scholarly journals Assessing the Bus Bridging Effectiveness on the Operational Resilience of the Subway Service in Toronto

Author(s):  
Alaa Itani ◽  
Amer Shalaby

Unplanned rail disruptions result in substantial delays to passengers and severe effects on the economy of a large city like Toronto. While bus bridging has been a widely adopted method to replace the subway service in such events, its effect on the operational resilience of the subway service is less often studied. This study assesses the resilience of the subway network of Toronto employing an optimal bus bridging strategy. First, subway incidents are categorized based on their characteristics using K-mean clustering analysis. The incidents are then grouped based on the performance of optimal bus bridging plans. Classification and regression tree analysis is used for this task, employing two metrics: the total user delay and total number of shuttle buses under the optimal bridging scenario. Queueing and optimization models developed previously by the University of Toronto are used to determine and simulate the optimal bus bridging plans of a sample of incidents. The severity of unplanned disruptions is finally demonstrated using a severity scale and the effect of incident duration uncertainty is analyzed. The results show that along the congested city alignments, where the capacity of the roads and stations is limited, the bus bridging service is often insufficient to replace the train service. However, it could be a good alternative in uncongested subway segments where the available street capacity is relatively high, allowing large bus volumes to serve the corridor. This model is easily applicable to different rail systems and it could assess other systems to produce better bridging plans.

Foods ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 709
Author(s):  
Sofia G. Florença ◽  
Paula M. R. Correia ◽  
Cristina A. Costa ◽  
Raquel P. F. Guiné

This study investigated the knowledge, attitudes, consumption habits, and degree of acceptability of edible insects (EI) or derived products among Portuguese consumers. This work consisted of a questionnaire survey, undertaken on a sample of 213 participants. For the treatment of data, basic descriptive statistics were used, complemented with chi-square tests to assess some associations between categorical variables. Moreover, a tree classification analysis was carried out using a classification and regression tree (CRT) algorithm with cross-validation. The results indicated that people tend to have correct perceptions about the sustainability issues associated with the use of insects as alternative sources of protein; however, the level of knowledge and overall perception about their nutritive value is low. Regarding the consumption of EI, it was found that only a small part of the participants had already eaten them, doing it mostly abroad, by self-initiative, in a restaurant or at a party or event. Additionally, it was found that the reluctance to consume insects is higher if they are whole, but when they are transformed into ingredients used in food formulations, the level of acceptance increases. Furthermore, men have shown to have a better perception about EI, be more informed about sustainability, and have a higher level of acceptability when compared to women. As a final conclusion, it was observed that the Portuguese still show some resistance to adhere to the use of insects as replacements for meat products, but the market of insect based products can be a good alternative to overpass the neophobia associated with this type of food.


2011 ◽  
Vol 204 (1) ◽  
pp. S268
Author(s):  
Michelle Kominiarek ◽  
Paul VanVeldhuisen ◽  
Kimberly Gregory ◽  
Moshe Fridman ◽  
Judith Hibbard

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document