Identifying future scenarios and their implications for transport policy

Scenario analysis is a technique that is increasingly being used as a way of identifying future policy options and issues in the long-term. This paper discusses the role of scenario analysis in policy development in relation to future transport policy. It discusses three key stages in scenario analysis: the identification of policy targets; the development of images of the future; and the construction of policy packages.     

A framework for definition of logical scenarios for safety assurance of automated driving

Abstract

Objective: In order to introduce automated vehicles on public roads, it is necessary to ensure that these vehicles are safe to operate in traffic. One challenge is to prove that all physically possible variations of situations can be handled safely within the operational design domain of the vehicle. A promising approach to handling the set of possible situations is to identify a manageable number of logical scenarios, which provide an abstraction for object properties and behavior within the situations. These can then be transferred into concrete scenarios defining all parameters necessary to reproduce the situation in different test environments.

Methods: This article proposes a framework for defining safety-relevant scenarios based on the potential collision between the subject vehicle and a challenging object, which forces the subject vehicle to depart from its planned course of action to avoid a collision. This allows defining only safety-relevant scenarios, which can directly be related to accident classification. The first criterion for defining a scenario is the area of the subject vehicle with which the object would collide. As a second criterion, 8 different positions around the subject vehicle are considered. To account for other relevant objects in the scenario, factors that influence the challenge for the subject vehicle can be added to the scenario. These are grouped as action constraints, dynamic occlusions, and causal chains.

Results: By applying the proposed systematics, a catalog of base scenarios for a vehicle traveling on controlled-access highways has been generated, which can directly be linked to parameters in accident classification. The catalog serves as a basis for scenario classification within the PEGASUS project.

Conclusions: Defining a limited number of safety-relevant scenarios helps to realize a systematic safety assurance process for automated vehicles. Scenarios are defined based on the point of the potential collision of a challenging object with the subject vehicle and its initial position. This approach allows defining scenarios for different environments and different driving states of the subject vehicle using the same mechanisms. A next step is the generation of logical scenarios for other driving states of the subject vehicle and for other traffic environments.     

Development and case study of a science-based software platform to support policy making on air quality

This article describes the development and implementations of a novel software platform that supports real-time, science-based policy making on air quality through a user-friendly interface. The software, RSM-VAT, uses a response surface modeling (RSM) methodology and serves as a visualization and analysis tool (VAT) for three-dimensional air quality data obtained by atmospheric models. The software features a number of powerful and intuitive data visualization functions for illustrating the complex nonlinear relationship between emission reductions and air quality benefits. The case study of contiguous U.S. demonstrates that the enhanced RSM-VAT is capable of reproducing the air quality model results with Normalized Mean Bias < 2% and assisting in air quality policy making in near real time.     

楼房火灾的安全灭火时限分析与施救对策

在楼房建筑物火灾灭火时 ,常由于火燃造成建筑材料强度失效导致整体坍塌 ,给施救工作带来很大的威胁。强调了在灭火过程的始终 ,应不断进行高温状态下建筑材料强度的失效判定 ,评估出安全的灭火时限和调整施救对策 ,有利于从根本上预防楼房坍塌意外事故的发生。定义了火灾高温状态下建筑材料危险应力点上的可靠度 ,提出依据火灾现场因素和数据 ,用数值模拟方法分析建筑材料强度失效随时间的变化过程 ,确定安全的灭火时限。给出了以火灾施救为主线的并适时考虑构件强度分析和安全时限判定交叉平行作业的多阶段施救对策框架 ,建立了楼房火灾施救安全支持系统结构。     

Restoring naturalness to national parks

National park resource management planning requires ecological information describing the objectives to be achieved. This information must be quantitative and unambiguous. Since most acts creating United States national parks, beginning with the Yellowstone National Park Act of 1872, specify that these parks should be maintained in a natural condition, resource management objectives for each national park must be defined in terms of quantitative standards of naturalness. Such quantitative standards of naturalness do not yet exist for any national park in the United States. Although this article focuses on US national parks, the same problem exists in national parks, reserves, and wilderness areas throughout the world. The physical evidence needed to develop quantitative standards of naturalness is rapidly disappearing because of the effects of management fires, wildfires, decomposition, successional changes, and other disturbances. Therefore, a nationwide rescue ecology program is recommended to recover as much remaining ecological information as possible before it is lost. This information is essential for developing quantitative standards to restore naturalness to national parks.     

不同减排情景下城市机动车污染防治措施研究

机动车数量的增加严重威胁城市环境,本文在不同减排情境下,开展城市机动车污染防治措施研究。使用清洁能源代替不可再生能源作为机动车动力燃料;明确责任制度,强化机动车管理体制,提升空气质量;布设城市监控设备优化交通结构,减少排放源;完善法律制度,协调经济发展与环保关系;发展公共交通,倡导绿色出行理念,降低城市机动车尾气排放污染。     

Testing the Potential for Predictive Modeling and Mapping and Extending Its Use as a Tool for Evaluating Management Scenarios and Economic Valuation in the Baltic Sea (PREHAB)

We evaluated performance of species distribution models for predictive mapping, and how models can be used to integrate human pressures into ecological and economic assessments. A selection of 77 biological variables (species, groups of species, and measures of biodiversity) across the Baltic Sea were modeled. Differences among methods, areas, predictor, and response variables were evaluated. Several methods successfully predicted abundance and occurrence of vegetation, invertebrates, fish, and functional aspects of biodiversity. Depth and substrate were among the most important predictors. Models incorporating water clarity were used to predict increasing cover of the brown alga bladderwrack Fucus vesiculosus and increasing reproduction area of perch Perca fluviatilis, but decreasing reproduction areas for pikeperch Sander lucioperca following successful implementation of the Baltic Sea Action Plan. Despite variability in estimated non-market benefits among countries, such changes were highly valued by citizens in the three Baltic countries investigated. We conclude that predictive models are powerful and useful tools for science-based management of the Baltic Sea.     

A Budget Model to Scale Nutrient Biogeochemical Cycles in Two Semienclosed Gulfs

The nutrient dynamics of the Strymonikos and Ierissos Gulfs, two semienclosed coastal water bodies, are studied using a simple steady-state budget model, according to the Land–Ocean Interaction in the Coastal Zone modeling guidelines. Strymon river plume dynamics prevailed in the area of the Inner and Outer Srymonikos Gulfs, comprising two layers, while the Ierissos Gulf was defined as a one-box system. Seasonal and mean annual model input data for river discharge, precipitation, evaporation, and concentrations of salt, phosphorus, and nitrogen were obtained during four field campaigns. Results from the nitrogen and phosphorus cycling revealed the importance of river discharge in the horizontal and vertical transport of these substances within the system. Furthermore, it occurred that the major biogeochemical transformation of nitrogen and phosphorus takes place in the immediate nearshore zone (Inner Strymonikos Gulf), while the outer system sustains its nutrient dependence on oceanic exchanges. Therefore, under the summer low flow conditions, the river-influenced inner system acts as a net source of nitrogen and phosphorus, while under increased Strymon River discharge, phosphorus is transferred to the biological material (and the sediments), and the system moves to an autotrophic state. The outer system showed an opposite behavior being autotrophic throughout the year and heterotrophic in February. The Ierissos Gulf, a system not directly influenced by significant river discharge, experienced a seasonally independent behavior with net heterotrophic and denitrification processes prevailing. Model scenarios demonstrated that phosphate concentration increases, even under low river flow conditions and stimulates primary production in excess of respiration, resulting in nitrogen fixation prevalence in the Inner Strymonikos Gulf.     

过程液氯贮槽装置封闭厂房及事故氯吸收塔联用安全效用分析

分析、设立液氯贮槽液相泄漏的几种典型事故情景,并利用液相泄漏、液池蒸发、重气扩散和人员中毒死亡概率等模型对比研究封闭厂房及事故氯吸收塔等安全措施对液氯贮槽液相泄漏扩散中毒后果的影响,给出不同事故情景下液氯泄漏速率、液池半径、液池蒸发速率、室外氯气中毒死亡概率等事故后果特征值。对封闭厂房及事故氯吸收塔安全效用进行定量分析和比较研究。结果表明,液氯贮槽的封闭厂房对抑制液氯泄漏扩散中毒事故后果效用明显;事故氯吸收塔能消除液氯贮槽微小孔泄漏所对应的小事故情景,还能对封闭厂房最严重泄漏事故后果起到初期削峰作用。显然,封闭厂房及事故氯吸收塔联用可以降低液氯贮槽事故影响后果,具有良好安全效用。     

Equity and sustainability over the next fifty years: An exercise in economic visioning

A simplistic aggregate model of global economic activity supports a 50-year visioning exercise with targets defined in terms of aggregate measures of global equity (convergence) and sustainability (contraction). Some ambitious combinations of these targets turn out to be infeasible even under the most favorable modeling assumptions. No contraction target (no reduction in fossil fuel consumption relative to the present) was possible, for example, if international capital transfers pushed per capita incomes in low-income countries above 33% of levels achieved in high-income countries. Lower prices for renewable alternatives to exhaustible resources generally made sustainability targets easier to achieve, but lower prices for renewable resources also made equity targets more difficult to achieve. Improved substitution between capital and labor made equity targets easier to achieve in relative terms, but improved substitution between capital and labor could make any given sustainability target more or less difficult to achieve. All the results suggest that it is possible to overstate the purported conflict between achieving sustainability and equity targets. The very transfers of international capital that would promote relative equity between high-income and low-income countries could also work to spread the incidence of achieving any sustainability target more evenly across their boundaries.Readers should send their comments on this paper to: BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue.