Crowded trains are a feature of many railway networks, and adversely affect both train passengers and rail operators. For passengers, the lack of space or inability to get a seat can lead to a lack of physical comfort, reduced productivity and increased stress. Crowded trains can also lead to problems boarding and alighting, increasing dwell times and making it harder for operators to provide a reliable service. It is therefore desirable to reduce crowding levels, but it isn't always practical to achieve this by increasing capacity and other measures need to be considered. Some passengers have shown willingness to change their behavior to avoid crowding, for example by waiting for a later train, and measures to encourage such behavioral changes more widely could be beneficial overall. Better information provision could be one such measure, and a stated preference survey was undertaken on a commuter and airport service in order to investigate this further. It was found that the provision of information about crowding levels and seating availability on alternative trains would encourage some passengers to wait for a less crowded train. While the willingness of passengers to wait for a later train varied with both trip purpose and with the origin station, the findings suggest that real-time information would improve the passenger experience and could form the basis of a revenue neutral demandmanagement system. The implications for station design are particularly pertinent for countries such as the USA where significant investment in new passenger rail systems is expected.
Tunnels can contribute significantly to the overall energy consumption and carbon emissions of a railway, both in terms of embodied energy and emissions (those associated with the materials and the construction process) and in terms of operational energy and emissions (due to the increased air resistance experienced by a train inside a tunnel). Although tunnels may be a necessary component of railway infrastructure, it is important that their impact on carbon emissions is fully understood, especially when comparing the railway with other modes. This paper reviews existing literature and uses a case study to develop understanding. Trade-offs between embodied and operational energy and emissions are explored.
Within the transport sector, modal shift towards more efficient and less polluting modes could be a key policy goal to help meet targets to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions. However, making comparisons between modes is not necessarily straightforward. Average energy and emissions data are often relied upon, particularly for rail, which may not be applicable to a given context. Some UK train operating companies (TOCs) have recently fitted electricity meters to their trains, from which energy consumption data have been obtained. This has enabled an understanding to be gained of how energy consumption and related emissions are affected by a number of factors, including train and service type. Comparisons are made with existing data for road and rail. It is noted that although more specific data can be useful in informing policy and making some decisions, average data continue to play an important role when considering the overall picture.
The present work reports the results of a research investigation into the handling qualities of a helicopter conducting a ship approach and landing task. The investigation was performed via fixed-base, pilot-in-the-loop flight simulation and included six test pilots with extensive operational
and test experience in the shipboard environment. Representative approach/landing tasks were flown with three different response types to a field landing zone and to multiple spots on an amphibious assault ship. The ship was stationary, and there was no simulated ship airwake, so the fundamental
differences between the field and ship approaches were limited to visual cueing. Traditional subjective handling qualities ratings were supplemented with multiple other analysis techniques, including pilot eye-tracking analysis and pilot control activity analysis. The results show that there
are fundamental differences in the pilot gaze patterns between field and ship approaches that are caused by the different cueing environments. Additionally, subjective assessments indicated that pilots preferred higher degrees of aircraft stabilization in the shipboard environment than in
the field environment, though there were not significant differences between pilot control techniques in these environments for a given aircraft response type.
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