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The load-carrying capacity, is one of the indicators used to assess airfield pavement conditions. It could be estimated by evaluating the response of stationary dynamic loads, using a deflectometric device that simulates the stress inducted by an aircraft moving at moderate speed. This device is widely used because tests are nondestructive and rapid to execute and can be conducted for cyclic investigations, providing valuable support to maintenance and rehabilitation (M&R) decision makers through pavement management system (PMS). Pavement response is evaluated as a function of the deflection basin induced by the deflectometric device. It is well known that deflectometric measurements are influenced by external parameters such as weather conditions, especially temperature of upper layers or the percentage of water contained on unbounded layers. In this study the deflections basin response obtained for different load and weather conditions has been analyzed through the application of benchmarking values for immediately structural assessments. Tests were performed using the Heavy Weight Deflectometer (HWD) on 9 points along five longitudinal alignments from the centerline, 0.00 m, ± 3.00 m, and ± 5.20 m. The benchmarking methodology was used to evaluate and compare runway pavement performance under different weather conditions and testing loads. The applied benchmarking methodology resulted an easy and rapid assessment tool of pavement conditions at network-level.

Onboard bus comfort significantly depends on the bus lanes characteristics, such as horizontal curvature, pavement roughness, longitudinal, and transversal slope. A literature review shows a statistical relationship between acceleration level and passenger features, such as age and gender. A large number of onboard interviews have been collected and correlated to bus-lane geometry parameters, to evaluate the vibrational comfort of different passengers. Passenger’s judgments are related to the lateral, longitudinal, and vertical shake. At the same time, a geometric investigation on bus-lane corridors, traveled during interviews, in the city of Cagliari in Italy allowed to extract infrastructure parameters in terms of numbers and density of turns, horizontal curvature radius, speed design, and acceleration variance. The paper analyzed the correlation between some geometric and cinematics road parameters that may affect the comfort and the different passenger’s judgments on the three acceleration components by age classes and hourly day. The results generally show weak correlations between the selected parameters and passenger judgments. Conversely, travel speeds have significant correlation values. There is a moderate inverse correlation between the vibrational level and the age of the passengers. The younger age groups tend to have more severe judgments, attributable to their higher demand for comfort. The presence of preferential lanes increases the onboard comfort quality in terms of speed regularity, without private cars interferences.

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The aim of the research is a new safety road barrier made completely of wood.\ud Road safety barriers usually are made of steel or concrete. Wood is a material with a\ud complex structure, whose main features are anisotropy and hygroscopicity. It also\ud possesses greatly different mechanics characteristics between the longitudinal direction\ud and the tangential and radial direction. In Europe, road safety barriers have to pass crash\ud tests required by EN1317 before their location. So in this research, a new type of barrier\ud has been designed and modelled and has been simulated the impact with a vehicle using\ud the software Ls-Dyna, which follows EN 1317 prescriptions. A parametric analysis has\ud been conducted by the authors, to examine how humidity can modify mechanical\ud characteristics of wood and so performance of the new barrier. The results appeared\ud interesting: the new barrier satisfied all requirements prescribed by the Regulation and the\ud parametric study highlighted that ASI (Acceleration Severity Index) index vary with the\ud humidity but its values were always below the limit imposed by EN 1317.This study\ud represents only one step of the research which needs more data to individuate a\ud correlation between humidity and ASI index, and a real scale test to calibrate the mode

Today’s cities are meeting places, economic and social development centers, where all citizens should have the opportunity to live and move, according to adequate quality of life standards. However, this does not always correspond to reality in particular for the most vulnerable categories of the population. So, UN’s 2030 Agenda underlines the need to make cities inclusive and accessible by means, for instance, a suitable transport system for all, and in particular for vulnerable people as older people. A lot of studies presented interesting contributes on how older people choose to move and initiatives taken to address their public transport requirements, but no attention has been given to evaluate expected and perceived quality of public transport system, particularly referring to older people. So, the aim of this study is to highlight which should be the most important attributes of a public transport service (PTS) for over 65 years old passengers and if the local PTS satisfy their desires. By an intercept on board survey in the metropolitan area of Cagliari, it has been shown that, for all users, PTS appears qualitatively adequate with respect to each attribute analysed and vulnerable customers are more satisfied than all.

Road networks and transportation infrastructures are essential to assure accessibility and social and economic development of a country. For this reason it is necessary to protect them from calamitous events. The vulnerability assessment of a road network is one of the three fundamental steps towards a comprehensive definition of risk. The concept of vulnerability has not yet been unambiguously defined and it is possible to find different approaches and methodologies applied in studying it.\ud The paper develops a careful analysis of previous researches concerning road network vulnerability and it shows how accessibility indicators can be used to assess road network vulnerability. Furthermore, these indicators can be useful to road administrators in deciding the priority of interventions and limiting the consequences of link or network section failures due to natural or anthropic hazards

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