Natalija Jolić

Economic and Social Aspects of Applying Biodiesel Fuel in Road Transport

The world trend in automotive industry represents the improvement of the existing vehicle power plants and their further development as well as the use of various alternative fuels. Such tendencies should not be considered only from an entirely technical aspect, but also from the economic, social and strategic aspects of the modern society. In this sense it is necessary to give priority to biodiesel fuel. The production of biodiesel fuel has to be developed in compliance with the increasingly severe exhaust emission standards in designing and realization of road transport means. From the economic aspect at macro-economic level, the development of biodiesel will reflect on the condition of industrial production, employment, additional inflow of financial means into agriculture and the economic development of rural areas, as well as the foreign currency reserves of a country along with the reduction in the dependence of macroeconomic parameters on the external factors.

Cross-border E-learning platform for the education on river information system (RIS) development

E-learning platform for education on River Information Services (RIS) development in Republic of Croatia and Italy is presented in this paper. This platform is a result of one year research activities based on analysis of demand for education in this field. E-learning platform aims to become a system that tracks, launches and provides the interface between the user and learning objects. The uniqueness of this platform is assured by the fact that two neighboring countries, Italy and Croatia are co-operating on the topic of River Information Services for the first time. Italy and Croatia are both countries with long maritime tradition and are naturally inclined to exchange the knowledge and experiences on the sea navigation. In the last 5 years, Croatia has recognized the potential of its inland waterways and started to follow EU recommendations in working towards shifting cargo from roads to rivers. According to this, Inland Navigation Development Centre and Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences started to develop an e-learning platform for education on transport technology followed by graduated study curriculums and transport market experts and specialists demand. E-learning platform is recognized as European added value - improvement of co-operation, sharing of know-how and environmental and social benefits.

Development of nautical tourism: islands development motivator

The Republic of Croatia, as a Mediterranean country with an indented coast has an archipelago with more than a thousand islands which is a recognizable market potential of the Croatian tourism. Because of the natural values, a particularly valuable and successful part of the Croatian tourism and the potential of islands development is the development of nautical tourism. The indicators of the quality of nautical tourism and the nautical tourism quality management system have not been sufficiently studied yet. The basic principle of nautical tourism development management is the principle of sustainable development, which in a compromised and balanced manner is pre-condition for analyses of the need to preserve the natural environment and the need for economic development. Strategic documents of the Republic of Croatia define “nautical tourism as a special type of tourism which apart from navigation in private organization – cruising by one’s own or leased vessel with onboard accommodation and/or sleeping of tourists, includes also cruises in the organization of vessel owners and travel agencies with accommodation and/or sleeping of tourists onboard these vessels, and navigation of tourists onboard vessels for the purpose of other forms of holidays and recreation (fishing, diving).” The paper will implement the multi-criteria decision-making methodology in selecting the criteria and sub-criteria of the nautical tourism development model. The influence of criteria, sub-criteria and alternatives on the function of objective i.e. the development function of islands and the assessment of influence of factors will be determined. The research results are based on the expert assessment and input data on the system (elements, characteristics) of nautical tourism of the Republic of Croatia.

A Mathematical Model of UITS Demand for Investment Return Models

According to recent statistics, 80% of European Union citizens live in urban areas and 40% live in large urban areas of over 200 000 inhabitants. On average a European citizen makes 1000 trips per year and half of these are less than 5 km long. An urban intelligent transport system (UITS) represents a vital subsystem of the traffic system and considers wider commercial and operational frameworks within which the flow of passengers and goods is planned and managed. The demand for UITS services can be valorized as highly qualitative, differentiated and derived. While researching transport phenomenon the implementation of models is inevitable and demand models highly desirable. This paper as a contribution to transport modeling improves decision making and planning in the UITS field. Time-variable and space-variable characters of UITS make it more difficult to analyze. One approach to handle space variables is to divide research areas into zones defining the UITS network, in a form suitable for processing. The demand for UITS services is valorized as highly qualitative, differentiated and derived. The task of UITS planning is to forecast and to manage the evolution of equilibrium points over time and space. Modeling these equilibrium points should assist in development and implementation of management strategies and investment programs. In establishing the equilibration between UITS demand and UITS supply i.e. planning it is essential to ensure an increase in transport efficiency, as it allows small and irregular flows to use shared facilities, a reduction in the importance of location as transport costs and quality of service become more uniform throughout Europe.

STRATEGY OF IMPLEMENTING AUTOMATED IDENTIFICATION SYSTEM - ITS IN PORT SYSTEMS

Careful consideration of the intelligent transport systems -ITS, shows that the efficiency of ITS solutions is reflected in thetechnologies introduced in the recent information age. Today,it i.s possible to collect, analyse and undertake various activitiesbased on the data and infOimation, that had not been possiblebefore. The technological development in sensor technologyand devices for data collection allow almost immediate,real-time analysis of information and simultaneous performanceof feedback activities that are so fast that they can contributeto the functioning and operation of the transportationsystems.