Besides responding to challenges of rapid urbanization and growing traffic congestion, the development of smart transport systems has attracted much attention in recent times. Many promising initiatives have emerged over the years. Despite these initiatives, there is still a lack of understanding about an appropriate definition of smart transport system. As such, it is challenging to identify the appropriate indicators of 'smartness'. This paper proposes a comprehensive and practical framework to benchmark cities according to the smartness in their transportation systems. The proposed methodology was illustrated using a set of data collected from 26 cities across the world through web search and contacting relevant transport authorities and agencies. Results showed that London, Seattle and Sydney were among the world's top smart transport cities. In particular, Seattle and Paris ranked high in smart private transport services while London and Singapore scored high on public transport services. London also appeared to be the smartest in terms of emergency transport services. The key value of the proposed innovative framework lies in a comparative analysis among cities, facilitating city-to-city learning.

Navigational safety analysis relying on collision statistics is often hampered because of low number of observations. A promising alternative approach that overcomes this problem is proposed in this paper. By analyzing critical vessel interactions this approach proactively measures collision risk in port waters. The proposed method is illustrated for quantitative measurement of collision risks in Singapore port fairways, and validated by examining correlations between the measured risks with those perceived by pilots. This method is an ethically appealing alternative to the collisionbased analysis for fast, reliable and effective safety assessment, thus possesses great potential for managing collision risks in port waters.

An increase in the likelihood of navigational collisions in port waters has put focus on the collision avoidance process in port traffic safety. The most widely used on-board collision avoidance system is the automatic radar plotting aid which is a passive warning system that triggers an alert based on the pilot's pre-defined indicators of distance and time proximities at the closest point of approaches in encounters with nearby vessels. To better help pilot in decision making in close quarter situations, collision risk should be considered as a continuous monotonic function of the proximities and risk perception should be considered probabilistically. This paper derives an ordered probit regression model to study perceived collision risks. To illustrate the procedure, the risks perceived by Singapore port pilots were obtained to calibrate the regression model. The results demonstrate that a framework based on the probabilistic risk assessment model can be used to give a better understanding of collision risk and to define a more appropriate level of evasive actions.

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Motorcyclists are the most crash-prone road-user group in many Asian countries including Singapore; however, factors influencing motorcycle crashes are still not well understood. This study examines the effects of various roadway characteristics, traffic control measures and environmental factors on motorcycle crashes at different location types including expressways and intersections. Using techniques of categorical data analysis, this study has developed a set of log-linear models to investigate multi-vehicle motorcycle crashes in Singapore. Motorcycle crash risks in different circumstances have been calculated after controlling for the exposure estimated by the induced exposure technique. Results show that night-time influence increases crash risks of motorcycles particularly during merging and diverging manoeuvres on expressways, and turning manoeuvres at intersections. Riders appear to exercise more care while riding on wet road surfaces particularly during night. Many hazardous interactions at intersections tend to be related to the failure of drivers to notice a motorcycle as well as to judge correctly the speed/distance of an oncoming motorcycle. Road side conflicts due to stopping/waiting vehicles and interactions with opposing traffic on undivided roads have been found to be as detrimental factors on motorcycle safety along arterial, main and local roads away from intersections. Based on the findings of this study, several targeted countermeasures in the form of legislations, rider training, and safety awareness programmes have been recommended.

Navigational collisions are one of the major safety concerns in many seaports. Despite the extent of recent works done on port navigational safety research, little is known about harbor pilot's perception of collision risks in port fairways. This paper uses a hierarchical ordered probit model to investigate associations between perceived risks and the geometric and traffic characteristics of fairways and the pilot attributes. Perceived risk data, collected through a risk perception survey conducted among the Singapore port pilots, are used to calibrate the model. Intra-class correlation coefficient justifies use of the hierarchical model in comparison with an ordinary model. Results show higher perceived risks in fairways attached to anchorages, and in those featuring sharper bends and higher traffic operating speeds. Lesser risks are perceived in fairways attached to shoreline and confined waters, and in those with one-way traffic, traffic separation scheme, cardinal marks and isolated danger marks. Risk is also found to be perceived higher in night.Keywords: Navigational collision risk, Risk perception, Fairway, Harbor pilot, Hierarchical regression. Please cite this article as: INTRODUCTIONNavigational collisions are one of the major safety concerns in many seaports. Navigational collisions account for a substantial portion of major shipping accidents in port waters, as reported by a number of researchers (e.g., 1-5). Furthermore, the increasing growth of world fleet (see, 6) is likely to result in increased traffic movements within busy seaports, which in turn could increase collision likelihood in these congested and restricted waters (5, 7).To address this safety concern some recent studies have focused on port navigational safety issues from different aspects; such as analyses of trends and causes of accidents (2,4,5,8); analyses of injuries and fatalities in port water accidents (1, 2); analyses of involved parties in port water conflicts (7); and modeling accident probabilities (9). These studies analyzed port water incidents to address the general safety issues in port navigation. To address the behavioral issues in port navigational safety, some studies focused on pilot fatigue (10-12); sleep and watchkeeping (13); mental workload (14); and the pilot's operational relationships and communications with ship crews (15, 16). Despite the extent of works done, little is known about other behavioral issues, particularly on pilot's perception of collision risks.Studying pilot's perception of collision risks is important because risk perception is considered as a precursor of an individual's actual behavior (see 17). Cohn et. al. (18) indicated that risk perception is negatively related to risk behavior in general, i.e., a lower level of perceived risk is associated with a higher probability that a pilot would be involved in such risk. Thus, by examining their perception of risk, the pilot's behavioral characteristics can be understood.This paper aims at examining the relationships between perceived...

Navigational collisions are one of the major safety concerns for many seaports. Despite the extent of work recently done on collision risk analysis in port waters, little is known about the influencing factors of the risk. This paper develops a technique for modeling collision risks in port waterways in order to examine the associations between the risks and the geometric, traffic, and regulatory control characteristics of waterways. A binomial logistic model, which accounts for the correlations in the risks of a particular fairway at different time periods, is derived from traffic conflicts and calibrated for the Singapore port fairways. Estimation results show that the fairways attached to shoreline, traffic intersection and international fairway attribute higher risks, whereas those attached to confined water and local fairway possess lower risks. Higher risks are also found in the fairways featuring higher degree of bend, lower depth of water, higher numbers of cardinal and isolated danger marks, higher density of moving ships and lower operating speed. The risks are also found to be higher for night-time conditions. INTRODUCTION.Maintaining smooth and collision-free traffic movements in port fairways is one of the top-priority concerns in many seaports. However, navigational collisions account for a substantial portion of the major types of shipping incidents in port waters. Many studies (Goossens and Glansdorp, 1998;Akten, 2004;Darbra and Casal, 2004;Liu, Liang et al., 2006;Liu, Pedersen et al., 2006;Yip, 2008) have reported that collisions are over-represented in port water incidents. Collisions are also identified as one of the most severe types of incidents (IMO, 1998), thus making them a major safety concern for many seaports.Risk of collisions in port waters is likely to increase with the gradual increase of shipping traffic in numbers and sizes over the past decades. The world fleet is increasing in number (see Soares and Teixeira, 2001) which may result in increased traffic movements within port waters, consequently increasing the risk of collision. The number of traffic movements on a busy fairway in port waters can be as high as 2000 per day (Yip, 2008) and the number is expected to increase with the continuing growth of traffic. Such a high number of movements may result in more collisions and near-misses. More importantly, navigational traffic is increasing in size (Faulkner, 2003) resulting in a higher number of large ships in port waters. The larger ships have reduced maneuverability and thus face a consequent increase in the risk of collision (Akten, 2004), especially in the port waters where navigation room is restricted by land obstacles.To address this safety concern, some recent studies have focused on examining trends and causes of collisions (Goossens and Glansdorp, 1998;Akten, 2004;Darbra and Casal, 2004;Liu, Liang et al., 2006), whereas some (Darbra and Casal, 2004;Yip, 2008) have addressed the issues related to consequences of collisions (i.e., injuries and fatalities). Desp...

The use of mobile phones while driving is increasing at an alarming rate despite the associated crash risks. A significant safety concern is that driving while distracted by a mobile phone is more prevalent among young drivers, a less experienced driving cohort with elevated crash risk. The objective of this study was to examine the gap acceptance behavior of distracted young drivers at roundabouts. The Center for Accident Research and Road Safety–Queensland Advanced Driving Simulator was used to test participants on a simulated gap acceptance scenario at roundabouts. Conflicting traffic approaching from the right of a four-legged roundabout was programmed to show a series of vehicles with the gaps between them proportionately increased from 2 s to 6 s. Thirty-two licensed young drivers drove the simulator under three phone conditions: baseline (no phone conversation), a hands-free phone conversation, and a handheld phone conversation. Results show that distracted drivers started responding to the gap acceptance scenario when they were closer to the roundabout and they approached the roundabout at slower speeds. These drivers also decelerated at faster rates to reduce their speeds before gap acceptance compared with nondistracted drivers. Although accepted gap sizes were not significantly different across phone conditions, differences in the safety margin at various gap sizes—measured by postencroachment time (PET) between the driven vehicle and the conflicting vehicle—were statistically significant across phone conditions. PETs for distracted drivers were smaller across different gap sizes and suggest that a smaller safety margin was accepted by distracted drivers compared with nondistracted drivers.