Management Centre (TMC). This TMC is regarded as one of the finest state of the art facilities in the world and the features thereof offer a sufficient base and point of departure for the promotion of a multimodal transport system. By conducting research in this field, the following portraying aspects, needed for the realisation of the proposition made herein, were found. Firstly, in order to obtain an integrated sustainable transport system, the appropriate Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) need to be integrated. It is believed that, if an intelligent transport scheme, grounded on ITS applications, is advocated, the City will be in the position to more effectively monitor what is going on, to more accurately predict what might happen in the future, and to manage its transport system proactively on an area-wide basis. Secondly, in order to meet the integration requirements imposed by multimodal transport, a centralised database needs to be created. With such a database in place, information sharing across all modes of private- and public land transport, and thus also between the investors or the operators, will be possible. An example of such a database was developed in Microsoft Access and the modes considered therein are: MyCiti, Metrorail and Golden Arrow Bus Service (GABS). The data stored in this database is historic, but the incorporation of real time information was also catered for. Thirdly, it is believed that the success of the City’s transport system, and the development of a multimodal system, is dependent on the provision of an efficient Advanced Traveller Information System (ATIS). The idea is to promote multimodal transport as a convenient transit option by providing travellers with information on journey planning that aims to counteract their reluctance to change. In order to develop such a multimodal Journey Planner (JP), the unimodal networks considered herein were combined into a supernetwork on which Dijkstra’s Shortest Path Algorithm was applied. This algorithm was programmed in Microsoft Excel’s Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) and it incorporates the following user criteria: the origin, the destination, the user’s mode preference, and the user’s optimisation preference of either time or distance. In conclusion, it can be argued that, with information becoming such a vital commodity in everyday life, the catering for informed travellers are the key to successful future transport services. If travellers are informed about the transport networks’ performance, a positive attitude is fostered. Moreover, by providing travellers with information on journey planning, their feelings of uncertainty and fear of the unknown, that are present in (especially) public transport services, may be neutralised. This information will give the public carte blanche to make decisions that give them the perception of having more ‘control over their lives’. Therefore, if a multimodal JP that can be accessed from one portal is created, people’s inclination to acquire more information will be met. And as a result, traversing in an integrated manner may become the norm. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die belangrikheid van vervoer mag nie onderskat word nie. Vervoer speel ’n belangrike rol in die bevordering van ’n persoon se lewenskwaliteit: dit verbind mense met mekaar en verskaf toegang tot die werksplek, diensteverskaffers, en vryetydsbesteding. Post-apartheid Suid-Afrika is egter nog steeds vasgevang in ’n nalatenskap van rasseskeiding. Die minderbevoorregtes, wat meestal aan die buitewyke van die stad woon, is geforseerde gebruikers van openbare vervoer, terwyl die neiging (onder die bevoorregtes) om privaatvoertuie te gebruik, aan die toeneem is. Hierdie navorsingsprojek beveel dus aan dat ’n gebalanseerde, geïntegreerde en volhoubare vervoerstelsel bevorder moet word. ’n Sodanige stelsel sal help om die sosio-ekonomiese status van Suid-Afrika te bevorder. Dít kan net bereik word as alle landsburgers gelyke toegang tot ’n gebalanseeerde vervoernetwerk het. As ’n multimode-stelsel dus bevorder word, kan die tekortkominge van die huidige heterogene, nie-geïntegreerde stelsels oorkom word. Indien Suid-Afrika se vervoernetwerk ’n multimodale platform het, kan die landsburgers effektief en doeltreffend vervoer word sonder om die ekonomie, sosiale aangeleenthede of omgewing, tans en in die toekoms, in gedrang in te bring. Suid-Afrika sal boonop, met so ’n platform in plek, ook die nodige stimulus hê om die bestaande hulpbronne optimaal te gebruik. Hierdie navorsingsprojek verskaf ’n (generiese) in-volgorde-benadering om ’n volhoubare, geïntegreerde openbare vervoerstelsel daar te stel. Die doel is om bewustheid van die voordele wat uit ’n multimodale platform spruit, sowel as die nodige stappe vir die uitvoering daarvan, te kweek. Die fokusarea van die navorsing is die Stad van Kaapstad se land-vervoernetwerke. Die Stad het ’n beheerfasiliteit waar vervoerdata versamel word. Dit staan bekend as die vervoer-beheersentrum (TMC: Transport Management Centre). Hierdie fasiliteit word as toonaangewend in die wêreld beskou. Die kenmerkende eienskappe van hierdie fasiliteit bied verder ook ’n goeie vertrekpunt vir die bevordering van ’n multimodale stelsel. Die navorsing in hierdie veld het die volgende bydraende faktore, wat benodig word om die voorstelling te realiseer, geïdentifiseer. In die eerste plek moet die intelligente vervoerstelsels (ITS: Intelligent Transport Systems) geïntegreer word om ’n geïntegreerde volhoubare vervoerstelsel daar te stel. Indien ’n intelligente vervoerskema, gebaseer op tegnologiese inisiatiewe, aangemoedig word, sal die Stad van Kaapstad in die posisie wees om sy vervoerstelsel pro-aktief te bestuur deur meer effektief te monitor wat aangaan en meer akkuraat te voorspel wat in die toekoms mag gebeur. Tweedens moet daar ’n gesentraliseerde databasis geskep word. Met hierdie databasis sal die nodige integrasievereistes vir ’n multimodale vervoerstelsel, bereik word. Inligting kan dan gedeel word tussen privaat- en openbare landvervoer, asook tussen die beleggers en die operateurs van die verskillende vervoermodusse. ’n Voorbeeld van so ’n databasis is in Microsoft Access geskep en die modusse wat deel daarvan uitmaak, is: MyCiti, Metrorail en Golden Arrow Bus Services (GABS). Die data wat hierin vervat is, is histories, maar daar is vir intydse inligting voorsiening gemaak. In die derde plek is die sukses van die Stad van Kaapstad se vervoerstelsel en die ontwikkeling van ’n multimodale stelsel afhanklik van die daarstelling van ’n effektiewe, gevorderde inligtingsstelsel vir pendelaars (ATIS: Advanced Traveller Information Systems). Die idee is om ’n multimodale vervoerstelsel as ’n gerieflike opsie onder pendelaars te bevorder. Dit kan bereik word deur inligting rakende reisbeplanning aan pendelaars daar te stel. Met die verkryging van sodanige kennis sal die pendelaar se weerstand teen verandering ook afneem. Om so ’n multimodale reisbeplanner (JP: Journey Planner) te ontwikkel, is die eenmodaal-netwerke gekombineer om ’n supernetwerk te skep. Dijkstra se algoritme is op die supernetwerk toegepas. Die algoritme is in Microsoft Excel se VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) geprogrammeer en dit bevat die volgende gebruikerskriteria, nl. die begin- en eindpunt, die gebruiker se modes-voorkeur en die gebruiker se gekose optimeringsvoorkeur van tyd of afstand. Ten slotte kan gesê word dat inligting ’n groot rol in die mens se daaglikse lewe en aktiwiteite speel. Daar kan dus geredeneer word dat die sleutel tot suksesvolle vervoerdienste daarin lê om vir ingeligte pendelaars voorsiening te maak. As pendelaars ingelig is oor die stand van die vervoernetwerk maak dit hul houding meer positief. Verder, as pendelaars ook inligting oor reisbeplanning het, kan dit hul gevoel van onsekerheid en vrees jeens (veral) openbare vervoer teenwerk. Met al hierdie inligting tot sy beskikking kan ’n persoon dus sy eie keuses maak en dit lei daartoe dat die persoon meer in beheer voel. As ’n multimodale JP geskep word, voed dit die mens se begeerte vir meer inligting. En met ’n sodanige JP in plek, kan geïntegreerde pendel moontlik die norm word.

Thesis (PhD (Mathematical Sciences. Applied Mathematics))--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / This thesis addresses the problem of bulding a video-based traffic monitoring system. We employ clustering, trackiing and three-dimensional reconstruction of moving objects over a long image sequence. We present an algorithms that robustly recovers the motion and reconstructs three-dimensional shapes from a sequence of video images, Magaia et al [91]. The problem ...

published_or_final_version / Urban Planning / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

Un des buts de la recherche et du développement des systèmes de transport intelligents est d'augmenter le confort et la sécurité des passagers, tout en réduisant la consommation d'énergie, la pollution de l'air et le temps de déplacement. L'introduction de voitures complètement autonomes sur la voie publique nécessite la résolution d'un certain nombre de problèmes techniques et en particulier de disposer de modules de planification de trajectoire robustes. Ce travail de thèse s'inscrit dans ce cadre. Il propose une architecture modulaire pour la planification de trajectoire d'un véhicule autonome. La méthode permet de générer des trajectoires constituées de courbes interpolées adaptées à des environnements complexes comme des virages, des ronds-points, etc., tout en garantissant la sécurité et le confort des passagers. La prise en compte de l'incertitude des systèmes de perception, des limites physiques du véhicule, de la disposition des routes et des règles de circulation est aussi assurée dans le calcul de la trajectoire. L'algorithme est capable de modifier en temps réel la trajectoire prédéfinie de façon à éviter les collisions. Le calcul de la nouvelle trajectoire maintient les accélérations latérales à leur minimum, assurant ainsi le confort du passager. L'approche proposée a été évaluée et validée dans des environnements simulés et sur des véhicules réels. Cette méthode permet d'éviter les obstacles statiques et dynamiques repérés par le système de perception.Un système d'aide à la conduite pour le contrôle partagé basé sur cette architecture est introduit. Il prend en compte l'arbitrage, la surveillance et le partage de la conduite tout en maintenant le conducteur dans la boucle de contrôle. Il laisse le conducteur agir tant qu'il n'y a pas de danger et interagit avec le conducteur dans le cas contraire. L'algorithme se décompose donc en deux processus : 1) évaluation du risque et, s'il y a un risque avéré 2) partage du contrôle à l'aide de signaux haptiques via le volant.La méthode de planification de trajectoire présentée dans cette thèse est modulaire et générique. Elle peut être intégrée facilement dans toute architecture d'un véhicule autonome. / Developments in the Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) field show promising results at increasing passengers comfort and safety, while decreasing energy consumption, emissions and travel time. In road transportation, the appearance of automated vehicles is significantly aiding drivers by reducing some driving-associated tedious tasks. However, there is still a long way to go before making the transition between automated vehicles (i.e. vehicles with some automated features) and autonomous vehicles on public roads (i.e. fully autonomous driving), specially from the motion planning point of view. With this in mind, the present PhD thesis proposes the design of a generic modular architecture for automated vehicles motion planning. It implements and improves curve interpolation techniques in the motion planning literature by including comfort as the main design parameter, addressing complex environments such as turns, intersections and roundabouts. It will be able to generate suitable trajectories that consider measurements' incertitude from the perception system, vehicle’s physical limits, the road layout and traffic rules. In case future collision states are detected, the proposed approach is able to change---in real-time---the current trajectory and avoid the obstacle in front. It permits to avoid obstacles in conflict with the current trajectory of the ego-vehicle, considering comfort limits and developing a new trajectory that keeps lateral accelerations at its minimum. The proposed approach is tested in simulated and real urban environments, including turns and two-lane roundabouts with different radii. Static and dynamic obstacles are considered as to face and interact with other road actors, avoiding collisions when detected. The functional architecture is also tested in shared control and arbitration applications, focusing in keeping the driver in the control loop to addition the system's supervision over drivers’ knowledge and skills in the driving task. The control sharing advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) is proposed in two steps: 1) risk assessment of the situation in hand, based on the optimal trajectory and driving boundaries identified by the motion planning architecture and; 2) control sharing via haptic signals sent to the driver through the steering wheel. The approach demonstrates the modularity of the functional architecture as it proposes a general solution for some of today's unsolved challenges in the automated driving field.

Traffic congestion is one of the most concerning issues in the transportation system. Recurrent congestion and non-recurrent congestion are explored in this research. This research will investigate one of the most concerning issues with the transportation system, congestion, using an overall delay analysis study. A developed fused database program was used to access and analyze the complete database data. Two online databases were used for obtaining traffic, incident and weather data. Eleven different scenarios such as peak-hours, rain scenario, incidents scenario, and work zone scenario were developed for the analysis. An overall delay study was performed on all scenarios to find the impact recurring and non-recurring congestion on the highway. The results of this research were interesting for future adjustment and improvements on the two segments of highways selected. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2014. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Research on connected vehicles (CV) has attracted attention in the last decade due to numerous potential applications and challenges related to exchange of information between the vehicles (and infrastructure). Most of the relevant studies focus on these applications and challenges with the help of novel or existing simulation frameworks. The simulation framework often contains the mobility and communication components, and these components are frequently simplified. In this study, the authors aim to provide the detailed information for developing a fully V2X capable infrastructure within the lab environment. The physical components of the proposed infrastructure include: (i) userdriven Driving Simulator (DS) with the embedded micro-simulation tool (MS); (ii) external traffic signal controller (TSC); (iii) Road Side Unit (RSU) and omnidirectional antenna attached to RSU; (iv) On-Board Unit (OBU) that is integrated within DS‘s cockpit. The proposed framework can be used for advanced applications in the context of connected vehicles. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2017. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Plataformas móveis, como smartphones, tablets e também veículos, têm cada vez mais possibilitado a coleta e análise de dados de seu entorno. Essa oportunidade de sensoriamento de diferentes fenômenos oferece maior cobertura espaço-temporal a menor custo em relação às técnicas tradicionais. O dinamismo dessa abordagem traz desafios relacionados ao posicionamento desses sensores e ao georreferenciamento das informações coletadas. Desta forma, a presente pesquisa tem como objetivo propor método orientativo de especificação de técnicas de posicionamento no contexto do uso do veículo enquanto sensor. Inicialmente, a partir de levantamento bibliográfico, caracteriza-se a evolução do conceito de veículo-sensor e seu emprego no sensoriamento da fluidez do tráfego, das condições do pavimento, de qualidade do ar, entre outras variáveis. Descreve-se o estado da arte nesse campo de pesquisa, identificando lacunas e pontos a serem mais bem estudados. Em um segundo momento, identificando o posicionamento como tópico pouco discutido nesse contexto, o trabalho dedica-se à definição de método orientativo de especificação de sistemas de posicionamento para veículossensores, tendo em conta os requisitos associados às diferentes variáveis a serem sensoriadas. Ao fim, apresenta-se estudo de campo referente ao uso de veículos na identificação de ocorrência de lombadas, empregando as ferramentas estabelecidas nessa dissertação e pormenorizando a discussão do sistema de posicionamento. Dessa forma, o trabalho contribui para a caracterização dos sistemas de sensoriamento baseados em veículos e a identificação do posicionamento como parâmetro fundamental para a qualidade desses sistemas. / Mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets and also vehicles have increasingly enabled gathering and analysing data from its environment. This opportunity of sensing different phenomena offers greater spatiotemporal coverage at less cost when compared to the traditional techniques. The dynamics of this approach has challenges related to the positioning of this sensors and the georeferencing of sensed data. Thus, this research aims to propose an orientative method to specify the positioning system for use with vehicles working as mobile sensors. Firstly, by doing a literature review, the purpose is to characterize the evolution of the concept of vehicle as a mobile sensor and its use in sensing traffic conditions, road conditions, air quality and other variables. The state of the art in this research field is described and the gaps and open questions are identified. In a second moment, after identifying the positioning in this context as an understudied area, this research will work on discussing an orientative method to specify the positioning system considering specificities and requirements associated with the different sensored phenomena. At the end, this work describes an exploratory study using a vehicle to identify road bumps, applying the tools defined in the method and detailing the discussion about the positioning system. Therefore, this work contributes to the characterization of sensing systems based on vehicles and the identification of the vehicular positioning as a fundamental parameter for the quality of these systems.

Demand responsive transportation is a variable route service of passengers or freight from specific origin(s) to destination(s) in response to the request of users. Operational planning of DRT system encompasses the methods to provide efficient service to the passengers and to the system operators. These methods cover the assignments of vehicles to transportation requests and vehicle routings under various constraints such as environmental conditions, traffic and service limitations. Advances in the information and communication technologies, such as the Internet, mobile communication devices, GIS, GPS, Intelligent Transportation Systems have led to a significantly complex and highly dynamical decision making environment. Recent approaches to DRT operational planning are based on "closed information loop" to achieve a higher level of automation, increased flexibility and efficiency. Intelligent and effective use of the available information in such a complex decision making environment requires the application of formal modeling and control approaches, which are robust, modular and computationally efficient. In this study, DRT systems are modeled as Discrete Event Systems using Finite Automata formalism and DRT real time control is addressed using Supervisory Control Theory. Two application scenarios are considered; the first is based on air-charter service and illustrates uncontrolled system model and operational specification synthesis. The automatic synthesis of centralized and modular supervisors is demonstrated. The second scenario is a mission critical application based on emergency evacuation problem. Decentralized supervisory control architecture suitable for accommodating the real-time contingencies is presented. Conditions for parallel computation of local supervisors are specified and the computational advantages of alternative supervisory control architectures are discussed. Discrete event system modeling and supervisory control theory are well established and powerful mathematical tools. In this dissertation, they are shown to be suitable for expressing the modeling and control requirements of complex and dynamic applications in DRT. The modeling and control approaches described herein, coupled with the mature body of research literature in Discrete Event Systems and Supervisory Control Theory, facilitate logical analysis of these complex systems and provide the necessary framework for development of intelligent decision making tools for real time operational planning and control in a broad range of DRT applications.

This thesis presents a framework for motor vehicle detection-tracking surveillance systems. Given an optimized object detection template, the feasibility and effectiveness of the methodology is considered for vehicle counting applications, implementing both a filtering operation of false detection, based on the speed variability in each segment of traffic state, and an occlusion handling technique which considers the unusual affine transformation of tracking subspace, as well as its highly fluctuating averaged acceleration data. The result presents the overall performance considering the trade-off relationship between true detection rate and false detection rate. The filtering operation achieved significant success in removing the majority of non-vehicle elements that do not move like a vehicle. The occlusion handling technique employed also improved the systems performance, contributing counts that would otherwise be lost. For all video samples tested, the proposed framework obtained high correct count (>93% correct counting rate) while simultaneously minimizing the false count rate. For future research, the author recommends the use of more sophisticated filters for specific sets of conditions as well as the implementation of discriminative classifier for detecting different occlusion cases.

The safety-message dissemination problem for vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) was investigated. Four novel techniques were contributed for the efficient and reliable routing of safety messages in the vehicular ad hoc networks. The instant-broadcast technique was proposed to improve the end-to-end dissemination delay. The lane-based sectoring mechanism was presented for the collision mitigation in the dense-urban traffic scenario. The negative acknowledgment with smart neighborhood (NSN) technique was proposed to ensure the reliability of reception through recovering the packet loss caused by interference. Finally, the negative acknowledgment with smart neighborhood - hole recovery (NSN-H) technique was presented to provide guaranteed reception of the safety message at each individual node in the VANET. The investigation of the safety message routing in VANET conducted in this research also revealed the significance of hitherto-neglected factors that influence the vehicular network. Significance of the small payload size of the VANET safety message, the effect of road width on the multi-hop relay, and the attenuation caused by vehicles in the propagation path were among the important revealed factors.