Advancing Pedestrian Safety and Case Study of Pedestrian Psychology at Railroad Grade Crossing

Author(s):  
Mohammad Shehada ◽  
Akshit Ahuja ◽  
Steven D. Schrock

Contrary to the declining railroad-highway crossing crashes over the past decade, the pedestrian-railroad interface has remained relatively unchanged. While engineering solutions and law enforcement have been tried, little is known about their effectiveness on the pedestrian mindset and psychology. One of the main reason for crashes of this type is that pedestrians tend to be restless while waiting at railroad crossings. This can lead to pedestrians performing irrational acts such as attempting to walk across a crossing before a train arrives. Earlier, trains traveled at slower speeds which pedestrians could react to easily and trains had less freight so it needed less braking distance and thus it was easier to control them. There are many factors with the potential to improve pedestrian safety at railroad crossings. In this paper the current safety norms for railroad crossings existing across in more than 40 major cities in US were analyzed to determine the existing safety standards for pedestrians at railroad grade crossings. State departments of transportation (DOTs) were contacted, along with professionals in public and private sector involved in safety at railroad crossing and ask them what according to them is a high risk railroad grade crossings in their area, safety practices that are common in their area, various threats to Safety implementation and then analyze these crossing for the types, safety signs and equipment present at them.

2012 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-20
Author(s):  
Marcus Jefferies ◽  
Swee Eng Chen

Private sector input into the procurement of public works and services is continuing to increase. This has partly arisen out of a requirement for infrastructure development to be undertaken at a rate that maintains and allows growth. This has become a major challange for the construction industry that cannot be met by government alone. The emergence of Build-Own-Operate-Transfer (BOOT) schemes as a response to this challange provides a means for developing the infrastructure of a country without directly impacting on the governments budgetary constraints. The concepts of BOOT are without doubt extremely complex arrangements, which bring to the construction sector risks not experienced previously. Many of the infrastructure partnerships between public and private sector in the pastare yet to provide evidence of successful completion, since few of the concession periods have expired. This paper provides an identified list of risk factors to a case study of Stadium Australia. The most significant risk associated with Stadium Australia include the bidding process, the high level of public scrutiny, post-Olympic Games facility revenue and the complicated nature of the consortium structure.  


2017 ◽  
Vol 33 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Luciana Castronuovo ◽  
Lorena Allemandi ◽  
Victoria Tiscornia ◽  
Beatriz Champagne ◽  
Norm Campbell ◽  
...  

Abstract: The Less Salt, More Life program was the first voluntary salt reduction initiative in Argentina. This article analyzes the perspectives of the stakeholders involved in this voluntary agreement between the Ministry of Health and the food industry to gradually reduce sodium content in processed foods. This exploratory case study used a qualitative approach including 29 in-depth interviews with stakeholders from the public and private sectors and identified the role of the different stakeholders and their perceptions regarding the challenges encountered in the policy process that contribute to the debate on public-private partnerships in health policies. The article also discusses the initiative’s main challenges and controversies.


2017 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 259-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne O’Brien ◽  
Jane Suiter

This article focuses on the gender of voices chosen as sources and presenters of radio news coverage in Ireland. The study examines the best and worst case studies across public and private sector broadcasters and argues that the question of gender balance in broadcasting goes beyond the simple issue of quantitatively proportionate participation to require a more complex and qualitatively fair and balanced presentation of women within news programming. We find a very clear gender bias with male-dominated coverage in both public and private sectors but with greater stereotyping by the latter.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tadhg Nagle ◽  
David Sammon ◽  
Walter Cleary

With the advent of new technology and digital trends, realizing value from data is a top priority for organizations. Along with this, the increased awareness that every business is a data business is beginning to take hold, especially in organizations engaging in data projects through the use of technologies such as Big Data, the Internet of Things and Advanced Analytics. However, it has been shown that there is a lack of understanding on how these projects will deliver value or benefit for the organization (LaValle et al. 2011). Or indeed, there is a lack of understanding on how to effectively manage and govern such projects and capabilities (Tallon 2013). In other words, implementing a data project does not automatically deliver business value, execute as expected, or make your organization data driven. To make your organization more effective when implementing data projects and developing a mature data capability, conversations need to be initiated between stakeholders and focus on the key problem to be solved by the data project. This focus is provided by answering six simple questions: why, what, when, who, where, and how. Yet, given the multitude of conversations that need to take place around the problem there are a lack of appropriate tools that can enable stakeholders to reach a shared understanding when planning data projects. Our research with major public and private sector organizations over the past three years has resulted in the development of a new ‘discursive template’ (c.f. Tsoukas and Chia 2002) (namely the Data Value Map - DVM to promote new transformative conversations within data projects while also producing a more rigorous and robust validation of the potential value of those projects. Moreover, this new approach is the output of four studies, which include: (i) a survey of over 50 organizations worldwide which examined the drivers, goals and barriers of data analytics, (ii) an analysis of 18 projects focused on developing data solutions, (iii) an analysis of over 100 implementations of the DVM, and (iv) one in-depth case study with multiple implementations. The objective of this paper is to present both our new approach for planning data projects along with the insights gained from these studies.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 2276 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marianela Espinoza ◽  
Noelia Campos ◽  
Rebekah Yang ◽  
Hasan Ozer ◽  
José P. Aguiar-Moya ◽  
...  

The environmental impact of road construction and rehabilitation can be associated with the increase of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which are highly related to climate change. Consequently, departments of transportation have recently focused on the development and implementation of tools to evaluate the performance of projects and minimize GHG emissions. An example is the use of life cycle assessment (LCA) to analyze and quantify the environmental impact of a product, system, or process, from cradle to grave. In this regard, the present case study quantifies the carbon footprint associated with the construction of the La Abundancia–Florencia highway, located in the province of San Carlos in Costa Rica. The analysis is also intended to generate consciousness both in the public and private sectors on the environmental impacts of road construction. After an LCA study, it was determined that the construction of the hot mix asphalt (HMA) layer generates a carbon footprint of 65.8 kg of CO2e per km of road. In addition, it was evident that HMA production generates the greatest environmental impact, among all the considered LCA production and construction stages, with a GHG contribution of 38% to 39% from bitumen only. Consequently, special attention to HMA production is required in order to minimize GHG emissions.


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