Dago Antov

A methodology for modelling traffic related emissions in suburban areas

A methodology that integrates a computer program COPERT III for calculation of traffic emissions estimates, and a transportation modelling software CUBE VOYAGER was used to assess pollutant emissions for a suburban area, as a support for future transport planning strategies to be applied for any developing road network. COPERT III is used to obtain the carbon monoxide emission factors by accounting for the car fleet composition, characteristics and average speed. An aggregated emission parametric equation was determined and used further on for estimating network carbon monoxide emissions based upon the output of macroscopic traffic characteristics enabled by traffic simulation software, CUBE VOYAGER. The methodology and modelling results are applied here for Floresti, a satellite town of Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

Policy instruments for managing road safety on EU-roads

Abstract Directive 2008/96/EC on road infrastructure safety management requires the establishment and implementation of procedures relating to road safety impact assessments (RSIA), road safety audits (RSA), ranking of high accident concentration sections and network safety ranking (NSR) and road safety inspections (RSI). The aim of this article is to present the outputs of BALTRIS project. The goal of the international project BALTRIS is to elaborate the road and street infrastructure safety management procedures and teaching material consistently explaining the above mentioned infrastructure management procedures. Four Baltic Sea region countries (Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania), represented by universities and national road administrations participate in the elaboration of these procedures and teaching material. This article describes the scope of NSR, RSA and RSI procedures prepared in the frame of BALTRIS project, also article provides detailed implementation and execution of procedures for t...

Sustainable Urban Transport Planning

Abstract Environmental protection has become a common issue in every area, but extremely important for the domains which deal with intensive energy consumption as it is the case of the transportation. Achieving the sustainable cities on the other hand, is also focused on the protection of the environment in order to provide a higher quality of life for the population. Therefore it is considered that by improving the urban transportation planning additional benefits could be provided for both the environment and the sustainable development of the cities. One possibility is to supplement the traditionally land-use plans with the transportrelated zones analysis, where the city is divided in public transport, pedestrian and caroriented zones. Analyzing the transport-related zones of a city is important as it provides additional information in the assessment of the development trend. The process of zoning was conducted for the city of Cluj-Napoca, Romania. In this paper, the outcome of the zoning was analyzed for a more comprehensive review of the urban transport in order to attain a sustainable-oriented approach of the urban area development.

Digitalization of Engineering Education: From E-Learning to Smart Education

Digitalization of all scopes of activities along with the rapid accumulation of information, development of technologies and the processes’ intellectualization pose global challenges in both the economy and education. Information technologies become an integral part of the human living space, causing the emergence of a new digital (networking) generation of people, for whom a mobile phone, a computer, and the Internet are the natural elements of their life. A universal approach to Smart Education is needed. Business requires engineers who can design, create and operate complex technical systems. At the same time, principles of sustainable development and minimization of negative environmental impacts must be observed. Educational system should ensure the quality of training engineers, who are needed by business and society. To realize this goal, there are opportunities associated with the use of such educational technologies as modeling, simulators, augmented and virtual reality. Ways to improve educational process with use of simulators and a virtual reality, as well as examples of using such training technologies to increase students’ motivation when training them for the automotive company are presented in the article.

ITS Safety Ensuring Through Situational Management Methods

The paper is devoted to solving the problem of complex organizational and technical systems’ (COTS) safety improvement with the use of methods of situational management. The possibility to manage COTS with the use of decision support system, the intelligent core of which contains the object model of the precedent describing unwanted processes in the COTS, is considered. The object-oriented hierarchy model of the vehicle as a complex dynamical system is developed. To improve reliability and safety of the COTS the database of precedents is established. Precedents in this database are presented according to the developed model by which the analogues search procedure is performed and the best managerial decision is chosen.

Method for Pedestrian Crossing Risk Assessment and Safety Level Determination: the Case Study of Tallinn

Pedestrians are a part of vulnerable road users which safety requires a special attention. Official statistics in Estonia from the last decade returns the following numbers: around 30 % of all road traffic accidents in the country were accidents with pedestrians, 32 % of all traffic fatalities were finished with pedestrian death. Pedestrian crossing has the biggest risk level between all kinds of pedestrian facilities, because it includes a direct conflict point between vehicle and pedestrian traffics. The article presents a method to assess risk of pedestrian crossing users and to determine safety level of this road infrastructure element. This approach is based on observation and collection of infrastructural as well as traffic data, which includes: (1) information about each pedestrian crossing facility, its location and state, (2) data about accidents with pedestrians and their features, (3) data from road traffic measurements. The main advantages of the described method are universality and comprehensiveness. The case study was done in Kristiine district of the city Tallinn, which was chosen as the most typical average district of Estonian capital. Results of this study are also presented in the article. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4995/CIT2016.2016.4124

78 Improving road safety in the baltic states- role of strategies

Background In the beginning of 90’s the Baltic states’ road safety fatality records were among the worst in Europe. After that period, the situation has been improved essentially, but despite of that the Baltic states still remain not the safest countries in Europe. An important role here played the road safety strategies, first developed already in 1990’s. This paper analysis the safety situation developments in the Baltic states as well the role of road safety strategies, which have been slightly different in three countries. Methods Statistical analysis on road safety data gives us a rather clear picture about the safety situation in three Baltic states- Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. The background data hereby has been included, in order to explain the transportation situation and it’s impacts on safety. The content analysis of the strategies shows the similarities and differences of the strategies introduced in different countries, as well as the impact on the safety records. Results The results of this research shows clearly that in spite of the different strategic approach towards the road safety, the basic trends of the road safety in three Baltic states have big similarities. It proves that even the measures introduced in three Baltic states and written in strategies are different ones, the basic safety trends are influenced not only by the strategies, but also by the social impact, like motorization or spatial planning. Conclusions The role of road safety strategies have been important in order to evaluate the safety situation as well as to rank the countries with other countries. The numeric goals, included in the strategies are important in order to follow the main safety trends. But in spite of that, some general impact factors have been estimated to be as important as strategies. Here the main important could be listed – motorization, road network data, population, road user attitudes, etc.

Assessment of the precision of data collected about the traffic accidents with property damage only in claim handling process by insurance companies

AbstractThe number of serious road traffic accidents is decreasing in all European countries. Based on the trends and directions in the past it may be predicted that in longer perspective the number of serious road traffic accidents will decrease remarkably. This will create a situation where it is more and more difficult to ensure the reliability of traffic safety analyses performed by statistical methods. There are two possibilities to decrease the problem: either to carry out in-depth investigations of serious road traffic accidents and/or investigate also Property Damage Only (PDO) traffic accidents and traffic conflicts in addition to serious traffic accidents. The key issue in using the PDO accident data is its precision. The present paper is attempting to enlighten the area, and assess the quality of data of PDO road traffic accidents collected by insurance providers by example of Estonia. The survey results show that in spite of certain shortcomings, the PDO road traffic accident data collected by...