Thesis (MDF)--Stellenbosch University, 2012. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The purpose of this research was to understand how value for money (‘VfM’), an important decision pillar in public procurement, is applied in South Africa, and compare the VfM regulated framework with other global practices in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong. VfM is applied when deciding the most appropriate procurement method that utilises public funds in the most cost effective, equitable and transparent manner. Although VfM is vital in the public sector, it is one of the most misunderstood and controversial procurement aspects. The various actors in public procurement processes tend to complicate this key aspect due to their conflicting objectives in relation to a given project. Chief among these are the political influences on the public managers, which tend to manipulate the procurement choice. Consequently over the years, the VfM assessments performed before selecting a procurement method have not been publicly available, thereby increasing concern on whether VfM is achieved, particularly when involving the private sector through public-private partnership (‘PPP’) arrangements. The study explores the various components of VfM, which are the public sector comparator, risk allocation mechanisms, particularly for the road sector projects, discount rates and post project implementation monitoring systems. More importantly, the research analysed how these various aspects were assessed on procuring the N4 toll road. South African National Road Agency SOC Limited (‘SANRAL’), although it did not have the benefit of a PPP guideline as is the case now, it performed extensive feasibility studies and held a transparent procurement process before selecting the private sector party to the PPP. Interestingly, project that was pre-identified as a PPP procurement model and had political support from both the Mozambique and South African governments from inception in order to make it work. The comparative analysis of the South African PPP framework and the selected global PPP markets revealed that the local VfM guidelines were comparable in most aspects such as the PSC construction and risk management methodologies. However, the South African practices could be further improved with increased transparency incorporated in the procurement process such as the publication of the PPP contract once finalised – a practice common in the developed markets analysed. This will go a long way to increasing acceptance of the PPP procurement model in a market that is tainted with mistrust of same. There is need for the civil servants to be trained on the VfM assessment processes so that such analyses are not limited to PPP-type projects, but to conventionally-procured infrastructure projects for increased accountability and effective use of public funds.

<div>Vehicle automation is developing at a rapid rate worldwide. However, even lower levels of automation, such as SAE Level-1, are expected to reduce drivers’ workload by controlling either speed or lane position. At the same time, however, drivers’ engagement in secondary tasks may make up for this difference in workload displaced by automation. Previous research has investigated the effects of adaptive cruise control (ACC) on driving performance and workload, but little attention has been devoted to Lane Keeping Systems (LKS). In addition, the influence of secondary cognitive tasks on Level-1 driving performance is also not well understood.</div><div><br></div><div>The first goal of this thesis study was to examine the effects of secondary cognitive tasks and driving condition on driving performance. The second goal was to examine the effects of secondary cognitive tasks and driving condition on heart rate related measurements that reflect changes in workload. Both a novel nano-sensor and a commercial ECG sensor were used to measure heart rate. Thus, the third goal was to compare the capability of a nano-sensor in detecting changes in heart rate and heart rate variability with a commercially available ECG sensor. Twenty-five participants drove a simulated vehicle in manual, ACC and LKS driving conditions, while performing a secondary cognitive (N-back) task with varying levels of difficulty.</div><div><br></div><div>Results showed that more difficult cognitive secondary tasks were beneficial to driving performance in that a lower standard deviation of lane departure (SDLD) and a lower standard deviation of vehicle speed (SDVS) were both observed. Heart rate and NASA-TLX workload scores were significantly higher in the most difficult secondary task and in the manual driving conditions. However, heart rate variability measures (SDNN, RMSSD, pNN50, LF Power and HF Power) indicated lower variability under more difficult secondary tasks. This thesis suggests that nanotechnological devices may serve as a potential alternative to other heart rate measuring technology. Limitations in detecting minor heart rate changes between different driving conditions and in heart rate variability measuring were also acknowledged.</div>

Aim of the Master’s thesis is analysis of problems of the dangerous goods road transportation, especially transport of flammable liquids. It analyses the European Agreement concerning the International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Road and its special requirements. Thesis also covers road tanker accidents and the removal of leaked petroleum products. In practical portion the work on resistance testing of asphalt mixtures against several types of fuel is presented.

<p><a>Proactive evaluation of road safety is one of the most important objectives of transportation engineers. While current practice typically relies on crash-based analysis after the fact to diagnose safety problems and provide corrective countermeasures on roads, surrogate measures of safety are emerging as a complementary evaluation that can allow engineers to proactively respond to safety issues. These surrogate measures attempt to address the primary limitations of crash data, which include underreporting, lack of reliable insight into the events leading to the crash, and long data collection times. </a></p> <p>Traffic conflicts are one of the most widely adopted surrogate measures of safety because they meet the following two conditions for crash surrogacy: (1) they are non-crash events that can be physically related in a predictable and reliable way to crashes, and (2) there is a potential for bridging crash frequency and severity with traffic conflicts. However, three primary issues were identified in the literature that need to be resolved for the practical application of conflicts: (1) the lack of consistency in the definition of traffic conflict, (2) the predictive validity from such events, and (3) the adequacy of traffic conflict observations.</p> <p>Tarko (2018) developed a theoretical framework in response to the first two issues and defined traffic conflicts using counterfactual theory as events where the lack of timely responses from drivers or road users can produce crashes if there is no evasive action. The author further introduced a failure-based definition to emphasize conflicts as an undesirable condition that needs to be corrected to avoid a crash. In this case, the probability of a crash, given failure, depends on the response delay. The distribution of this delay is adjusted, and the probability is estimated using the fitted distribution. As this formal theory addresses the first two issues, a complete framework for the proper identification of conflicts needs to be investigated in line with the failure mechanism proposed in this theory.</p> <p>The objective of this dissertation, in response to the third issue, is to provide a generalized framework for proper identification of traffic conflicts by considering the failure-based definition of traffic conflicts. The framework introduced in this dissertation is built upon an empirical evaluation of the methods applied to identify traffic conflicts from naturalistic driving studies and video-based tracking systems. This dissertation aimed to prove the practicality of the framework for proactive safety evaluation using emerging technologies from in-vehicle and roadside instrumentation.</p> <p>Two conditions must be met to properly claim observed traffic events as traffic conflicts: (1) analysis of longitudinal and lateral acceleration profiles for identification of response due to failure and (2) estimation of the time-to-collision as the period between the end of the evasion and the hypothetical collision. Extrapolating user behavior in the counterfactual scenario of no evasion is applied for identifying the hypothetical collision point.</p> <p>The results from the SHRP2 study were particularly encouraging, where the appropriate identification of traffic conflicts resulted in the estimation of an expected number of crashes similar to the number reported in the study. The results also met the theoretical postulates including stabilization of the estimated crashes at lower proximity values and Lomax-distributed response delays. In terms of area-wide tracking systems, the framework was successful in identifying and removing failure-free encounters from the In-Depth understanding of accident causation for Vulnerable road users (InDeV) program.</p> <p>This dissertation also extended the application of traffic conflicts technique by considering estimation of the severity of a hypothetical crash given that a conflict occurs. This component is important in order for conflicts to resemble the practical applications of crashes, including the diagnostics of hazardous locations and evaluating the effectiveness of the countermeasures. Countermeasures should not only reduce the number of conflicts but also the risk of crash given the conflict. Severity analysis identifies the environmental, road, driver, and pre-crash conditions that increase the likelihood of severe impacts. Using dynamic characterization of crash events, this dissertation structured a probability model to evaluate crash reporting and its associated severity. Multinomial logistic models were applied in the estimation; and quasi-complete separation in logistic regression was addressed by providing a Bayesian estimation of these models.</p>

<p>  </p> <p>Highway workers are required to work close to moving traffic during road construction and maintenance activities, which exposes them to the risk of being struck by a distracted driver or intruding vehicle. In addition, work zones disturb the usual traffic flow and patterns due to changes in the existing geometric layout of a roadway, and this is also problematic for the drivers as they must navigate a layout of signs, barrels, and lane changes while keeping the vehicle in control. Moreover, late-night tasks, reckless driving, inconsistent work zones, drunk driving, and increased vehicle miles traveled are some of the additional causes of work zone incidents in the United States. Nationwide, around 40,000 accidents occur each year in highway work zones due to vehicle intrusion into the work zone and have steadily increased during the past ten years. Most often, the driver and passenger of the vehicle are the victims of such accidents. The resulting fatalities, injuries, and property damage due to such incidents lead to significant expenses, prolonged travel delays, and potential damage to expensive products in transit.</p> <p>While traditional safety precautions (e.g., truck-mounted attenuators, rumble strips, speed monitoring displays) can help enhance work zone safety, the number of work zone intrusions calls for designing and implementing emerging intrusion alert technologies to warn drivers and workers when errant vehicles intrude into the work zone. Several state Departments of Transportation (DOTs) have begun examining the use of intrusion alert technologies to mitigate work zone intrusions. While previous studies examined the general effectiveness (e.g., sound levels, work zone coverage, deployment characteristics, etc.) of these technologies in both controlled and active construction and maintenance work zones, there are still significant research gaps in investigating how well these intrusion technologies alert the driver and workers, and no documented best practices are available for transportation agencies and DOTs interested in implementing them. In addition, these technologies have been through many improvements and modifications, and further research is imperative to ascertain their chances of acceptance by workers and contractors.</p> <p>To address these gaps, this thesis focuses on (a) empirically examining the effectiveness, implications, and practices of four commercially available intrusion technologies in enhancing work zone safety through various field tests and surveys, and (b) empirically investigating the effectiveness of these technologies considering drivers’ cognitive processing (perception -reaction time) and responses in case of work zone intrusion. The findings of this research study provide detailed information on the identification and testing procedures of technologies and offer guidelines and recommendations for adopting these technologies for practitioners and professionals in the highway construction sector. The proposed decision-making matrix and multi-criteria decision-making framework are based on the empirical data obtained from the various field experiments, literature review, and evaluation survey. This study also provides valuable insights into the overall effectiveness (i.e., by considering functional characteristics, associated drivers’ responses and reactions, and current implementation) of commercially available intrusion technologies to incorporate required modifications in designing and implementing these technologies to enhance work zone safety. The long-term outcome of this study is to significantly reduce the injuries and fatalities in highway maintenance work zones in Indiana and across the country.</p>

[pt] A indústria offshore vive atualmente a quarta revolução industrial que traz novos desafios para a cadeia de suprimentos e exige a implementação de paradigmas clássicos como a filosofia Lean, a fim de aumentar a eficiência e aprimorar processos, obtendo vantagens competitivas sustentáveis que são requisitos base para a transformação digital. Entretanto, ainda é limitada a aplicação do Lean no setor de transporte rodoviário e há escassez de estudos práticos sobre como o Lean Transportation (LT) pode apoiar a melhoria das operações offshore. Dessa forma, objetiva-se aplicar técnicas do LT para reduzir desperdícios no processo de transporte dedicado destinados à cadeia de suprimentos offshore de uma empresa de grande porte do setor de óleo e gás. Para isso utilizou-se uma pesquisa-ação com abordagem multimétodo por meio de scoping review, grupos focais e observação participante e aplicação de ferramentas Lean como o Value Stream Mapping (VSM) para identificar desperdícios presentes no processo e possibilidades de melhoria competitiva para a área interna de logística da empresa em análise, permitindo uma logística de transporte planejada com nível de serviço adequado às necessidades do cliente. Como produto, observou-se a redução de desperdícios principalmente nas etapas de espera de carregamento e descarregamento em transporte rodoviário dedicado por meio de um caso de intervenção real, resultando na implementação de ações de controle, automatização e aprimoramento das atividades com redução expressiva do tempo de inatividade do processo, ganho monetário de 6.300.000,00 reais por ano para a operação e produtos como questionário de benchmarking, protocolo de pesquisa-ação e ciclo PDCA que podem ser aplicados em outras empresas do mesmo segmento. Também foram identificados, qualitativamente, desperdícios associados a esforço humano e recursos digitais mal-empregados ou não implementados. / [en] The offshore industry is currently experiencing the fourth industrial revolution that brings new challenges to the supply chain and requires the implementation of classical paradigms such as Lean philosophy in order to increase efficiency and improve processes, obtaining sustainable competitive advantages that are basic requirements for digital transformation. However, the application of Lean in the trucking industry is still limited and there is a dearth of practical studies on how Lean Transportation (LT) can support the improvement of offshore operations. Thus, the objective is to apply LT techniques to reduce waste in the dedicated transportation process for the offshore supply chain of a large oil and gas company. To do so, it was used action research with a multi-method approach through scoping review, focus groups and participant observation and application of Lean tools such as Value Stream Mapping (VSM) to identify waste present in the process and possibilities of competitive improvement for the internal logistics area of the company under analysis, allowing a planned transport logistics with a level of service appropriate to customer needs. As a result, there was a reduction in waste mainly in the waiting stages of loading and unloading in dedicated road transport through a real intervention case, resulting in the implementation of control actions, automation and improvement of activities with a significant reduction in downtime of the process, monetary gain of BRL 6,300,000.00 per year for the operation and products such as a benchmarking questionnaire, action research protocol and PDCA cycle that can be applied to other companies in the same segment. We also identified, qualitatively, waste associated with human effort and digital resources misused or not implemented.

<p>Online retail sales and grocery/food orders have been breaking records every year. As a result, third-party delivery companies have found an opportunity to get their share from the growing transportation network. Electric vehicles (EVs) are becoming a preferable choice for such large delivery systems due to their environmental benefits. However, EVs have limited-service ranges; therefore, intra-route facilities are needed for EVs to stay operational. These facilities offer charging stations for EVs and storage areas for requests, e.g., food and packages. In this dissertation, we propose a novel <em>Pickup and Delivery Problem</em> (PDP) with EVs and transfers. There are requests to be picked up and delivered. EVs leave their origin depot, serve requests, and return to their destination depot. Unlike the generic PDP, intra-route facilities allow EVs to exchange requests. Thus, a request can be transported by more than one vehicle. In this dissertation, three new problems are introduced, and the following research questions are investigated: 1) "How valuable is to include intra-route facilities and allow transfers in a pickup and delivery network with EVs?", 2) "What is the cost of locating intra-route facilities randomly rather than finding the best locations while creating the routes for EVs?", and 3) "How much can drones improve the delivery speed in a pickup and delivery network with EVs and transfers?". A <em>Mixed-integer Linear Programming</em> (MILP) model and a <em>Simulated Annealing</em> (SA) algorithm are developed and compared with each other to answer the first question. For the second question, a MILP model is formulated; however, due to unreasonable computational runtimes, a SA algorithm and an <em>Adaptive Large Neighborhood Search</em> (ALNS) algorithm are proposed. Finally, a MILP model is developed for the hybrid-fleet problem. The overall results highlight that intra-route facilities shorten the total traveled distance in the PDP network by allowing exchanges and recharging.</p>

The transportation sector is a vital part of today’s society and accounts for 20 % of our global total energy consumption. It is also one of the most greenhouse gas emission intensive sectors as almost 95 % of its energy originates from petroleum-based fuels. Due to the possible harmful nature of greenhouse gases, there is a need for a transition to more sustainable transportation alternatives. A possible alternative to the conventional petroleum-based road transportation is implementation of Electric Road Systems (ERS) in combination with electric vehicles (EVs). ERS are systems that enable dynamic power transfer to the EV's from the roads they are driving on. Consequently, by utilizing ERS in combination with EVs, both the cost and weight of the EV-batteries can be kept to a minimum and the requirement for stops for recharging can also be eliminated. This system further enables heavy vehicles to utilize battery solutions. There are currently in principal three proven ERS technologies, namely, conductive power transfer through overhead lines, conductive power transfer from rails in the road and inductive power transfer through the road. The aim of this report is to evaluate and compare the potential of a full-scale implementation of these ERS technologies on a global and local (Sweden) level from predominantly, an economic and environmental perspective. Furthermore, the thesis also aims to explore how an expansion of ERS might look like until the year 2050 in Sweden using different scenarios. To answer these questions two main models (global and Swedish perspective) with accompanying submodels were produced in Excel. The findings show that not all countries are viable for ERS from an economic standpoint, however, a large number of countries in the world do have good prospects for ERS implementation. Findings further indicated that small and/or developed countries are best suited for ERS implementation. From an economic and environmental perspective the conductive road was found to be the most attractive ERS technology followed by overhead conductive and inductive road ERS technologies. The expansion model developed demonstrates that a fast expansion and implementation of an ERS-based transportation sector is the best approach from an economical perspective where the conductive road technology results in largest cost savings until 2050. / Transportsektorn är en viktig del av dagens samhälle och står för 20% av den totala globala energiförbrukningen. Det är också en av de sektorer med mest växthusgasutsläpp, där nästan 95% av energin härstammar från petroleumbaserade bränslen. På grund av växthusgasers potentiellt skadliga karaktär finns det ett behov för en övergång till mer hållbara transportmedel. En möjlig alternativ till den konventionella petroleumbaserade vägtransporten är implementering av elektriska vägsystem (ERS) i kombination med elfordon. Elektriska vägsystem är system som möjliggör dynamisk kraftöverföring till fordon från vägarna de kör på. Sålunda kan man genom att använda ERS i kombination med elbilar, minimera både kostnaden och vikten av batterierna samt även minska eller eliminera antalet stopp för omladdningar. Dessutom möjliggör detta system att även tunga fordon kan använda sig av batterilösningar. Det finns för närvarande i princip tre beprövade ERS-tekniker, nämligen konduktiv kraftöverföring genom luftledningar, konduktiv kraftöverföring från räls i vägen och induktiv kraftöverföring genom vägen. Syftet med denna rapport är att utvärdera och jämföra potentialen för en fullskalig implementering av dessa ERS-teknik på en global och lokal (Sverige) nivå från, framförallt, ett ekonomiskt- och ekologiskt perspektiv. Rapporten syftar också till att undersöka, med hjälp av olika scenarier, hur en utbyggnad av ERS i Sverige skulle kunna se ut fram till år 2050. För att besvara dessa frågor producerades två huvudmodeller (global och lokal perspektiv) med kompletterande undermodeller i Excel. De erhållna resultaten visar att ERS inte är lönsamt ur ett ekonomisk perspektiv i precis alla de undersökta länder, dock har ett stort antal länder i världen visat sig ha goda förutsättningar för ERS. Vidare visar resultaten att små och/eller utvecklade länder är bäst lämpade för ERS. Ur ett ekonomiskt- och ekologiskt perspektiv har konduktiv kraftöverföring från räls i väg tekniken visat sig vara den mest attraktiva, följt av konduktiv kraftöverföring genom luftledningar och induktiv kraftöverföring genom väg teknikerna. Expansionsmodellen som utvecklats visar att en snabb expansion och implementation av en ERS-baserad vägtransportsektor är det bästa alternativet, där tekniken för konduktiv kraftöverföring från räls i väg ger de största kostnadsbesparingar fram till 2050.