The Real-World Safety Potential of Connected Vehicle Technology

Objective: This article estimates the safety potential of a current commercially available connected vehicle technology in real-world crashes.

Method: Data from the Centre for Automotive Safety Research's at-scene in-depth crash investigations in South Australia were used to simulate the circumstances of real-world crashes. A total of 89 crashes were selected for inclusion in the study. The crashes were selected as representative of the most prevalent crash types for injury or fatal crashes and had potential to be mitigated by connected vehicle technology. The trajectory, speeds, braking, and impact configuration of the selected in-depth cases were replicated in a software package and converted to a file format allowing “replay” of the scenario in real time as input to 2 Cohda Wireless MK2 onboard units. The Cohda Wireless onboard units are a mature connected vehicle technology that has been used in both the German simTD field trial and the U.S. Department of Transport's Safety Pilot project and have been tuned for low false alarm rates when used in the real world. The crash replay was achieved by replacing each of the onboard unit Global Positioning System (GPS) inputs with the simulated data of each of the involved vehicles. The time at which the Cohda Wireless threat detection software issued an elevated warning was used to calculate a new impact speed using 3 different reaction scenarios and 2 levels of braking.

Results: It was found that between 37 and 86% of the simulated crashes could be avoided, with highest percentage due a fully autonomous system braking at 0.7 g. The same system also reduced the impact speed relative to the actual crash in all cases. Even when a human reaction time of 1.2 s and moderate braking of 0.4 g was assumed, the impact speed was reduced in 78% of the crashes. Crash types that proved difficult for the threat detection engine were head-on crashes where the approach angle was low and right turn–opposite crashes.

Conclusions: These results indicate that connected vehicle technology can be greatly beneficial in real-world crash scenarios and that this benefit would be maximized by having the vehicle intervene autonomously with heavy braking. The crash types that proved difficult for the connected vehicle technology could be better addressed if controller area network (CAN) information is available, such as steering wheel angle, so that driver intent can be inferred sooner. More accurate positioning in the real world (e.g., combining satellite positioning and accelerometer data) would allow the technology to be more effective for near-collinear head-on and rear-end crashes, because the low approach angles that are common in such crashes are currently ignored in order to minimize false alarms due to positioning uncertainty.     

航空公司安全信息管理水平评价方法研究

分析了目前我国航空公司在安全信息管理和安全信息管理水平综合评价方面存在的问题.从航空公司安全信息管理的实际工作出发,结合安全管理体系(SMS)中对于安全信息管理的要求,建立了航空公司安全信息管理水平评价指标体系,并针对每个评价指标建立了4个等级的评价标准.基于主成分分析方法建立了航空公司安全信息管理水平综合评价模型.按照建立的指标体系和评价标准对5家航空公司进行了安全信息管理水平评分,并以此数据为基础,利用建立的综合评价模型对5家公司的安全信息管理水平进行了综合评价和排序,针对评价结果对各航空公司提高安全信息管理水平提出了具体的建议措施.     

高温职业危害风险分级与分级管理研究

为进一步研究高温作业职业危害风险强度,探讨高温作业环境条件下环境温度与劳动强度对劳动者健康的影响及其联合作用。采用高温环境模拟仓实验与建筑行业露天高温作业现场调研和测试相结合的方法,以高温环境和心血管体能负荷值(%CVL)作为高温作业危害风险分级的主要参照指标。提出了高温作业职业危害风险分级的技术方法和针对不同程度高温职业危害风险管理措施的具体建议,为保护高温作业劳动者安全与健康提供科学依据。     

Multi-level water governance – the case of the Morsa River Basin in Norway

Management of fresh water resources meets a range of often conflicting interests. Waterways usually run across political and administrative borders and hence make management difficult and collective action politically challenging. In order to meet these challenges, multi-level bioregional approaches to water management have been called for. Such an approach is institutionalised in the EU's Water Framework Directive (WFD). This paper presents the experiences of the Morsa water sub-district in southern Norway, a pilot for implementing the WFD. The paper discusses Morsa in the light of four principles for multi-level water governance: management on a bioregional scale; polycentric governance; public participation; and an experimental approach to water governance. Contrary to widely held assumptions that collective action in polycentric networks will be difficult because actors will follow their own narrow interests, the findings demonstrate how this is not an absolute truth, and how social action cannot be fully explained by rational action theories. The analysis concludes that the relative success of Morsa relates to a complex of factors, including openness of practices and active involvement of key actors, strong but including leadership, and a knowledge based ‘hybrid’ type of multi-level network combining horizontal and vertical network governance.     

Compromising sustainable mobility? The case of the Gothenburg congestion tax

Congestion charging is widely considered an effective policy measure to regulate and reduce car traffic demand and associated environmental and health problems in cities. However, introducing restrictive measures to constrain individual choice and behaviour for the common good has often proven difficult. Using a specific case, the Gothenburg congestion tax introduced in 2013, we study the policy process behind the introduction of the tax and assess to what extent green values were compromised along the way. The tax was made possible by co-financing infrastructure investments, including roads, which seemingly contradicts stated goals of reducing car traffic and emissions. We show how the tax was ‘muddled through’ in a top-down political compromise by a grand coalition where different interests could legitimate their support in relation to the achievement of partially conflicting objectives and projects. However, to declare the regulatory goals fully neutralised would be to underestimate the scheme's direct environmental effects and restrictive potential. Finding a compromise with powerful political and economic interests was necessary to get it off the ground. Once launched, however, it can over time regain its restrictive properties and lead to more profound long-term effects.     

Adaptive co-management and network learning in the Room for the River programme

Adaptive co-management and learning are paramount for integrated flood risk management. Relevant literature focuses on adaptation at the level of physical and societal systems. The level of projects and programmes is largely overlooked, but they comprise interventions that adapt our physical systems and they provide opportunities for learning to contribute to transitions of societal systems. This paper aims to increase understanding on how learning takes place and can be stimulated within a programme. The mixed-method case study of Room for the River, a €2.3 billion programme for flood risk management, shows that a programme can be organised using various governance arrangements to stimulate learning and be a means for adaptive co-management to deliver upon environmental objectives.     

The evolution of socio-ecological systems: changing palm species management in the Colombian Amazon as an indicator of ecological and institutional change

We investigate natural resource governance in three indigenous communities in the Colombian Amazon. We base our analysis on an evolutionary governance model in which governance dimensions emerge as relevant through time. The less accessible of the communities represents earlier steps in governance evolution, while the more physically accessible is more integrated into the western scene. We observe how increased physical accessibility in a community brings in western governance models which hybridize with more traditional ones, influencing the couplings between the social and ecological systems. We zoom in on changing management of three commonly used palm species and illustrate how detailed studies of natural resource management contribute to understanding governance evolution. By comparing governance evolutions we were able to gain insights and improve our understanding on how natural resource management changes in communities transiting into western ways of living. In doing so we recognized points of rigidity and flexibility which might influence the social ecological systems capacity to adapt to changing conditions.     

平台信息系统批量生产管理研究

平台信息系统的批生产管理以往未受到足够的重视,分析了现行的批生产管理体系问题,从文件管理、质量和可靠性保障、工艺管理、组织管理和技术状态控制四个方面详细阐述了如何进行平台信息系统的批生产管理。     

The Aging of America's Reservoirs: In‐Reservoir and Downstream Physical Changes and Habitat Implications

Reservoirs are important for various purposes including flood control, water supply, power generation, and recreation. The aging of America's reservoirs and progressive loss of water storage capacity resulting from ongoing sedimentation, coupled with increasing societal needs, will cause the social, economic, environmental, and political importance of reservoirs to continually increase. The short‐ and medium‐term (<50 years) environmental consequences of reservoir construction and operation are well known and include an altered flow regime, lost connectivity (longitudinal, floodplain), an altered sediment regime, substrate compositional change, and downstream channel degradation. In general, reservoir‐related changes have had adverse consequences for the natural ecosystem. Longer term (>50 years) environmental changes as reservoirs enter “old” age are less understood. Additional research is needed to help guide the future management of aging reservoir systems and support the difficult decisions that will have to be made. Important research directions include assessment of climate change effects on aging and determination of ecosystem response to ongoing aging and various management actions that may be taken with the intent of minimizing or reversing the physical effects of aging.     

Reducing Fertilizer‐Nitrogen Losses from Rowcrop Landscapes: Insights and Implications from a Spatially Explicit Watershed Model

We present conceptual and quantitative models that predict changes in fertilizer‐derived nitrogen delivery from rowcrop landscapes caused by agricultural conservation efforts implemented to reduce nutrient inputs and transport and increase nutrient retention in the landscape. To evaluate the relative importance of changes in the sources, transport, and sinks of fertilizer‐derived nitrogen across a region, we use the spatially explicit SPAtially Referenced Regression On Watershed attributes watershed model to map the distribution, at the small watershed scale within the Upper Mississippi‐Ohio River Basin (UMORB), of: (1) fertilizer inputs; (2) nutrient attenuation during delivery of those inputs to the UMORB outlet; and (3) nitrogen export from the UMORB outlet. Comparing these spatial distributions suggests that the amount of fertilizer input and degree of nutrient attenuation are both important in determining the extent of nitrogen export. From a management perspective, this means that agricultural conservation efforts to reduce nitrogen export would benefit by: (1) expanding their focus to include activities that restore and enhance nutrient processing in these highly altered landscapes; and (2) targeting specific types of best management practices to watersheds where they will be most valuable. Doing so successfully may result in a shift in current approaches to conservation planning, outreach, and funding.