Volumen 20 (2019): Heft 1 (February 2019)

To achieve the overall goal of realising an efficient and advantageous participation of autonomous ground vehicles in the transport system as fast as possible, a lot of work is being done in different and specific research fields. One of the most important research fields, which has a large impact on safe autonomous ground vehicle realisation, is the development of path planning algorithms. Therefore, this work describes in detail the development and application of a hybrid path planning algorithm. The described algorithm is based on classical and heuristic path planning approaches and can be applied in unstructured and structured environments. The efficiency of the algorithm was investigated by applying the algorithm and executing theoretical and experimental tests. The theoretical and experimental tests were executed while optimising different complexity paths. Results analysis demonstrated that the described algorithm can generate a smooth, dynamically feasible and collision-free path.

Nowadays safety in railways is mostly achieved by automated system technologies such as ERTMS/ETCS. Nevertheless, on local railways (suburban and regional lines) several tasks still depend on the choices and actions of a human crew. With the aim to improve safety in such type of railways, this research proposes a system for the automatic detection and recognition of railway signs by means of the digital image processing technique. First field applications, carried out on the Italian railway network, show that the proposed system is very accurate (the percentage of correctly detected railway signs is about 97%), even at high train speeds.

Compared to homogeneous traffic flow, traffic speed variation is drastic with the involvement of heterogeneity. With an intent of studying the negative upshot of fluctuating speeds of heterogeneous traffic on the environment, the current paper is the outcome of the research done on various highways located in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana in India, with an objective of developing a comprehensive noise prediction model by taking into account the traffic and roadway factors. Quantified noise levels [Leq (dBA) and L10 (dBA)] revealed that for the traffic speed variation of 10 to 95 kmph, the traffic noise levels were significantly affected by the variations in the proportion of the vehicle. On a specific note, the proposed model can be effectively used for the highway traffic noise prediction especially for the heterogeneous traffic, as the difference between the measured and predicted noise levels are within 1 to 10 dB (A).

Since the mid-1990s, Colombia’s main airports (including those with the highest traffic) have been privatized, transferring governance to private operators. The remaining airports in the network (the smallest ones) continue with public governance. Based on this, the objective of this research article is to know, analyse and even measure the airport efficiency in a context of structural reform and at the same time compare this with the measure in airports with public governance. The methodology used to carry out the study is the Data Envelopment Analysis, and this methodology uses only “technical variables” (that is, only those related to infrastructure). The main results of the research reveal higher efficiency indices in the major (or more important) airports, almost all of them under private governance, although there is also a group of them (usually very small airports) with very low efficiency levels.

Vehicle Ad-hoc network (VANET) have sensing nodes moving with different speeds. The vehicular cloud is a group of vehicles communicating with each other to share the resources provided from the central cloud. The end-to-end throughput for multi-hop wireless network is analysed in this paper using a set of non-linear equations. The interference due to the hidden nodes and the neighbouring nodes is considered into computing the end-to-end throughput. The contention graph is used to clarify the connection among the nodes into the network to find the capacity of the individual links to facilitate estimating the end-to-end throughput. Effect of the cloud on the end-to-end throughput is also illustrated in this paper. The results show that the throughput with employing cloud is lower than that without using the cloud.

After three years of 0.1% Sulphur limit of the Sulphur Emission Control Area (SECA) enforcement, empirical results have shown that the fears that SECA regulation would be a disadvantage for the Baltic Sea maritime sector are unfounded. Results have also shown commendable compliance rate and improved environmental conditions for the BSR. Nonetheless, there is still a need to clear the air regarding the costs information obligations that are required from maritime actors regarding their compliance activities. These activities are arguably obviously needful but could also lead to an unintended increase of costs of regulations.

Using a BSR-wide survey and case studies, the paper identified SECA information obligations related to the shipowners from shipping line whose vessels ply the SECA waters. The authors further evaluated the costs of the administrative burden related to these tasks.

The results show that the administrative burden for SECA regulations is different for shipowners and maritime authorities.

Attainment of high competitiveness indicators of products and services is a natural goal of each enterprise. This goal stems from the desire of stakeholders to ensure the continuous, long-term development of a company and the high performance of labour results. However, the market has leaders and outsiders for various reasons. And the outsiders can be decently prepared in organizational and technical terms. But something prevents them from successfully developing. In addition, a decision of methodological and analytical tasks is not cheap. Competent experts, relevant technical and technological support of the process, and, most importantly, the conditions for creative work are required. It is necessary effective management decisions based on the detailed analysis of warranty period of cars operation for solving main problems related to the quality and products competitiveness. Similar analytical activity is helping to improve the life circle processes, creates the opportunities to enhance customer satisfaction and sustainable development of automakers. The research has updated a problem of design and realization effective analytical tools for an appointment the quality objectives for the automotive corporations. This paper presents the results of development and implementation of the new approach to the strategic planning of products competitiveness and setting the quality objectives by the example of automotive industry.

In this research is being analyzed trade relationship and unitized maritime cargo between Germany and Finland. Focus in longitudinal analysis (2001-2017) is on maritime transport, and particularly within the development of different Finnish sea ports in unitized German cargo handling. Trade has been significantly growing over the decades and is on record highs in the most recent year (2017). Germany has also become largest trade partner of Finland. However, after 2003 trade bas been on growing deficit path, and is currently more than one billion deficits for Finland. Rather surprisingly, unitized cargo flows are not growing as much as trade suggests. Still best years are from time before Global Financial Crisis (GFC). Some sea ports in Southwest of Finland have been on clear declining path, while largest sea ports could be considered as somehow sustaining in volumes. Growth is on some smaller and mid-sized sea ports, which have direct regional need for German trade. Hinterland transports through Baltic States must have taken share of direct maritime transports from Finnish sea ports.