Nordic Road and Transport Research 2-3-2005

NORDIC

ROAD AND TRANSPORT RESEARCH | NO.2/3 | 2005

Meet our Institutes – a presentation of the transport research institutes in the Nordic countries

P8

New Research on Pavements P16

Traffic Safety – important in all countries

P21

News from Danish Road Directorate (DRD) Danish Road Institute (DRI) The Road Directorate, which is a part of The Ministry of Transport & Energy, Denmark, is responsible for development and management of the national highways and for servicing and facilitating traffic on the network. As part of this responsibility, the Directorate conducts R&D, the aim of which is to contribute to efficient road management and to the safe use of the network. The materials research component is carried out by the Danish Road Institute.

Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT), VTT Building and Transport, employing a staff of 450, is one of the eight research units of the Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT), with a total staff of 3,000. VTT Building and Transport covers all fields of transport and road engineering. The unit is active in international research and has a prominent role on the national level.

Icelandic Road Administration (ICERA) The ICERA's mission is to provide the Icelandic society with a road system in accordance with its needs and to provide a service with the aim of smooth and safe traffic. The number of employees is about 340. Applied research and development and to some extent also basic research concerning road construction, maintenance, traffic and safety is performed or directed by the ICERA. Development division is responsible for road research in Iceland.

Editorial notes Nordic Road & Transport Research is a joint publication of six public road and transport research organisations in the Nordic countries, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. The main objective of the publication is to disseminate research results and news from the institutions, especially to researchers and decision makers. Each institution is responsible for the selection and presentation of the material from its own scope of activities.

Nordic Road & Transport Research is published three times a year. It is regularly sent out, free of charge, to recipients selected by the six joint publishers. Free sample copies are also sent out on special request.

Reproduction and quotation of the texts are allowed if reference is made to the author and source.

However, legislation regulates and restricts the right to reproduce the illustrations. Please contact the respective publishing institution for information.

Advertising is not accepted.

Correspondence about the contents of the publication: 2 | nordic no. 2/3 2005

Please write to the author or to the respective publishing organisation.

Requests for back issues, and notification of address changes: Readers outside the Nordic countries: please write to the Editor-in-chief at the VTI in Sweden.

Readers in the Nordic countries: please contact the publishing institution of your country.

Addresses: see back cover.

The Editorial Board consists of the following representatives of the publishing institutions Editor-in-Chief, Sweden Magdalena Green, VTI magdalena.green@vti.se

Denmark Helen Hasz-Singh, DRI helen.hasz-singh@dri.dk

Norwegian Public Roads Administration (NPRA) The Norwegian Public Roads Administration is one of the administrative agencies under the Ministry of Transport and Communications in Norway. The NPRA is responsible for the development and management of public roads and road traffic, as well as the Vehicle Department. This responsibility includes research and development of all areas related to road transport and the implementation of R&D products.

Institute of Transport Economics (TØI), Norway The Institute of Transport Economics is the national institution for transport research and development in Norway. The main objectives of the Institute are to carry out applied research and promote the application and use of results through consultative assistance to public authorities, the transport industry and others. The Institute is an independent research foundation employing about one hundred persons.

(VTI) VTI is an independent, internationally established research institute which is engaged in the transport sector. Our core competence is in the fields of safety, economy, environment, traffic and transport analysis, behaviour and the man-vehicle-transport system interaction, and in road design, operation and maintenance. VTI is a world leader in several areas, for instance in simulator technology.

Finland Kari Mäkelä, VTT kari.s.makela@vtt.fi

Iceland Hreinn Haraldsson, ICERA hrh@vegagerdin.is

Norway Nils Fearnley, TØI naf@toi.no Thorbjörn Risan, NPRA thorbjorn.risan@vegvesen.no

Graphic Design Johnny Dahlgren Grafisk produktion AB, Linköping, Sweden

Issue 3.500 ISSN 1101-5179 Cover Photos.com

www.vti.se/nordic

Contents In Brief | p4 The Danish Road Institutte | p8 VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland | p10 The Iceland Road Administration | p11 The Norwegian Public Roads Administration | p12 Institute of Transport Economics, Oslo Norway | p13 VTI– An Indipendent Transportation Research Institute | p14 Scanning Porous Pavements in a CT-Scanner | p16 Danish Road Directorate (DRD)

Roller-compacted Concrete Pavements | p18 Norwegian Public Roads Administration (NRPA)

Environmentally friendly pavements | p20 Norwegian Public Roads Administration (NRPA)

Simulation for EU | p21

Swedisth National Road and Transport Research Institute (VTI)

Seasonal Speed Limits and Heavy Vehicles | p22 Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT)

Young Car Passengers as Guardian Angels | p24 Institute of Transport Economics (TØI)

Common Objectices all over the World | p26 Swedisth National Road and Transport Research Institute (VTI)

Succcessful International Seminar | p28 Danish Road Directorate (DRD)

Swedish Expertise Can Help | p29 Swedisth National Road and Transport Research Institute (VTI)

Organising Trust in Public Transport | p30 Institute of Transport Economics (TØI)

Monitoring the Effects of Highway Traffic on Wild Reindeer by Satellites | p32 Norwegian Public Roads Administration (NRPA)

Norwegian Road Projects are now Profitable- the Government Reduces the Discount Rate | p34 Norwegian Public Roads Administration (NRPA)

Transport Information System in the Pol-Corridor Intermodal Freight Supply Channel | p36 Institute of Transport Economics (TØI)

Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT)

År | p36

Norwegian Public Roads Administration (NRPA)

Annotated Reports | p39

NORDIC NO. 2/3 2005 | 3

PHOTOS.COM

IN BRIEF

United Competence

The Hardangerbridge

VTI has joined the expert group United Competence. It consists of Swedish research institutes from several sectors of society.

A new bridge, which will connect national highways Rv7 and Rv13, is to be built over the Hardangerfjord. The Hardangerfjord is the 3rd longest fjord in the world extending 183 km (114 mi) into the country from the coast of western Norway.

Bondevik’s government, which was recently voted out of office, made a proposal for construction of the bridge to the parliament. But the new parliament has yet to decide. One expect a possible approval of the project early in 2006 and a construction period from 2008-2011.

The Hardangerbridge is planned as a 2 lane suspension bridge with a separate lane for bicycles and pedestrians. The bridge will have a main span of 1310 m and a total length of 1380 m. The bridge towers will have elevation of 186 m above sea level.

The project also includes a 2,4 km long tunnel and 0, 8 km long new road. In addi-

Why has VTI joined United Competence?

– I believe that in-depth cooperation with United Competence complements VTI’s market profile. We will have greater breadth in what we offer. Together with the other institutes in United Competence, we can form specially adapted teams of unique expertise to deal with many different types of work. United Competence has the expertise and the resources to create a ”dream team” for every project, says Urban Karlström, Director General of VTI. The parts make up a strong whole United Competence will have a leading position in applied r&d for the economy and society. The intention is that cooperation in United Competence should draw out the best from each participating institute. This will be assembled on the common platform in the fom of projects.

tion the project involves construction of a new 0, 9 km long bicycle and pedestrian lane on the approach to the bridge.

The project is estimated to 1810 mill Nkr 2005 (230 mill euro).

The Hardangerbridge will be the longest suspension bridge in Norway. The sailing height under the bridge will be 55 m.

The bridge will replace the ferry that currently connects highways Rv7 and Rv13 between Bruravik and Brimnes.

The bridge will serve the following functions: • Better communication in the inner Hardanger area • Improvement of the regional transportation between Odda and Voss, Bergen and Hardanger and Hardanger and Hallingdal.

• Give a better service for the traffic with ferry free connection east-west and north-south Homepage: http://www.vegvesen.no/ region_vest/prosjekter/hardangerbrua/ english/index.stm

Norwegian Transport Research in the Forefront Transport research will be given high priority in the European Commission's 7th Framework Programme (FP7). At the same 4 | nordic no. 2/3 2005

www.vti.se/nordic

time transport research is among the most successful areas of research in Norway. In FP6 the success rate, calculated as the proportion of successful bids, was more than 50 percent for research themes that cover the transport sector: "Sustainable surface transport" and "Aeronautics and space".

Compared to this, the Norwegian success rate in other research areas was less than a third.

With a success rate of 64 percent the Institute of Transport Economics outperformed all other Norwegian research institutes that were bidding for FP6 projects.

The figure is even more impressive when measured in terms of budgets won. The Institute of Transport Economics won 92 percent of funds applied for!

The Framework Programme (FP) is the European Union's main instrument for funding research and development. The next Framework Programme, FP7, will be fully operational from 2007.

Recycled Materials in Road and Airfield Pavements The conference "Bearing capacity of roads and airfields" is now succesfully completed. More information on the conference web site: http://www.ivt.ntnu.no/bat/ vs/bcra/bcra05.htm.

A pre-conference workshop "Recycled materials in road and airfield pavements", took place in Oslo, 25 June 2005. This workshop was organized by the Norwegian Roads Recycling R&D Program (Gjenbruksprosjektet) and the Recycled Materials Resource Center, University of New Hampshire, USA. Here you can find the program of the workshop: http://www.gjenbruksprosjek-

tet.net/article/archive/148/.

You can also download the papers and the presentations from this link.

Swedish Researcher Director of NordForsk Liisa Hakamies-Blomqvist assumed the post of Director of NordForsk in October. Liisa earlier worked as director of research at VTI. The Nordic Council of Ministers has reorganised its research system and founded NordForsk. It is now an independent body under the Council of Ministers with responsibility for Nordic cooperation in research and researcher training.

NordForsk will cooperate closely with the corresponding national institutes and is expected to award MNOK 60-70 in 2005 for Nordic cooperation within its sphere of responsibility. The secretariat is located in Oslo.

shop were to present and discuss the results from the first part of the DRI-DWW noise abatement program with experts and users in the Netherlands, Denmark and other foreign countries.

An important aim was also to get comments and criticism from international specialists for the next part of the research work, as well as to give road authorities and the international specialists an opportunity to give recommendations for the second part of the research program.

TØI Researcher Joins World Bank Advisory Panel

TØI researcher Henning Lauridsen joins World Bank Advisory Panel

Noise Reducing Pavements In the period from 2004 to 2007, the Dutch (DWW) and the Danish (DRI) road research institutes are conducting a joint research program called the “DRI-DWW noise abatement program”. This is part of the Dutch Innovation Program on Noise, also called the IPG research program. The joint Dutch-Danish research is mainly directed towards developing, testing and improving noise reducing pavements.

Porous pavements and thin layers are in focus in the research program As an important part of the “DRI-DWW noise abatement program” a two-day invited workshop took place in October 2005 in Denmark. The main goals for the work-

Senior TØI researcher Henning Lauridsen is appointed to a committee tasked with overseeing the evaluation of the World Bank's transport infrastructure lending, the so-called World Bank Advisory Panel for OED

Transport Review.

The Operations Evaluation Department (OED) is an independent department within the World Bank Group established to review systematically and comprehensively, all Bank lending operations, and to evaluate their contribution to the development process in member countries. The basic purpose of these reviews is to learn from experience, demonstrate accountability for funds disbursed, and contribute to the Bank's continuing effort to improve the quality of its lending and technical assistance activities. This transport sector review will fill a significant gap in OED’s evaluations of the effectiveness of lending in infrastructure at a time of renewed Bank emphasis in this field. nordic no. 2/3 2005 | 5

Expansion of the Road Directorate Since 2002, the Danish government has been working on a new administrative structure, reducing the number of municipalities from 172 to about 100, which will have a size of at least 30,000-50,000 inhabitants. Furthermore, it is planned that the present 13 counties will merge into a number of regions which will be responsible for healthcare and education. The structural changes will be in effect as of 2007.

A newly approved amendment to the act of the Danish road sector will lead to a doubling of the staff of the Road Directorate from approximately 450 to 900 employees.

The main road network in Denmark will be administrated by the Road Directorate and the more local road network by the municipalities as of 2007. About 2,000 km or 1,240 miles will be added to the national road network, served by the Road Directorate, in addition to the 1,700 km or 1,000 miles, administrated at present. Another 8,000 km or 4,960 mi will be transferred from the counties to the municipalities.

The Danish Road Directorate is currently planning the establishment of six Road Centres throughout Denmark.

Under One Roof Earlier the various departments, laboratories and workshops of the Danish Road Institute were in three different locations.

A suitable building was found east of Roskilde.

After reconstruction of the existing building and construction of two new buildings, the Danish Road Institute, the Eastern branches of the Construction and Maintenance Units and the Road Sector Training Centre moved to the new premises during spring and early summer of 2005.

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The project leader of the selected project writes a brief article on the project and then attends the annual meeting where he gives a talk. The article and the talk are judged as to their content, presentation and timing. Mats’ talk was entitled ”WearTox – The effects of wear particles from tyres and the carriageway on macrophages and epitheleal cells”.

This move has made better co-operation between the different departments within the Danish Road Institute and also between the various divisions of the Road Directorate possible.

On 26 August, the new premises were officially opened with a reception for working partners, colleagues and friends of the Danish Road Institute and the Construction and Maintenance Units.

The Danish Road Institute can now be found at the following address: Guldalderen 12 2640 Hedehusene Denmark

WearTox Project Won a Prize Mats Gustafsson of the Transport and Environment unit has been awarded the 2005 Research Prize in Committee 33 Road Surfacings - of the Nordic Association of Road Engineers.

Mats received his prize of 10,000 Danish kronor in the Faroe Islands where the Committee had its annual meeting for 2005. He naturally thinks that it was very pleasant to receive this award, and also says that there was jubilation among the Swedish delegation since Sweden had not won this prize for many years.

The way this prize is awarded is that each Nordic country chooses one of several proposed national research projects.

Nordic Rail Trade Fair VTI gave details of its work and presented parts of its railway research on a stand at this year’s Nordic Rail Trade Fair at Jönköping, Sweden, on 4-6 October. The stand attracted many visitors and many new contacts were made. There was great interest in the simulator SST (Simulator for Railbound Traffic) which VTI exhibited on the stand.

VTI also gave visitors the opportunity to attend a number of miniseminars. Birgitta Thorslund and Jerker Sundström gave details of research results related to rail sickness. According to these two VTI researchers, the problem is related to the actual design of tilting fast trains. In order to compensate for the tilt in curves at high speed, the coaches are supported on a tilting mechanism, which increases stability.

But some people react since their body senses the compensation made by the tilting mechanism as unnatural. Mats Wiklunds of VTI gave a talk on the vulnerability of the rail transport system.

www.vti.se/nordic

IN BRIEF

MCDA The MCDA European Working Group has held its northernmost meeting so far, in September in Sweden. The meeting gathered 45 participants from the group, consultants and sponsors. Thirteen countries were represented.

The meeting was hosted by the VTI. The main theme of this reunion was: Infrastructure, Transport and Multicriteria Decision Aiding.

The key note speaker, Roger Vickerman , Jean Monnet Professor of European Economics at University of Kent, gave the group a challenge under the heading: ” Evaluating infrastructure projects. In defence of (good) Cost-Benefit Analysis.” A decision support is a way to structure advantages and disadvantages of proposed decisions. Distributional and welfare issues are always at the centre of politics. CBA has well known properties and limits.

Fourteen presentations gave examples on what MCDA could contribute to the theme. Several cases where MCDA works as a support were given. An evidence coming out of the examples is that MCDA methods are part of a development of decision support, where more traditional planning and evaluation methods are regarded as inadequate or at least insufficient. A role for MCDA as an established form as a decision support is still a bit away in public infrastructure planning.

Speed Limit System VTI has carried out a project to investigate the speed limits and the traffic situation in Abu Dhabi and concern has been taken to the traffic situation, the mean speeds on the roads, road environment and accidents. Of special interest has been to study whether there is room for increasing the speed limit on certain roads or whether it is

already too high. There are today no major problems with delays and congestion in Abu Dhabi so the focus has been on traffic safety rather than capacity.

This project has been initiated by his highness Sheikh Saif and has been carried out by a consortium consisting of VTI, Sweden and the Emirates Driving Company (EDC), UAE. This study includes the Abu Dhabi city area and the highway connections leading into Abu Dhabi. In this area 14 road sections are chosen as representative for the roads in Abu Dhabi. They are chosen to represent the variety of road types and speed limits of interest in the studied area.

It is 3 motorway sections and 11 sections within Abu Dhabi city.

Three Norweigian

Brynhild Snilsberg is a PhD student employed at the Norwegian Public Roads Administration.

This year she started her PhD study about characterization of suspended particulate matter from pavement abrasion in Nordic countries at the Centre for Road and Traffic Technology in Trondheim.

Snilsberg has a background from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) with a Master of Science in Environmental and Resources Engineering at the Department of Geology and Mineral Resources Engineering in 1999. She has previous experience as a project engineer at Norsk Gjenvinning AS (waste handling, pollution in soil and water, thermal treatment and recycling) and as a scientist at NTNU (modeling of

thermal treatment of waste).

Contact address: brynhild.snilsberg@vegvesen.no.

Also see: http://www.vegvesen.no/ miljovegdekke/engelsk.stm Joralf Aurstad is a Civil engineer (M.Sc) from the Norwegian Institute of Technology 1985.

Most of the years since then he has worked at SINTEF Division of Highway Engineering in Trondheim.

As research scientist at SINTEF Joralf has worked with design, construction and maintenance of road and airfield pavements, especially on material testing and evaluation. He has been leader of several projects on asphalt properties, asphalt performance and recycling and frequently been giving lectures on courses and seminars within these subjects.

Joralf is currently employed as a senior engineer at the Norwegian Public Roads Administration, Centre for Road and Traffic Technology in Trondheim.

Contact address: joralf.aurstad@vegvesen.no Rabbira Garba Saba obtained Dr. Ing. degree in highway engineering from Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in 2002.

His area of specialization was asphalt material properties/asphalt technology. He was a post doctoral research fellow at NTNU from 2002 – 2004. He has been working at the Centre for Road and Traffic Technology, Norwegian Public Roads Administration, Trondheim, since October 2004 and starting September 2005, he got a permanent position as a senior engineer.

Currently he is involved in research and development projects on asphalt pavement performance modelling and environmentally friendly pavements. Contact address: rabbira.saba @vegvesen.no Also see: http://www.vegvesen.no/ miljovegdekke/engelsk.stm nordic no. 2/3 2005 | 7

THE INSTITUTES

The Danish Road Institute

Research on – and Knowledge About – Roads The Danish Road Institute carries out research, development and consultancy services.

The Danish Road Institute is a part of the Danish Road Directorate which employs about 450 people. The Institute has some 80 employees.

I

n our facility in Hedehusene, Denmark, we share our offices with the Eastern branches of the Construction and Maintenance Units and the Road Sector Training Centre, VEJ-EU. Our main task is to provide reliable data on road-related issues, in order to enable road administrators in the private and public road sector to make sensible decisions. Whether you are dealing with a small road in a municipality or a major highway network, it is of utmost importance that you can trust that road materials and road building methods are of the highest quality. The Danish Road Institute tries to facilitate this by thorough research into new and known materials.

We also try to be up-front with the latest techniques for measuring and investigating roads and we are constantly looking for ways to improve the relations between providers, entrepreneurs and road administrations, for instance through counselling on private-public partnering.

Focus areas Safe roads Even and durable roads with a high level of friction are one of the means towards increased traffic safety. The better the friction is, the better safety is achieved. The more durable roads are, the fewer repairs need to be carried out and thus there are fewer dangerous situations for road workers and traffic users.

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The Danish Road Institute researches and develops long life pavements and functional properties for various types of roads.

We also measure and register uneven roads or roads, which are in other ways, unsafe.

Knowledge about roads The Danish Road Institute distributes knowledge on roads to the Danish and foreign road sectors. We regard ourselves as the knowledge centre of the road sector and would like to come into dialogue with all users of roads. Our research results are presented in reports, on homepages, in articles and at conferences, at home and abroad, and also through teaching different courses.

Also at the Danish Road Institute, the Road Sector Library can be found. The Library gathers and distributes Danish and foreign technical literature.

Noise reducing pavements Road traffic is the greatest source of noise in society and is a problem in many places, where human beings live. Noise is a particular problem in urban areas and about 70% of habitations plagued by noise are situated in towns with more than 20,000 inhabitants. We focus on road pavements as sources of noise and in that connection, we have a co-operation with the Dutch road authorities on road pavements with noise reducing properties.

Supervision with roads Advanced IT systems play a major role in the management of our roads. The Danish Road Institute delivers road maintenance systems and data to the Danish road sector.

The measurements are used to plan road maintenance, but are also used to evaluate road safety, road environment, passability and comfort, etc. We measure the evenness and friction of roads, rutting and whether a road has sufficient bearing capacity.

Environmentally friendly roads The Danish Road Institute evaluates the condition of roads with a view to recycling materials. We examine and give advice in connection with projects, where previously known materials are used. We work on creating the possibility to use more residual products in road construction and road maintenance.

The Danish Road Institute has participated in projects with volcanic ash and crushed concrete as road fill. A current example is LCA (Life Cycle Analysis), where the entire road and its materials from cradle to grave are analysed.

Economic roads Durable roads are a key word for the future infrastructure. Each year, congestion due to road repairs of worn roads cost society many million Euros. This applies in www.vti.se/nordic

Denmark and this also applies in the rest of world, in particular around major cities.

The Danish Road Institute is testing traditional and new road surfaces in order to evaluate their durability and properties.

Consultancy on roads The Danish Road Institute offers consultancy services to the Danish road sector on road construction and road maintenance.

Furthermore, we provide support to road administrations on choice of wearing courses, analysis of pavement and calculations on the need for reinforcement. We give advice on planning of road management through various road data systems.

Quality control of roads The condition of the road network is of importance for the mobility of society, its infrastructure and for the capital investment which has been made in the road net-

work. In addition, good control systems also ensure good co-operation between contractors, suppliers and road owners.

The Danish Road Institute carries out quality control of road materials before, during and after a road construction. This is done in our laboratories and by our measuring vehicles on site.

Current research and development projects In our new strategy for Research and Development, we emphasize the need to demonstrate the use of road research by communication and demonstration projects. Our aim is to maintain a public and political awareness of our field of work by visualizing the cause and effect of economical and environmental sustainable roads to society.

In the latter years, the Danish Road Institute has been involved in several inte-

resting and rewarding collaborations with private and public partners on research and development projects. One of these is a road stretch with noise-reducing porous asphalt in central Copenhagen, where a joint effort between The Danish Road Directorate, Danish Environmental Protection Agency, the Municipality of Copenhagen and 3 private partners has led to significant and useful results.

www.roadinstitute.dk

Danish Ministry of Transport and Energy

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THE INSTITUTES

VTT Aims to Improve Traffic Safety and Environmentally Friendly Transport System VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland is a contract research organisation involved in many international assignments. With its 2800 employees, VTT provides a wide range of technology and applied research services for its clients, private companies, institutions and the public sector. Turnover is about 210 million euros.

We serve annually over 5000 domestic and foreign customers.

V

TT, Technical Research Centre of Finland's, main objective within the area of transport, is to help in developing an efficient, safe and environmentally friendly transport system and infrastructure to enhance the competitiveness of the Finnish industry and the well-being of society. Our competence in these expertise areas is available to the entities in forms of strategic R&D and market oriented research and development. In addition to national activities, we need to have a leading role in certain areas in international level to be able to serve our customers well.

Our services are based on internationally competitive comprehensive competence connected with the facilities necessary to perform experimental research. Long term strategic research financed by basic funding or joint funding ensures that the competence and services needed by our customers are available also in the future.

The field of activity covers research and development of transportation, logistics and road structures. The work is carried out in five research groups.

The research of the Traffic Safety Group covers road and rail transport from the perspectives of traffic and infrastructure management and the users of transport facilities. The main objective is to provide decision-makers information of the

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impacts on safety caused by different kinds of changes in the transport system. The scope of the research extends from the estimation of the impacts single safety measures to national and European transport safety programmes.

Logistics research aims to foster the logistics competitiveness of companies and improve decision making in public administration. Special areas of expertise consist of new operating models and principles for demand and supply chains as well as the management of freight transportation and logistics telematics.

Transport system research focuses on travel behaviour, transport models and forecasts, transport policy, public transport as well as on environmental and economic impacts of transport.

TransportTelematics group develops implementation and production strategies for the needs of public sector and private companies as well as undertakes multidisciplinary research related to Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS). The areas of expertise include analysis of user requirements, ITS system design and specifications, human-machine interface analysis, and the technical, impact, and socio-economic evaluation of ITS. Road structures and infrasurvey teams work on the following subjects: road struc-

tures, pavement analysing systems, frost engineering vibrations and soil dynamics.

The research subjects have been approached from the viewpoint of the life cycle technology. That involves also the development of procurement practices. The research has comprised the research of the deformation reduction of pavement materials and the performance requirements in maintenance contracts. The general quality requirements for infrastructures; roads, streets, tracks and pipelines have been developed together with the branch. In the future we will direct more towards the development of products and processes.

Heikki Kanner

www.vtt.fi

www.vti.se/nordic

THE INSTITUTES

The Icelandic Road Administration (ICERA) The Icelandic Road Administration is responsible for the planning, construction and operation of the national road network.

It is also authorized to grant subsidies for ferry operations, some domestic flight routes and some public transport in rural areas.

The Icelandic Road Administration issues licenses to firms and bodies operating buses, trucks and taxis. Applied research concerning road construction, maintenance and traffic and safety is performed or directed by ICERA. The authority with its Research and Development division is reponsible for road research in Iceland.

A

ccording to the Road Act no. 45/1994 the Minister of Transport and Communications has authority over all matters concerning roads and ultimate management is in the hands of the Director General of the Icelandic Road Administration.

The Icelandic Road Administration constitutes of headquarters in Reykjavik and four regional offices. The tasks are broadly divided so that the Director General´s office and the three headquar-

ters divisions are in charge of management (targets, planning, regulation and supervision) in addition to providing services which is convenient to handle centrally.

The headquarters are also responsible for sustaining powerful expertise in fields where ICERA is active. Regional offices are in charge of construction, maintenance and operation of the road system, along with service for road users.

The competent authorities of road research in Iceland are The Ministry of

Transport and Communication and The Icelandic Road Administration. No transport research institute exists in the country and instead the authorities have established R&D departments within their organisations. The road research work is mainly carried out within ICERA, or by other institutions and consultants through contracts.

Through the Road Act, ICERA has 1% of the yearly budget allocated to Research & Development.

The mission of the Icelandic Road Administration: To provide society with road system in accordance with its needs and to provide a service with the aim of smooth and safe traffic.

The objectives: A. Smooth traffic on Iceland's roads B. High traffic safety C. Good service D. Harmonious relationship with the ronment and community

envi-

www.vegagerdin.is

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THE INSTITUTES

The Norwegian Public Roads Administration The Norwegian Public Roads Administration is responsible for the planning, construction and operation of the national and county road networks, vehicle inspection and requirements, driver training and licensing. It is also authorized to grant subsidies for ferry operations.

O

n matters pertaining to national roads, the Public Road Administration is under the direction of the Ministry of Transport and Communications. On those related to county roads, the Regional Director is subordinated the county legislature.

The Public Roads Administration is under the leadership of the Directorate of Roads, is an autonomous agency and is subordinated the Ministry of Transport and Communication. The Public Roads Administration encompasses five regional offices.

The Public Roads Administration was reorganized January 1st, 2003. One of the results of the reorganization in the Directorate of Roads was the establishment of a new Department of Technology. A part of the new department, called “Centre for Road and Traffic Technology”, was established in Trondheim. Most of the activities linked to research and development within the NPRA area are now carried out from the Centre for Road and Traffic Technology.

The Department of Technology has lea-

ding edge technology in the area of roads, tunnels and bridges and performes activities as: • Consulting • Design & control • Research and development • Specifications and guidelines • Information and tuition • Laboratory work • Management of “New ideas & suggestion-box” Our Vision is On the road towards a better society The objective of the Norwegian Public Roads Administration: To develop and maintain a safe, eco-friendly and efficient transport system. This is being done on a sound, professional basis by interacting with politicians, users and other interested parties.

Values We want to: • take responsibility and show trust • be open and customer-friendly • be open-minded and create job satisfaction

www.vegvesen.no

With its length of 1615 m, the Nordhordaland bridge is the world longest bridge constructed as a combination of floating bridge and cable bridge.

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www.vti.se/nordic

THE INSTITUTES

Institute of Transport Economics Oslo, Norway

The Institute of Transport Economics (Transportøkonomisk institutt, TØI) was established in 1958 and is a national Norwegian institution for transport research and development.

T

he Institute is a research foundation with idealistic objectives. It holds no interests in any commercial, manufacturing or supplying organisation. The board is appointed by the Ministry of Transport and Communications and the Research Council of Norway.

The main objectives of the Institute are to carry out applied multidisciplinary research on issues related to transport and to promote the application of research results by advising government authorities, the transport industry and the public in general. Its sphere of activity includes most of the current issues in road, rail, sea and air transport, as well as urban transport, environmental issues and traffic safety.

Special emphasis is placed on the practical application of research results, and most of the studies and projects are commissioned. In recent years, the Institute has been engaged in a number of research projects for the European Union. In addition, several studies have been carried out in developing countries funded by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD), the World Bank and other development agencies.

The Institute normally has at least 200 research projects in progress at any time.

They vary in duration from a few months to several person-years. Research activities at TØI are undertaken within a programme structure that covers the main research areas. Currently, the following research

The Institute has a total staff of approximately 90 employees, of whom about two thirds are researchers. As is evident from the diagram, the research staff is highly multidisciplinary.

TØI's transport library boasts an impressive 30,000 volumes and subscribes to approximately 230 different journals.

Visitors are welcome to use our library facilities.

programmes are in operation at the institute: • Cost benefit analysis • Financing public transport • Freight transport • International logistics • Network based transport models • Planning and decision-making processes • Regional analysis • Risk analyses, meta-analysis and costbenefit analyses • Strategic market analyses • Tourism • Traffic safety and the interaction between road users, road system, and vehicles • Traffic, health and urban Environment • Travel behaviour

Lasse Fridstrøm is Managing Director of TØI

www.toi.no

NORDIC NO. 2/3 2005 | 13

THE INSTITUTES

VTI

– An Independent Transportation Research Institute

VTI is an independent, internationally established research institute which is engaged in the transport sector.

Our work covers all modes, and our core competence is in the fields of safety, economy, environment, traffic and transport analysis, behaviour and the man-vehicle-transport system interaction, and in road design, operation and maintenance. VTI is a world leader in several areas, for instance in simulator technology.

VTI is one of the leading research institutes in Europe. By virtue of our own resources and our unique network, we are a stable R&D partner for both national authorities and universities and for the business sector, and in many cases it has direct applications in Swedish and European transport policy.

As a commissioning organisation, you can benefit from the fact that our research is at the forefront of international research in many areas. Our national and international networks and alliances with other research institutes and universities are guarantee of breadth, depth and an multidisciplinary approach in the production of knowledge.

You as customer will find that VTI is a knowledge centre of wide scope for research and development of an internationally high standard and for indepth investigations in the transport sector, witch gives the greatest consideration to the needs of its customer.

Urban KarlstrĂśm, Director General 14 | NORDIC NO. 2/3 2005

V

TI provides services ranging from preliminary studies, high-level independent investigations and expert statements to project management, research and development. Our technical equipment includes driving simulators for road and rail traffic, a road laboratory, a tyre testing facility, crash tracks and a lot more. We can also offer a broad selection of courses and seminars in the field of transport.

Research and development The strategic role of our research and development is to constantly improve knowledge of the transport sector, with the aim of contributing to the achievement of the transport policy targets – an accessible transport system, high transport quality, safe traffic, good environment, positive regional development and an equal opportunity transport sector.

Research and development, when carried out properly, also provides opportunities for growth in the economy. Well

functioning cooperation among research institutes, universities and the economy is important for favourable development.

VTI is actively engaged on both research and development. Our research and development work extends from basic and applied research to experimental development work.

The objective of our basic research is to search for new knowledge systematically and methodically, without having any specific application in sight. The aim of our applied research is to develop knowledge that we can use in a specific project or work.

In our development work, the results of our research are used systematically and methodically to improve or create new products, processes or systems in the transport sector.

BIC VTI Library and Information Centre (BIC) www.vti.se/nordic

PHOTOS.COM

collects, organizes, stores and disseminates information in the field of transport and communication research. BIC gives you acess to extensive experience, a broad contact network and many sources of information both nationally and internationally.

The BIC databases can be searched free of charge via Transguide, www.transguide.org.

Technical equipment VTI carries out independent measurement and testing with advanced technical equipment. Examples of facilities we have at our disposal are a road laboratory, equipment for road testing, tyre test facility, driving simulators and a road simulator.

Several of our technical equipments are unique, such as our frost penetration meter and frost tester. Our facility for crash tests on heavy vehicles is unique in the Nordic countries, and at present we can test vehicles up to 16 tons.

In the new driving simulator we can

measure and test everything ranging from the human-machine interface, driver behaviour, the effects of fatigue and drugs to road design, tunnel design, the reactions of the human body, drivers with impairments and new systems in vehicles.

www.vti.se

Some of Our Technical Equipment.

NORDIC NO. 2/3 2005 | 15

PAVEMENTS The Patient’s Name:

Scanning Porous Pavements in a CT-Scanner The Danish Road Institute (DRI) now has the possibility to look inside pavements without having to use the well-known DRI microscopy technique on thin and plane sections. The Technical University in Delft, the Netherlands, has a CT-Scanner and as a result of research cooperation, DRI now has the possibility to use the CT-Scanner. The CT technique is usually used to scan patients at hospitals, but can also be used to analyse cores – without having to “perform surgery” on the patient.

I

n early 2004, DRI and the Dutch Road and Hydraulic Engineering Institute (DWW) entered into formal research cooperation within the framework of the ambitious Noise Innovation Program (IPG program) as described in the Danish Road Magazine 2004/04. In three of the projects, Ravelling of Porous Pavements, Modified Bitumen used for Porous Pavements and Clogging of Porous Pavements an important part of the work is to analyse the cores from Dutch porous asphalt pavements. Initially, the idea was to analyse the asphalt structure of the cores using the thin and plane section technique, but early in the project it was decided that DRI also should analyse the x-rays (CT-scans), that would be executed within the IPG-program. CT-scans of the cores are done at the Technical University in Delft before shipment to DRI where the thin and plane sections are prepared and analysed. At the same time as DRI analyses the cores, a ph.d. project is being carried out in The Netherlands that will examine the aging of binder of the

16 | NORDIC NO. 2/3 2005

same types of pavements with known asphalt testing methods.

How does a CT-scanner work?

A CT-scanner is normally used to scan people. A traditional x-ray examination gives a picture of tissue, fat, air and bones on a single plane. It is therefore not possible to differentiate between the structures that for example lie behind bones or other x-ray resistant material. CT Computer Tomography – creates a series of x-ray images that are taken in a cross section of the head, the body or limbs.

Popularly speaking, the body is “cut” into slices reminiscent of a slicing machine. The many pictures can then be studied individually or with the aid of computer technology be adapted to create a three-dimensional picture enabling the patient to be studied from all angles.

If the patient is a core of porous asphalt, it is therefore possible to see stones, binders and voids in three dimensions. A computer can subsequently calculate the relati-

ve density of the materials in the scanned cross section and draw a two-dimensional picture of this. For each cross section a twodimensional picture is taken and these are then joined to form a three-dimensional picture that can be viewed from all sides.

The Dutch CT-scanner was bought second-hand from a hospital and has been placed in a special lead insulated room at the Technical University in Delft. The scanner was delivered with the software that was used at the hospital, so when testing, data regarding the patient’s name, age and gender has to be entered. It is therefore up to the user to determine whether the asphalt to be tested is male or female!

Clogging of porous asphalt On the Dutch motorway A12, cores have been drilled from a new and a 7 year old two-layer porous asphalt pavement. The cores were scanned in The Netherlands in the CT-scanner and subsequently sent to DRI for microscopy of thin and plane sections. By comparing the two, it is possible www.vti.se/nordic

Cores of porous asphalt from the Dutch motorways (above left) are examined in the CT-Scanner at TU in Delft (above right). Results of the scanning can be seen as a 3D-model of the asphalt core (below left). Cores are prepared for thin and plane section at DRI (below right).

to see where clogging has occurred. As cross sections are scanned every mm the resolution along the vertical axis of the core is 1 mm. The Amira速 program makes it possible to view the model from all angles as well as to make random images of cross sections. It is also possible to calculate the distribution of aggregate, bitumen mortar and voids on the different levels. It is however, not possible to distinguish between sand and bitumen in the mortar.

Many new possibilities The above described techniques will be used to analyse the over 100 cores with a view to finding an explanation of why certain types of porous asphalt pavements are more susceptible to ravelling than others, influencing their durability. Examinations will be carried out to see how, when and where a porous asphalt pavement becomes clogged and if it helps to clean the pavement. By combining the excellent overview properties of the CT-scanner images with the details provided by the analysis of the thin and plane sections, a powerful tool for further research is at our disposal that can be used on many other types of pavements, both in Denmark and abroad.

Carsten Bredahl Nielsen, M.Sc. ph.d.

Danish Road Directorate, Danish Road Institute, can@vd.dk

NORDIC NO. 2/3 2005 | 17

PAVEMENTS

Roller-compacted Concrete Pavements Service Life up to 50-100 Years in Tunnels?

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oller-compacted concrete is a special concrete that is used for concrete pavements. The concrete is produced in a mixing plant, laid out with a suitable paver and is compacted in its unhardened state with a vibrating roller. To obtain a homogeneous concrete with a smooth surface and sufficient strength after rolling, stringent demands are placed on aggregate particlesize distribution, quantity of cement and water content. As the concrete pavement does not have dowels or reinforcement, it is important to reduce shrinkage and joint movements. The use of studded tyres in Norway during winter also places special demands on the aggregate’s wearing resistance and the properties of the concrete.

During the period 1985 - 1995 a total of 68 km of concrete roads was constructed in Norway using this method, of which almost 60 km was in tunnels. The annual average daily traffic (AADT) on these stretches ranges from 200 to 10 000 vehicles per day, the majority having low traffic volumes. By 2005, almost 15 km of these concrete roads will have been paved over with asphalt. The remaining 53 km are located almost entirely in tunnels or on bridges.

Roller-compacted concrete pavements cost twice as much as a normal asphalt road, subbase included. To have a net socio-economic benefit the concrete pavement must have clear advantages in the form of longer service life, reduced maintenance costs, traffic safety and other 18 | NORDIC NO. 2/3 2005

advantages for road users. As roller-compacted concrete pavements have been in service more than 10 years, it is possible to identify trends in their long-term service condition.

Wheel tracks or rutting in Norwegian roads are primarily due to the widespread use of studded tyres. In particular for AADT over 3–4000, studded tyres have being the dominant cause for surface replacement, especially for asphalt wearing surfaces. This results in re-asphalting every 3–6 years with correspondingly relatively high costs.

The following figure give data of observed rutting per year (mm) for stretches of road with asphalt and roller-compacted concrete pavements. The observed rut depths are about 3 times higher on asphalt compared with roller-compacted concrete.

Measurements performed on rollercompacted concrete pavements show very small annual increases in rut depth and IRI. Based on measurements performed the last 10 years, the annual average increase in rut depth for all roller-compacted concrete pavements is 0.3 mm/year. Where the AADT is close to 10 000 vehicles, the increase in rut depth is 1–2 mm/year.

In general, there have been no problems with joints during the period the concrete pavement has been in service.

Some damages have occurred, in particular where joint spacing was too big (20 m).

Joint damage has also occurred where the concrete quality was very uneven or the subbase was not properly constructed.

At some locations, water seepage and pumping has accelerated the damage.

Damage of longitudinal centre joints occ-

www.vti.se/nordic

PHOTOS.COM

Studded tires, one of the main problems for pavement maintenance.

urred in general due to cold joint construction.

Concrete separation during paving occasionally caused cracking and erosion of material in the longitudinal joint. Most of the damages have been repaired by surface repair.

An advantage of roller-compacted concrete pavements in tunnels, where there are small temperature variations, is that joint dowels are not necessary and problems associated with dowels are thereby avoided.

For the majority of the projects, the pavement surface is generally good and dense even after 10 years of service.

Individual projects which had a good quality control system and competent personnel display nice and even surface characteristics today.

On some projects a thin surface and honeycombing occurred due to concrete separation during mixing, transport or cas-

ting. Local repairs have been performed with a satisfactory result.

Throughout the ten-year period from 1985 until 1995, considerable experience was gained by the Norwegian Public Roads Administration and private contractors in the construction of roller-compacted concrete roads. This experience was taken into account in the updated Norwegian design guide 018. The conclusion so far is that it is probable that several of these pavements, which are in tunnels with relatively small traffic volumes, will have a service life of 50-100 years with only minimal maintenance.

If roller-compacted concrete pavements are to be constructed in Norway in the future, a long-term competence and project strategy must be developed. Tunnels with an AADT under 10 000 are most suitable.

Karl Melby, karl.melby@vegvesen.no Norwegian Public Roads Administration

NORDIC NO. 2/3 2005 | 19

PAVEMENTS

PHOTOS.COM

Environmentally Friendly Pavements

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a Norwegian R&D Project A research and development project on environmentally friendly pavements is being conducted under the auspices of the Norwegian Public Roads Administration.

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he project focuses on optimising the environmental properties of road surfaces in order to reduce the environmental impact of roads on their surroundings, and thereby assist in meeting the national environmental targets set for reduction of noise and dust pollution. The project, which was started in 2004 and is planned to be completed in 2008, is being conducted in close cooperation with research institutions and the pavement industry.

Road traffic is the dominant source for noise affliction in Norway. Construction of noise barriers and facade insulation of buildings are the most commonly used measures for traffic noise reduction, but were found to be not sufficient to meet the national target. Therefore it became neces20 | NORDIC NO. 2/3 2005

sary to look for ways of reducing the noise at the source.

High concentration of suspended matter (dust) due to the use of studded tires is a considerable problem in several Norwegian cities, specially on dry winter days, and the poor air quality represents a threat to public health. As a result, requirements are set for the maximum acceptable dust concentration. These requirements are expected to be strengthened in 2010.

Thus it has become necessary to develop environmentally friendly pavements which will help in alleviating the noise and dust pollution problems.

The development of low noise, wear resistant, and durable pavements for Norwegian climatic conditions is a deman-

ding challenge. The first phase of the project has focused on the environmental effect of reduced maximum aggregate size in asphalt concrete (AC) and stone mastic asphalt (SMA) mixes. Test sections were constructed and their properties in terms of noise reduction and resistance to wear are being monitored.

Project manager Jostein Aksnes Norwegian Public Roads Administration/Norwegian Directorate of Public Roads Centre for Road and Traffic Technology Telephone: +47 73 95 46 51 E-mail: jostak@vegvesen.no

www.vti.se/nordic

TRAFFIC SAFETY

Expertise on Driving Simulators and Traffic Simulation is in Demand in EU Projects

Simulation for EU

PHOTO: VTI

VTI contributes with world-class simulation and simulator expertise to the EU project IN-SAFETY. This project is part of the EU sixth framework programme, and its aim is to improve traffic safety by developing new smart and cost effective technologies which are to strengthen the traditional road infrastructure and road environment.

M

easures taken in the physical road environment can reduce the number killed and injured on European roads. The high costs of new construction and improvements act as a limiting factor for traffic safety. By making use of solutions and measures in the existing infrastructure and, with that as the basis, developinging new IT based solutions, greater cost effectiveness can be achieved. The project will show how new technologies can be used together with traditional physical measures so that the sum of the measures is greater than the individual measures.

World-class simulator expertise In Infrastructure and Safety (IN-SAFETY) the expertise of VTI in areas such as driver behaviour, HMI, evaluation methodology, especially in driving simulators, traffic simulation and road design has been in great demand.

- The new driving simulator of VTI will be used in the project to evaluate whether the new technologies have the potential to be successful. The driving simulator is of world class and is a tool in great demand in our work, says Anna Anund of VTI. VTI is in a strong position in the area of simulation, and its expertise in the simulation of road traffic is unique. The VTI model, in contrast to many other models, permits the simulation of both oncoming

traffic and overtaking. The road model is being developed from event-controlled simulation to time-controlled simulation, which means that simulation is updated at regular intervals. This makes it possible to simulate congestion and dense traffic, which is vital for work in IN-SAFETY. VTI’s input in the area of simulation is of great value for the project since it makes an important contribution to the understanding of the potential and traffic effects of driver support which concentrates on both explanatory and driver friendly aspects. The project enables VTI to develop the interface between traffic simulation and driving in a driving simulator. The objective is to create a simulated environment that combines a high degree of experimental control with traffic conditions that are more realistic than those possible today.

Behavioural study in the driving simulator VTI will be one of the four test sites for experimental evaluation of candidate measures. The evaluation will be made in the new VTI driving simulator. Information via grooved rumble strips in the carriageway will probably be among the measures evaluated by VTI. The plan is to include both young and tired drivers and to let them drive in a road environment. To be able to assess the system/traffic effects of the tested measures, the results from the evaluation in the driving simulator will be used as input data for the traffic simulations. What

is new in this approach is that it creates the opportunity to judge what consequences the behaviours observed at individual level, obtained in the simulator experiments, have at system level.

Improvements at EU level The project will make proposals for improvements in standards/specifications at European and national level. The improvements refer to road design and the roadside area (carriageway marking, road signs etc), with the special aim to strengthen the explanatory and driver friendly character of different road environments.

Existing knowledge and ongoing r&d There are several international projects that are within, or adjacent to, the research area comprised in IN-SAFETY. The projects that may be mentioned are ADVISORS, AWAKE, IN-ARTE, GADGET, ACASSIST and SAFESTAR. The international projects are described in the Technical Annex. A number of partners in IN-SAFETY have, in different constellations, taken part in the previous projects. IN-SAFETY will therefore have good access to the results of these, and will have today’s frontline knowledge as its starting point.

Michael Ögren, VTI, Sweden

http://www.insafety–eu.org/ Staffan Nordmark, staffan.nordmark@vti.se

NORDIC NO. 2/3 2005 | 21

TRAFFIC SAFETY

Seasonal Speed Limits and Heavy Vehicles Seasonal speed limits have had a positive effect on traffic safety in Finland. The two studies discussed here evaluate the existing wintertime speed limits especially for heavy vehicles and estimate the effects of reducing the speed limit of long trailer lorries from 80 to 70 km/h during wintertime.

O

n most Finnish two-lane rural main roads, speed limits have been reduced from 100 to 80 km/h during wintertime for several years. These seasonal speed limits have had a positive effect on traffic safety.

In March 2004, a very severe head-on collision occurred between a bus and a trailer lorry, resulting in 23 fatalities and 13 serious injuries. As a result of the accident, the Ministry of Transport and Communications decided on seven measures to prevent such accidents. Two of the measures involved wintertime speed limits: evaluation of current practices in applying wintertime speed limits on rural main roads, and estimation of the effects of reducing the speed limit of long trailer lorries from 80 to 70 km/h during wintertime. VTT was chosen to carry out these two studies.

Wintertime speeds The aim of the first study was to create comprehensive and reliable background data, which is needed when evaluating the speed limits for a specific vehicle fleet or road group. The used data was obtained from the Road Administration's road and accident database and automatic traffic measurement points and from the Finnish Motor Insurers' Centre's in-depth accident study teams.

There are great differences in accident risks between road categories, but accident risks in the winter and summer do not differ significantly in any road or maintenan22 | nordic no. 2/3 2005

ce categories. Most of the summertime speed limits of 100 km/h are reduced to 80 km/h during the winter months. The accident risk seems to be clearly higher in the winter than in the summer on those road sections where the speed limits are not reduced to 80 km/h. This implies that lowering the speed limit during wintertime also on these road sections could further enhance traffic safety.

On average in Finland there are about 270 personal injury or fatality accidents involving articulated trucks annually, resulting in about 55 fatalities and 230 injuries.

These figures include about 10 to 15 suicides, where a car is deliberately driven into an oncoming truck.

Most of the head-on collisions between cars and heavy vehicles occur when a car drifts into the lane of an oncoming heavy vehicle. Hence, primary safety measures should aim to prevent cars from drifting into the wrong lane by affecting their driving speeds or by separating the opposing lanes.

Lowered winter speed limit for large trucks The aim of the second study was to assess the safety and other impacts of changing the 80 km/h speed limit for large trucktrailer combinations to 70 km/h during the winter months.

The majority of road freight (both tonne-kms and vehicle-kms) in Finland is

transported with at least 22 m long articulated trucks (full trailers). Practically all Finnish full trailer combinations exceed the EU’s length and weight limits (18.75 m and 44 t). The largest module trucks (25.25 m and 60 t) are often combined using typical semi-trailers in combination with large trucks (with the help of a specific dolly trailer, see figure 1) or by adding a middle-axle trailer to a semi-trailer truck.

Both the number of dollies and the number of middle-axle trailers are increasing at a rate of about 10% a year, although they are still clearly outnumbered by conventional semi- and full trailers. Almost all trucks and trailers are already fitted with ABS or ABS+ALB brake systems, which have already been compulsory in the largest trailers.

Computer modelling and simulations confirm that full trailer trucks are significantly more unstable than semi-trailer trucks. The mere overall length of an articulated truck does not worsen its stability.

In fact, the shorter combinations are often more unstable than the longer ones. The number of joints and relative length of different sections, as well as technical characteristics of axles and bogies, affect the stability. The differences in stability between different truck-trailer combinations are greater than the increase in stability that would be achieved by lowering the speed limit from 80 km/h to 70 km/h (figure 2).

The suggested vehicle type specific wintertime speed limit would reduce the numwww.vti.se/nordic

Comparison of large full trailers used in Finland

ber of injury accidents by 25 to 50 and the number of fatal accidents by 5 to 10 annually. The bulk of this decrease would come from accidents with no trucks involved, as all traffic would be slowed by the reduction in truck speeds. This would lower the total accident risk, even though the risk of overtaking accidents would rise a little.

The measure would result in annual net socio-economic savings of around 15 million, mainly derived from savings of 20 to 40 million in accident costs, while there would also be a loss of 10 to 20 million in time costs. On the other hand, trade and industry would have at least 10 million of additional transport costs annually. This sum could rise to 30 million per year if the logistics system is partly reorganised or changes in the vehicle fleet reduce the average size and capacity of trucks.

How to continue?

In the study, not enough facts were found to support the idea of introducing a 70 km/h wintertime speed limit solely for long trailer lorries. It would have a positive impact on safety, but also other socio-economic impacts have to be taken into account.

The pros and cons of different measures were compared. One fact to be taken into account was how to enforce the speed limits, especially as the speed limiters of trucks cannot be readjusted for wintertime or when specific trailers are attached to

Example of an animation based on simulations: loss of control of a conventional articulated vehicle at speed 80 km/h and friction 0.18.

them. The Ministry of Transport and Communications decided that it is not feasible to treat large trucks separately from other vehicles. Instead, the Ministry and Road Administration chose to increase the number of road sections with a wintertime speed limit of 80 km/h, and to limit the maximum speed to 70 km/h on selected, especially difficult or dangerous roads.

Each road district adjusted its network to these new rules; the first trial season was winter 2004 - 2005. It will be interesting to see what kinds of impacts these decisions will have.

More animations can be seen at http://www.vtt.fi/tuo/58/projektit/yhdistelmastabiilisuus/perskuta.zip Reports and articles in Finnish can be seen at http://www.vtt.fi/tuo/58/projektit/yhdistelmastabiilisuus.htm

Jukka R채s채nen and Harri Peltola, VTT, Finland

nordic no. 2/3 2005 | 23

TRAFFIC SAFETY

Young Car Passengers as Guardian Angels?

Adolescent passengers hesitate to ask the driver to drive more carefully. Why is this so? In this article senior researcher Pål Ulleberg explains factors that influence adolescent passengers' willingness to influence young drivers. He shows that young drivers tend to drive more carefully if they have female passengers.

S

everal studies have found that young drivers’ accident risk increase when they are accompanied by passengers about their own age, but not when they carry children or persons over 25 years of age.

One explanation of this increase in accident risk is that young drivers may become distracted when they carry young passengers, and hence, make more driver errors.

However, young drivers’ accident risk covaries systematically with passengers’ age and gender. For instance, the accident risk is found to be especially high when both the driver and the passenger(s) are young males. Several studies demonstrate that young drivers are more prone to speeding and risk-taking when they are accompanied by young male passengers. As a result, it is reasonable to believe that the negative effect of carrying young passengers may, to some extent, be due to intentional risktaking.

On the other hand, some studies suggest that adolescent passengers can motivate the driver to drive more carefully and thereby reduce the risk of accidents. A few safety campaigns have aimed at promoting this kind of positive peer influence through encouraging young passengers to speak out against unsafe driving when they ride with young drivers. The results of these campaigns do, however, indicate that adolescent passengers find it easier to avoid riding with unsafe drivers than to ask the driver to drive more carefully.

24 | NORDIC NO. 2/3 2005

The aim of the present study was to examine factors that may affect the likelihood of adolescent passengers asking a driver to drive more carefully when they feel unsafe or worried in the car. The study is based upon three focus group interviews of 90 minutes duration and a survey study carried out among 774 Swedish adolescents (17 to 20 years of age).

Gender is of great importance The respondents reported that speeding frequently occurs when they are riding with young drivers, while more serious violations (like dangerous overtakings and close following) do not happen so often. Not surprisingly, risk-taking and violations occurs mainly when the adolescents are riding with young males. Likewise, male respondents who possess a drivers’ licence admit conducting more violations and risk-taking than female drivers do. The presence of female passengers seems to have a positive influence on the drivers’ behaviour; 40 percent of the male drivers report that they drive more slowly and conduct fewer violations when carrying young female passengers.

Fear of creating conflict is the main barrier against addressing unsafe driving Most of the participants reported that they had experienced unpleasant and/or dangerous situations when they had been riding with a young driver, but such experiences

do not occur very often. Still, about 40 % of the adolescents wish that they would address unsafe driving more often than they do today. To ask the driver to drive more carefully is, however, easier said than done. The most common way of acting when one feels unsafe or anxious as a passenger, is to say nothing and instead avoid riding with the driver on later occasions.

Likewise, many adolescents state that they would prefer to use public transport or taxis in situations (e.g. at night time in weekends) where they are offered a lift with an unsafe driver. This suggests that making public transport more accessible in weekends and at night (when adolescents have a high accident risk) may be an effective safety measure for adolescents.

However, once being a passenger in the car with an unsafe driver, the fear of creating a conflict is the most important barrier against addressing unsafe driving. To ask the driver to drive more carefully is believed to be easily perceived as criticism. It is in general believed that it is inappropriate to behave in this way for a passenger - passengers should instead be grateful for being offered a lift.

To address unsafe driving is regarded as more acceptable for a female passenger than for a male. This is mainly because young men may be perceived as feminine if they behave in such a matter. Young males are also worried about becoming unpopular or creating conflict if they should speak www.vti.se/nordic

PHOTOS.COM

out against unsafe driving. At the same time, they have lower confidence in their own ability to influence others as compared to females. This is reflected in young males being more reluctant to speak out in situations when they think that the driving is too fast or too risky.

One interesting result in this context is that the adolescents’ fear of creating a conflict seems to be highly exaggerated.

This is because very few report that drivers actually have become annoyed when asked to drive more carefully, and that most of the adolescent drivers themselves claim that they would not be annoyed if one of their passengers asks them to drive more carefully.

Conclusion Even though feeling unsafe as a car passenger seems to be the exception rather than the rule, measures aimed at empowering

adolescent passengers to speak out against unsafe driving can result in a reduction in the number of car accidents. The are two arguments behind this assertion. One is that international studies find that the accident risk increase when young drivers are accompanied by young passengers, especially males. This is most probably due to increased risk-taking and/or an increase in distraction. Secondly, speeding seems to be quite common in such situations. In view of studies finding a relatively strong relationship between speeding and risk of injury, it is expected that a reduction in injury risk will occur if passenger can promote safer driving practices.

Since speeding seems to occur frequently without passengers feeling unsafe or anxious for that reason, a relevant measure may be to inform adolescents about the increase in risk affecting young drivers when carrying passengers. Such informa-

tion may possibly motivate both the driver and the passengers to be more safety-conscious when in the car together.

If decision makers aim at promoting positive social influence among adolescent car passengers, it is probably most relevant to implement measures aimed at reducing the fear of conflict and/or increasing adolescents’ confidence in their own ability to influence drivers’ behaviour. Role-playing and model-imitation are two relevant methods for learning and practicing such strategies, but it is difficult to determine the effectiveness of these methods since they have not yet been formally evaluated.

Since many adolescents seem to find it hard to ask drivers to drive more carefully, an additional measure to reduce accidents among adolescents may be to make public transport more available at times when the accident risk is at its highest, meaning at night time during weekends.

Article by senior researcher Pål Ulleberg, Institute of Transport Economics

Title: Young car passengers as guardian angels?

Factors influencing adolescent passengers' willingness to influence young drivers Authors: Pål Ulleberg TØI report no: 766/2005 Language: Swedish with summary in English Summary on www.toi.no

NORDIC NO. 2/3 2005 | 25

TRAFFIC SAFETY

Road Safety on Four Continents

Common Objectiv

The traffic safety conference Road Safety on Four Continents was arranged in October this year for the thirteenth time. This year it was held in Warsaw, Poland, where VTI and the Polish Ministry for Infrastructure jointly acted as hosts. The conference was held in the tallest building in Poland, the Palace of Culture and Science. The 42 storey skyscraper was built in 1955 by the Soviet Union as a gift to the Polish nation.

T

he conference offered more than one hundred papers in three parallel sessions. The discussions ranged from a description of plans and strategies for trafic safety work all over the world to the way technical solutions, training and information campaigns can improve traffic safety. Speakers and delegates came from almost the whole world. The Director General of VTI, Urban Karlstrรถm, greeted the delegates in the opening session and described traffic safety work in Sweden that is held in high regard in most of the world. VTI also presented papers on the use of bicycle helmets, speed cameras and the way the use of mobile telephones affects driving.

Sweden has a leading position in traffic safety

26 | NORDIC NO. 2/3 2005

www.vti.se/nordic

ves All Over the World

Important forum In spite of the tremendous amount of work on traffic safety all over the world, every year about 125,000 people are killed in the thirty countries which are members of OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development). Forums of this kind where all can share experiences and knowledge are an important part of traffic safety work. It is however essential to appreciate that because of differences in infrastructure, culture and economy in the world, it is necessary for traffic safety to be

promoted in different ways. Pieter Venter from CSIR (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research) in South Africa talked on precisely this problem and the way they must prioritise their work because, although the number killed in traffic is high, in comparison with the number killed by AIDS and HIV it is low.

During the conference, the work of VTI was displayed on a stand. On this, VTI presented its work on traffic safety and enabled visitors to meet researchers and discuss their work.

Plans are already in full swing for the next traffic safety conference, the preliminary date for which is 2007.

Magdalena Green, VTI, Sweden

Kent Gustafson, VTI kent.gustafson@vti.se Rose-Marie Leveau, VTI rose-marie.leveau@vti.se www.vti.se

PHOTO: VTI

among the countries of the world. As early as seventy years ago, traffic safety was on the political agenda and since then the intensive work has continued. The number killed in traffic in Scandinavia is very low compared with the rest of the world, one of the reasons for which may be that we work a lot with visions, plans and objectives. The Zero Vision that was presented in Sweden in 1997 is one of the long term ”goals” which is considered in several European countries, and it was discussed during the conference. The Zero Vision has been evaluate by e.g. Norway, and Tryggve Steiro from SINTEF (Norwegian Institute for Scientific and Industrial Research) and Terje Assum from TØI (Institute of Transport Economics) described this. Jörg Beckman, chair of ETSC (European Transport Safety Council) which has its seat in Belgium, emphasised that it should apply in the whole EU.

PHOTOS.COM

Successful International Seminar – from Research to Practical Use In September the Danish section of the Nordic Road Association (NVF) held a seminar on the implementation of road research in a modern road administration

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t the seminar, which was held in English, 80 colleagues from the Nordic road sector exchanged ideas, how research and development ideas can be incorporated in practical use. The seminar comprised some presentations and some group discussions within the areas of road pavements, bridges, functional models and condition evaluations. The Danish Road Directorate was represented by Henning Christiansen, Chairman of the Danish Board of the Nordic Road Association and 10-12 other employees in the Danish Road Directorate, including the organisers of the seminar, Gregers Hildebrand and Bjarne Schmidt.

The seminar included many good statements and conclusions, including wishes to get more demonstrations of new inventions, better communication internally between the different Nordic countries and externally with EU countries. This last

28 | NORDIC NO. 2/3 2005

conclusion was supported by the General Secretary of FEHRL, Steve Phillips, who was one of four keynote speakers. He also pointed to the fact that it is important to fill the holes in European road research, so the increased demands from politicians and road users better can be met. At the same time it is important to have spidskompetencer, which can be ”bartered” with other countries’ expertise. Steve Phillips pointed to the area of noise as an area of expertise at the Danish Road Directorate.

Niels Christian Skov Nielsen reported how the Maintenance Unit daily uses research and development. He mentioned as examples quick bridge repairs, noise reducing pavements as well as pubic-private cooperation.

Gert Ahé mentioned the new research strategy of the Danish Road Directorate, where noise, safety and environment are important subjects. He pointed out the

necessity that research should be carried out for the benefit of society and that this requires a concensus and good project management. Fundraising, also internationally, is another important aspect. In particular, Gert Ahé pointed to long life asphalt as a means to solve a major problem for society, namely queues.

Jens Holmboe talked about the Motorring M3 in Copenhagen, which also has benefitted from research and development, such as intelligent signs and noise reducing pavements.

The conclusions and statements will be collected in a short report (in Danish), but further information can be obtained from Gregers Hildebrand (ghb@vd.dk) or Bjarne Schmidt (bjs@vd.dk)

www.vti.se/nordic

”Developing Countries Need Swedish Expertise in the Field of Transport”

PHOTO: VTI

Swedish Expertise can Help Lee Schipper, well known international researcher in the fields of transport and energy

Lee Schipper who is Director of Research at EMBARQ, World Resources Institute, Washington DC, paid a visit to VTI in June.

It was by no means the first time that Lee visited Sweden of for that matter VTI.

S

What is the future of these megacities?

It is not very bright. The only area where they have made noteworthy inputs is in environment. This leaves traffic safety and congestion which are at least as serious.

– I myself have a great belief in congestion charges since in these megacities there are quite simply far too many vehicles, and the increase has taken place in an extremely short time. For instance, in Hanoi there are half a million mopeds which is a sixfold increase in fourteen years, says Lee. Lee has spent most of his life on research into traffic and energy. He has worked, among others, at the International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris. EMBARQ has projects in the largest cities in the world, among them Mexico City and Shanghai.

Which cities have the greatest problems today?

– Mexico City, Manilla and New Delhi. We are introducing a bus lane system in Mexico City which we hope may solve some of the problems. Manilla has serious problems due to diesel emissions from jeeps

PHOTOS.COM

ince 1969 Lee has had work related and private associations with Sweden.

He is now working on traffic problems in the megacities of developing countries.

Lee defines the most serious problems in these megacities as traffic safety, environment and congestion.

while the problems of New Delhi are particulates and congestion. The large cities in China will also have serious problems. Car ownership is growing faster than the ability of the cities to cope with this. And the solution of the problem is not always as easy as just to build more roads.

What is needed to change a ”problem city?”

It looks as though these megacities are beginning to appreciate the problems and are beginning to deal with them.

– Personally, I think that what is needed is a person who is deeply engaged and can carry through strong measures regarding

traffic in these cities. In Bogotá, for instance, they have a strong mayor, and in four years he has managed to introduce a bus system that has grown from carrying nobody to transporting a million people daily.

– I also know that in Sweden and at VTI there is a lot of expertise which these megacities could benefit from. In Sweden there are well developed traffic models and systems for traffic control, many years’ experience in traffic safety, and you are far ahead as regards the environment, finishes Lee. Michael Ögren, VTI, Sweden http://embraq.wri.org

NORDIC NO. 2/3 2005 | 29

Organising Trust in Public Transport In this article, the concept and importance of trust between public transport operators and political authorities is addressed.

The transition towards more competition puts the issues of trusting relationships and contractualised cooperation on the agenda.

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ompetitive tendering of local bus operations is still spreading to further areas in Europe, affecting changes in both inter-organisational as well as personal relationships. When contractual relations between people and organisations are changing, not only the mutual expectations in terms of what is negotiable are changing, but also the question of trust becomes significant. This does not imply that such changes necessarily lead to erosion of trust, although that may be the case, but rather that such changes imply a restructuring of what can be trusted. Moreover, such changes in the mutual understanding of what can be trusted can be counterproductive, at least in the short time.

The normative conditions underpinning one type of regulatory regime may be subject of tremor by at least two distinct mechanisms: 1) changes in the normative framework of the negotiations (what previously have been taken for granted), and 2) changes in the trust-relationship between the actors (limiting the scope of opportunistic behaviour, malfeasance etc). In empirical terms, our case is the changing contractual relations between political authorities and operators in the field of local public transport in Norway.

Norway is in a gradual move from a regime based on negotiated net cost concessions to the tendering out of gross cost contracts. This has implied changes at both the authority side as well as the operator side of 30 | nordic no. 2/3 2005

the table, not to mention the bounding relationship between them, moving from a negotiable long-term basis to a tendered and short-term contractual basis. Not only have Norwegian bus operations seen the introduction of international operators with high demands of professional stock earnings, but also the up-building of professional procurement units on the authority side with similar demands of profit.

Left by itself, such a situation brings about clear expectations about the opponent’s strategies based on pure profit maximising objectives. This picture, however, is distorted by the fact that the actual person in charge of each company often remains the same as in the pre-tendering regime, remaining the high trust relationship from the previous regime on a personal basis.

This new personal high trust relationship, however, is now decoupled from the institutional surroundings underpinning the old one.

The difference between the old to the new contractual regime are stylised and summarised in Table 1.

These characteristics are "idealised", i.e. we have tried to extract how the old and the new regime differ on important dimensions, the mechanisms and guiding principles that, if they function well, make it possible to achieve the goals for local public transport.

The table primarily refer to the regime of tendered gross costs contracts as the "market firm" solution, grounded in the fact that trust in negotiations seems to be of less relevance in the case of UK open

Relations between public authorities and the operators in the old versus the new regime.

Market structure Ownership Length of contract Predictability of contract prolongation Type of relation Characteristics of contract Mutual bargaining principle Organisations’ main goal Guiding principal of optimisation

The public firm

The market firm

Monopoly Local Long term

Competition Foreign Short-term

High Informal/personal Vague Renegotiating compromise Welfare maximising Norm of customer orientation

Low Formal Precise/exhaustive Maximising utility Profit maximising Competition

www.vti.se/nordic

In the new regime the relation between public transport operators and authorities is increasingly regulated by extensive and formal contracts.

entry style, as no contractual relationship exists between the authorities and operators. Furthermore, gross cost tendering is still the most common practice of tendering and market approach in Europe today.

The new situation is characterised by different competitive tendering regimes, underpinned by different concepts of trust which are working side by side. Hence, we are not moving from one single system to another, but from one to a variety of others, each with distinctive challenges when it comes to trust, incentives and transaction costs – and thereby distinctive transactional problems to be handled.

Whereas the old regime was based on predictability in terms of prolongation of contracts, and was to be able to cope with changes in production trough stable personal relations and thick trust, the new regime is, from the public authority’s point of view, based on handling unpredictability in production by using short term contracts.

However, from the company’s point of view, this leads to the problem of covering investment costs in short-time contracts and being uncertain whether the contract will be prolonged or not. Hence, the new

regime, if trying to build on long-term contracts, has to handle lack of predictability of changes in demand and production, either by increasingly making contracts more formalised and detailed, or by building relations of trust.

Trust or social capital can be seen as a distinct form of relations-specific investments. The incentives and need for such investments are related to the length of the contract and probability of prolongation/ renewal of the contract. And it is likely that the presence of thick trust relationship makes it easier for the different stakeholders to agree on thick descriptions of quality dimensions underpinning the formal agreement. The other side of the coin, however, is that longer contract periods and the development of a thick trust relation is at odds with other characteristics of the new regime; competition between profit-maximising actors.

The move from the old to the new system indicates a transition from internalised normative action and relations towards externalised normative relations and actions. Both the old regime and the new regime, may, if the mutual expectations on

terms of action orientations are met, function well on its own premisses. The problem related to transition periods will probably first and foremost be that public authorities are not well prepared to meet the challenges in the new regime, to establish the conditions on which the new regime has to be based.

By Frode Longva and Oddgeir Osland, Institute of Transport Economics. This article is based on a paper presented at Thredbo9. See below.

Title: “Organizing trust” - on the institutional underpinning and erosion of trust in different organizational forms in public transport. Paper presented at the 9th International conference on competition and ownership in land passenger transport (Thredbo), in Lisbon, Portugal September 2005 Authors: Oddgeir Osland and Frode Longva Language: English

nordic no. 2/3 2005 | 31

Monitoring the Effects of Highway Traffic on Wild

Reindeer by Satellites One of the major wildlife problems associated with transport infrastructure development in Norway is the negative effect on reindeer populations. Documented effects include barrier effects resulting in fragmented populations, and indirect impacts on reindeer grazing caused by disturbance from road traffic and human activities in general.

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ild reindeer are sensitive to disturbance and are known to have high alertness against human activities. The disturbance caused by road traffic and human activities can reduce reindeer habitat use at relatively large distances (several kilometers) on either side of roads. The result of this avoidance is a reduction in available grazing resources, which during the winter consist mainly of lichens, in wide zones parallel to roads, and an equivalent increase in grazing pressure in undisturbed areas.

Because lichens needs 20 – 30 years to recover after periods of intensive grazing, wild reindeer are regarded as especially vulnerable to barriers that reduce their possibilities to reach new grazing grounds.

At Hardangervidda, the biggest mountain plateau in Southern Norway, the functional use of the wild reindeer area has probably changed from being a large scale rotation in the use of the food resources and calving areas, to a more restricted use of a smaller and central area. The northern parts of the Hardangervidda are for example functionally parted from the rest

by Hw 7 and the rail road. This situation is not unique to the northern parts of Hardangervidda, however, but appears to be a general problem for most of the edges of the plateau witch also happens to be most affected by humans and less used by reindeer.

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The Norwegian Directorate for Nature Management has suggested closing down a distance of about 40 km of the Hw 7 crossing the Hardangervidda during the winter months hoping to resume reindeer habitat use in these parts of the area. Even if the road has very low traffic in the winter months (ADT 300-400), the suggestion has caused a lot of protests and discussions locally.

In 2002 scientists from the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA) were engaged by the Norwegian Public Roads Administration (NPRA) in a 5-year study to undertake research on patterns of reindeer habitat use and movements in areas believed to be influenced by the road. The main purpose of the project is to find out to which degree the road and/or the traffic generated by the road constitute a barrier for the wild reindeer, and if it has a repelling effect on the animals. The NPRA will draw up its recommendation to the Parliament on the future management of the road based on the results of the project.

The project has equipped more than 20 animals with GPS-transmitters providing detailed and accurate data on their habitat use and movements. The GPS units are programmed to localize each animal every 3rd hour. The data is stored in the collar which includes a possibility for remote data transfer.

Since the expressed effects in reindeer behavior and habitat use are the result of the cumulative effects of different disturbance sources, the project also aims to disentangle the relative contribution to disturbance from other sources than road traffic. E.g. power lines, cottages and alpine resorts, and the recreational use by skies and snow scooters.

Maps of the distribution of different reindeer food resources (e.g. lichens) have been produced both by using field surveys, and by the use of satellite images. When the preliminary GPS-data are compared with the distribution of lichen resources, it appears that animals do not use areas richest in lichens; on the fringe of the plateau and in a zone 5 – 7 km from the Hw 7.

This zone of avoidance also strengthens the barrier effect of the road such that the migration routes to and from the north are more or less cut off.

The field work closes in 2005, and the results will be presented in 2006. The data collected through the project will hopefully also give us valuable information about the relative disturbance from other disturbance factors, so that action can be taken towards the right factors. The data so far indicates that the Hw 7 has an effect as a functional barrier, and that appearance of human disturbance in general have a repelling effect on the reindeer. www.vti.se/nordic

Just finished mounting GPS-equipment on a wild reindeer near Haarteigen on the Hardanger mountain plateau.

Future research should focus more on the relative and cumulative effects of the different disturbance factors, and whether placing selected stretches of the road in tunnels can eliminate or reduce the negative effects on reindeer.

Project duration: 2002 – 2006 Total costs: NOK 3.0 m Contact: Bjørn Iuell, Environmental Section, Directorate for Public Roads, Norwegian Public Roads Administration, tel: +47 22 07 30 19, email: bjorn.iuell@vegvesen.no

Mounting of GPS-equipment on wild reindeer requires involvement from veterinaries, scientists and a skilled helicopter pilot. And good weather conditions. nordic no. 2/3 2005 | 33

Norwegian Road Projects are now Profitable – the Government Reduces the Discount Rate

The appropriate rate of discount to use when assessing transportation projects has been a debated issue in Norway during the last four years. The discount rate for assessing road investment projects has been at 8 % and was set by the Ministry of Transportation and Communication in 2002 according to guidelines from the Ministry of Finance. According to the guidelines at that time, it was recommended that the discount rate should be composed of two parts (1) a risk free interest rate at 3.5% and (2) a risk mark-up rate at 0.5 4.5%. The risk mark-up rate is set to reflect how sensitive benefits from public investments project are to economic trends.

Road projects were accorded the highest risk mark-up meaning that benefits accruing from them were assumed to vary systematically with economic trends. Hence, the discount rate for road projects was set at 8% [3.5% + 4.5%]. Note now the explanations for the risk mark-up: if benefits are sensitive to economic trends they become risky because we would prefer less sensitive and hence more certain investments.

Therefore risky projects should be accorded a mark-up to take account of risk.

Given that the discount rate is used to discount future benefits and costs of projects, the higher the rate is the lower will the net present value of projects be. Thus higher rates render projects less profitable while lower rates render them more profitable. A discount rate of 8 % in a European 34 | NORDIC NO. 2/3 2005

perspective has been seen by many as high and unreasonable. Many decision-makers i.e. politicians have interpreted the high discount rate for road projects as a vehicle driven by central authorities to re-direct investments from roads to other sectors in the economy. Table 1 below compares the Norwegian discount rate to those of other EU countries.

The table is self explanatory in many respects; Norway has had the highest discount rate as compared to EU countries including neighbouring countries such as Sweden and Finland. It has therefore been contended by many that the Norwegian discount rate is too high and illogical. An illustrative point is that cross-border projects such as the Svinesund Bridge, mentioned in one other article, is profitable for the Swedes and unprofitable for the Norwegians; yet the link serves Norway more than any other nation for the reason that it serves the connectivity of Norwegian transport towards the European continent.

The implication of the high rate at the national level is that it may have led to the much needed road investments in Norway not being realised and funds may have been directed to other sectors with lower discount rate i.e. lower risk mark-up.

The change and its implications Fortunately, the Norwegian Royal Ministry of Finance has recently revised its standpoint with respect to the discount rate for public investments including road investments. The ministry, in its most recent guidelines has advised that the discount rate for typical public projects including roads should be set at 4 %; where 2 % is for risk free component and 2% for risk mark-up.

However, the ministry advices that for projects with specifically higher risk, an additional risk should be added and the sector Ministries should develop a sound practice for this. This means that the Ministry of Transport should consider whether road projects should have a higher discount rate. The bottom line is that roads projects are typical public investments and henceforth have a discount rate of 4 % unless proven otherwise.

The implication of the reduction of the discount rate from 8 to 4 % is obvious; investments in the road sector are now more profitable than before, and they are now on equal terms with the rest of the Norwegian public sector and also with comparable EU-countries (see Table 1).

The impact of reduction of discount rate for the road projects is depicted in

Table 1: Comparison of Norwegian discount rate and other EU countries

Germany Discount rate

3%

Sweden 3%

The Netherlands Finland Great Britain 4%

5%

6%

Norway France 8%

5%

www.vti.se/nordic

Bilden är inte så bra

Table 2 where we compare its impacts on net present values and benefit-cost ratios on selected projects.

Given the change in rate of discount from 8 to 4 %, many projects move from being unprofitable to profitable as indicated by the net present value. Illustrative good examples are the Ulven –Sinsen, Kolomoen – Kåterud and the Halsøyssamband.

The change in discount rate has definite policy implications which we summarize in the conclusions below.

Conclusions The reduction of discount rates for road projects amounts to the following:

1. The Norwegian discount rates are now more in line with most of the EU countries; hence reasonable.

2. Norwegian road projects are now clearly more profitable than before.

3. The changes should imply more funds for road investments since they are profitable.

4. The changes made imply that the Ministry of Finance may make socio-economic assessments of projects count more in future allocation of funds.

5. It is now up to the Norwegian road sector to show its creditability by performing sound cost-benefit analyses of projects.

Table 2: The impact of changes of discount rate on road projects

Net present value Investment cost (mill 2006 kr)

Region

Projekt name

E18 Buskerud E18 Buskerud RV 7 Buskeryd E6 Akershus E18 Vestfold E18 Østfold RV 150 Oslo E6 Hedemark RV 519 Rogaland RV 544 Hordaland RV 80 Nordland

Høvik - Frydenhaug (Drammen bridge) Frydenhaug-Eik (South of Drammen bridge Sokna - Ørgenvika Vinterbru - Assutjern EV-18 Langåker - Bommestad Knapstad - Akershus grense Ulven - Sinsen Kolomoen - Kåterud 4 felt FINNFAST Halsnøysambandet Røvika - Straumnes

955 705 950 1210 1260 500 1711 430 500 361 240

8% -5 480 -30 300 143 -760 -221 -61 -72 -54 182

Benefit-cost ratio

Discount rate 4% 8% 625 1260 405 1370 1183 223 198 168 263 138 409

0.00 0.50 -0.03 0.23 1.86 -0.28 -0.17 -0.11 -0.13 -0.31 0.66

What now remains to be seen is whether the decision makers take these changes into account and accredit funds to the much needed road investments References James Odeck. Nye kalkulasjonsrenter gjør samferdselsprosjekter svært ulønnsomme.

Samferdsel nr 4, 2003 James Odeck. Nå blir samferdselsprosjekter mer lønnsomme. Samferdsel nr 8, 2005.

Rundskriv R-109/2005. Behandling av kalkulasjonsrente, risiko, kalkulasjonspriser og skattekostnad i samfunnsøkonomiske analyser. http://odin.dep.no/filarkiv/ 258215/rundskriv_109_2005_.pdf Veileder i samfunnsøkonomiske analyser.

Finansdepartementet, september 2005. http://odin.dep.no/fin/norsk/aktuelt/pr essesenter/pressem/006071-070663/dokbn.html

4% 0.52 1.40 0.36 0.80 10.68 0.08 0.15 0.33 0.55 0.79 1.54

Contact: James Odeck Senior Research Economist/ Professor Norwegian Public Roads Administration/ University College, Molde and Norwegian Technical University, Trondheim

NORDIC NO. 2/3 2005 | 35

Transport Information System in the Pol-Corridor Intermodal Freight Supply Channel The European Union is facing new challenges since new member countries joined the system. The markets in Southeast Europe for import/export goods are growing rapidly. However, existing logistical solutions – including information sharing between different parties – are not coping with these challenges.

T

he Pol-Corridor project is a EUREKAtype collaborative research and industry undertaking that explores the establishment of a new freight transfer corridor linking the Nordic countries with Southeast Europe. The corridor will rely on a fast rail freight connection, the “Blue Shuttle Train”, which will carry cargo regularly between two logistical hubs; the first is in Szczecin, Poland and the other in Vienna, Austria (Figure 1).

IT to support intermodal freight business One of the important parts of the PolCorridor project was to outline the IT service architecture in order to design guidelines for implementation of information systems, the rules for information exchange between the Pol-Corridor stakeholders, and the management of functional interfaces. An important task was to determine how currently available IT systems could serve this intermodal transport corridor.

Another purpose was to identify the information gaps between different logistical operators, because numerous actors involved in Pol-Corridor management own and operate different, and to a certain degree incongruent, IT systems. The analysis was elevated to the system level in order to assess what information services IT systems serving the entire corridor should provide.

Mapping of the systems was done at conceptual and logical levels without going into technical details.

36 | nordic no. 2/3 2005

The process of constructing the PolCorridor IT service architecture consisted of several phases. We started by applying the generic Finnish freight architecture TARKKI (2) representing the future stateof-the-art in intelligent IT management of an intermodal supply chain. This was supplemented by links to a maritime feeder facilitated by MeriArkki (3), a maritime component of the IT architecture. The relevant IT services incorporated in these architectures were chosen for resolution of the Pol-Corridor information-transfer needs. A conceptual architecture including all business processes was drafted for the entire supply chain so that maritime, rail, and road transportation were present in the logistical process description.

Mapping of services and IT systems Next, both existing and prospective IT systems were mapped onto the Pol-Corridor architecture in order to determine which services were needed, which systems might satisfy those needs, and what kind of systems were missing. The mapping process served especially those IT companies that wanted to see how their systems fitted into a more comprehensive intermodal architecture and which elements of business processes, actors and functions they could potentially serve with their solutions.

Definition of the service architecture was done by collecting IT services from different systems offered by system providers

affiliated with the project. These services were then listed and mapped against the needs for generic IT services. Subsequently, we examined what kind of services each actor requires by identifying the relation between the actors and the business process components. This exploration revealed a group of potential customers whose service demands were not currently fulfilled. By doing so, the service providers got information on what development opportunities their systems might expect.

Once the verification of service architecture was completed, the information gathered was visualized by mapping the systems onto a conceptual architecture. If the system was able to provide services related to a specific process component, the component was highlighted in pink (see Figure 2). The ability of the system to fulfil the information needs harboured by a given business process component was denoted using descriptors like ‘totally’, ‘mostly’ and ‘partly’ depending on how well the system performed. This assessment was made by researchers and was subjective and qualitative. An excerpt from the mapping of the results is shown in Figure 2. The following system providers were included in the mapping process: Stockway Oy, AtBusiness Communications Oyj, Procomp Solutions Oy, JERID, AXIT, and the IT divisions of the Czech, Swedish and Norwegian railways.

Each system could be positioned within www.vti.se/nordic

the conceptual architecture, and the parts of the architecture that were covered by these systems were visualized. The existence of “white spots” in the architecture indicated that no services or systems were identified. This was a noteworthy result that helped to develop the information services covering the entire intermodal supply chain and its participants. All in all, there were not many white spots in the architecture.

Putting IT architectures to work The mapping exercise indicated that architectures can be used for “benchmarking” of commercial systems and that these systems can be mapped onto and positioned within the architecture. The mapping procedure gave the IT companies information about the applicability of their solutions by positioning their systems in the supply chain. This assessment demonstrated that there are many information systems that can well take care of intermodal logistics processes. The question is rather how to integrate these different systems and make them technically inter-operable across different countries and participants. However, since supply chain operators usually harbour different interests as regards supply chain management and functionalities, this makes collaboration through interpartner information exchange much more complicated.

This work showed that generic architec-

Pol-Corridor (1)

tures have a clearly instrumental function for both commercial systems providers and information service providers. The overall conclusion emphasizes the managerial role of architectures. Architectures are not only tools for “bit-wizards”, but are rather instruments capable of determining the patterns of behaviour of operating actors which could be used for managerial target setting and performance evaluation. The PolCorridor’s IT and service architecture demonstrated the usefulness of generic architectures for commercial service providers working on international management of intermodal logistical operations.

References (1) http://www.toi.no, PolCorridor Project’s home page.

(2) Granqvist, J., H. Hiljanen, A. Permala, P. Mäkinen, V. Rantala, A. Siponen (2003). Freight transport telematics architecture, final report. FITS publications 25/2003. Ministry of Transport and Communications Finland. The report is also available as a pdf file on http:// www.vtt.fi/rte/projects/fits/julkaisut/han ke1/fits25_2003.pdf

(3) Mäkinen, P., J. Levo, J. Lähesmaa, P. Rautiainen (2004).

Maritime ITS Architecture, Core Processes and Develompent Plan (Merenkulun telematiikka-arkkitehtuuri. Pääprosessit ja kehityssuunnitelma). FITS publications 34/2004.

Ministry of Transport and Communications Finland. The report is also available as a pdf file on http://www.vtt.fi/rte/ projects/fits/julkaisut/hanke1/fits34_200 4.pdf Anna-Maija Alaruikka, VTT, Finland Pekka Leviäkangas , VTT, Finland Johanna Ludvigsen, TOI, Norway

For more information on Pol-Corridor IT contact: Anna-Maija Alaruikka Research Scientist VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland anna-maija.alaruikka@vtt.fi

For more information on Pol-Corridor project contact: Johanna Ludvigsen Pol-Corridor co-ordinator Institute of Transport Economics jlu@toi.no

nordic no. 2/3 2005 | 37

ANNOTAED REPORTS

The Construction of the Century 1905 – 2005: Double Victory to the Norwegian Public Roads Administration (NPRA)

On September 27th the NPRA received the The Construction of the Century award for its magnificent Atlantic Road. – I’m proud.

That in addition The Bridges of Svinesund (the old and the new) were runners-up in the competition is a great recognition for us, said Director General of the Norwegian Public Roads Administration, Mr. Olav Soefteland.

- Good and useful roads can also be monumental constructions, The Director General added.

H.R.H. Crown Prince Haakon presented the award which opened the Norwegian Construction Industries Fair, “Bygg Reis Deg”. The award is being handed as part of the centenary for the disbandment of the union with Sweden in 1905. More then 40 000 people voted to crown the winner.

The Atlantic Road The Atlantic Road also known as “Atlanterhavsvegen” consists of 8.3 km of road with eight bridges from Averøy to the Eid municipal in the county of Moere and Romsdal. The longest and tallest bridge is the 260 m Storseisundet Bridge. Vessels with heights up to 23 m can sail under it.

Atlanterhavsvegen has an astounding location leading over islands and islets at the edge of the Atlantic Ocean. It has been one of the most visited tourist attraction in Norway being situated on the nature itself.

38 | nordic no. 2/3 2005

The Bridges of Svinesund Svinesund is the center of trade and communication between Norway and Sweden.

In June 1946, a bridge with a length of 420 meters and a breadth of 9.5 meters was opened. Construction costs at that time amounted to 3.2 m NOK (0.4 m ). The Old Bridge is now a protected historic construction. This is the first time the Norwegian and the Swedish authorities have gone together to protect a cultural

heritage. The aim with the protection is to ensure that the bridge becomes a landmark for the connection between Norway and Sweden on different planes.

On June 10th 2005 the New Svinesund Bridge was opened for traffic after a construction period of two and a half years, construction costs of about 650 m NOK (about 82.5 m ). The new Bridge has a length of 704 meters and a width of 28.2 meters.

www.vti.se/nordic

ANNOTATED REPORTS

European co-operation in COST 347 - Bringing ALT Activities Closer Together Title: European co-operation in COST 347 Bringing ALT Activities Closer Together Authors: Gregers Hildebrand and Michael E. Nunn – TRL LIMITED, United Kingdom Series: Report 136 (http://www.vejdirektoratet.dk/publikationer/VIrap 136/index.htm) Language: English

For decades it has been an accepted fact that accelerated load testing (ALT) is one of the most important means of analyzing pavement behaviour. In spite of large costs, high benefit-cost ratios can be expected from ALT research. However, these benefits are often obtained through national research programs that tailor the research to the specific interests of the country concerned. A Pan-European approach would result in a more robust outcome that had wider acceptance, and hence reduce the cost to the individual countries.

COST 347 was established in October 2000 under the European Commission with the objective to harmonize the scattered European ALT efforts. The harmonization is ex-pected to lead to more efficient use of ALT research in combined efforts among the different countries participating in COST 347. This includes sharing of results, common testing methods, and cooperative research projects.

The results from COST 347 are very promising. A total of 17 European countries par-ticipate on a regular basis, so does the TRB Committee on Full Scale/ Accelerated Pavement Testing, and close links exist to ALT centres in South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. Among the direct outcomes of our work are a newsletter, and an e-mail based discussion forum.

A co-operation between the HVS Nordic and Denmark re-garding ALT research in semi-rigid pavements can also be attributed to COST 347.

Among the future developments COST 347 intends to work for the establishment of an international association for ALT.

Mechanistic Design of Semi-Rigid Pavements - An Incremental Approach Title: Mechanistic Design of Semi-Rigid Pavements - An Incremental Approach Authors: Finn Thøgersen, Christian Busch, Anders Henrichsen Series: Report 138 (http://www.vejdirektoratet.dk/publikationer/VIrap 138/index.htm) Language: English

A number of semi-rigid pavements constructed in the 1970’ies in Denmark have shown superior performance, with limited reflective cracking and long life of the wearing courses. With this experience as background, an incremental-recursive deterioration model has been set up for cement bound base materials. The model was calibrated with data from full-scale test sections loaded with a Heavy Vehicle Simulator and further validated with data from the Danish motorway sections.

Laboratory tests were performed in order to investigate the effect of various mix design parameters for ce-ment bound mixtures.

Noise reducing pavements – State of the art in Denmark Title: Noise reducing pavements – State of the art in Denmark Authors: Hans Bendtsen, Bent Andersen Series: Report 141 (http://www.vejdirektoratet.dk/publikationer/VIrap 141/index.htm) Language: English

Noise is one of the most serious environmental problems caused by road traffic.

About 28 % of all Danish homes are exposed to more than 55 dB, which is the official recommended noise limit for road traf-

fic noise. The Danish government has a long-term goal to reduce the noise to a level that is considered satisfactory for health. According to the national road noise strategy, one of the most cost-effective means of noise abatement is the use of noise-reducing pavements.

In this report, the on-going Danish research to develop and test different types of noise-reducing pavements is presented and discussed. Single-layer porous pavements with a high built-in air void and a small maximum aggregate size have been tested on a highway with a speedlimit of 80 km/h.

Over the structural lifetime, the noise reduction of the porous pavements was 3-4 dB relative to dense asphalt concrete with a maximum aggregate size of 12 mm. In order to achieve the same noise reduction, the traffic volume should be reduced by more than 50 %. On an urban test road with a speedlimit of 50 km/h, similar single-layer porous pavements have been tested. Here, the observed noise reduction of 3 dB disappeared within 2 years, because the pores of the pavement were clogged.

Three new types of two-layer porous asphalt are now being tested on an urban road with a speed limit of 50 km/h. These pavements are designed and con-structed to avoid clogging and to improve durability. The pavements are cleaned with special equipment using water under high pressure twice a year. After four years, noise reductions of approximately 3 dB have been measured compared to a dense asphalt concrete with a maximum aggregate size of 8 mm. In order to develop new types of cost-effective noise-reducing pavements for urban application, research and testing of different kinds of thin surface layers have been started in the framework of an EU research project (SILVIA).

nordic no. 2/3 2005 | 39

ANNOTATED REPORTS

Electronic transport information.

Electronic Waybill Title: KULTIS – Electronic Transport Information.

Electronic Waybill Authors: Jari Salo, Juha Ikävalko, TIEKE ry, Jani Granqvist, Antti Permala, VTT Series: AINO publications 7/2005 Language: Finnish with English abstract

The focus of the KULTIS project was to study the needs, priorities and possibilities for electronic transport documents and their implementation, using the electronic waybill as a test case. The ultimate goal was to reach a commonly agreed definition for the data contents of the electronic waybill.

The electronic waybill is one link in the chain of electronic documents for transport. In developing operations towards electronic mode, the issue is not only changing paper documents into their electronic equivalents, but it is also developing the processes and procedures within the logistics chain.

Effective use of the transport order (and order confirmation) could be one step towards streamlined processes. Using electronic means, the publication of a waybill could be transferred from consignor to logistics operator or even be dropped. A standardized transport label provides a physical interface between the transported goods and the information steering the transportation. Being a subset of the electronic waybill, the data set of a transport label gives a proper starting point when defining the information content for representation of the electronic waybill in mobile peripherals.

The information content of the electronic waybill defined in this project includes, in addition to the traditional waybill, some new data elements that help the physical delivery of goods, like enhanced information on parties and their contacts as well as locations and status of the delivery.

Technical development, like RFID tags, will in the future offer the possibility to have 40 | nordic no. 2/3 2005

updated tracking and tracing information on delivered goods.

The juridical aspect also brings challenges for implementation of the electronic waybill, especially from the viewpoint of electronic signatures and their acceptance.

Finnish Law does not pose any obstacles to the use of electronic signatures, but appropriate technical solutions and provision of acceptable evidence are challenges that must be met. The project could propose an initiative for revision of the legislation to the Ministry of Justice where relevant needs are identified in the implementation project.

The objective of the implementation project is to test and specify the created data definition to meet operational requirements, and collect information and requirements as background to a revision of the legislation.

Pol-Corridor – shuttle freight train services Title: Pol-Corridor. Assessment of Demand for the Blue Shuttle Train's Services in North and South European Markets Authors: Pekka Leviäkangas, Jarkko Lehtinen, Inna Berg, Anna-Maija Alaruikka Series: VTT Research Notes 2293 Language: English Publication available at: http://www.vtt.fi/inf/pdf/tiedotteet/2005/T2293. pdf

The report describes the prospects of a new trans-European freight supply network stretching from the Nordic Countries to Central, Southern and South-Eastern Europe. The northern part of the corridor consists of sea-land connections from Sweden, Finland and Norway to an intermodal hub in Poland. From there, the corridor connects via a regularly scheduled block train — the ”Blue Shuttle Train” — to an intermodal hub in Vienna. The southern part of the corridor comprises the existing land connections to destinations in most of Central, Southern and South-

Eastern Europe.

The report covers the results of Work Package 1 of the Pol-Corridor project – Assessing the Demand for Blue Shuttle Train's Services in North and South European Markets.

The main objectives of Work Package 1 were to assess the freight volumes currently shipped in the North-South direction and to forecast the international freight volumes in the near future.

First, the assessment of the PolCorridor’s potential for carrying Finnish flows and the method for assessment are presented. Most of the potential destination countries can be identified, as can those countries that are insignificant for the Pol-Corridor concept. Also the maximum and minimum potential for the Blue Shuttle Train and the issue of balanced transportation in North-South directions are discussed.

Second, the potential for Nordic flows has been assessed by using the same method presented with the Finnish flows. This assessment provides deeper insight into possible future development. Scenarios projected up to the beginning of 2006 are defined in order to probe the business potential of the Blue Shuttle Train.

It can be concluded that the PolCorridor and Blue Shuttle Train will be an alternative for international North-South logistics, provided either of the following preconditions is fulfilled: 1) many countries at the South end of the Pol-Corridor direct their Northbound flows to the Blue Shuttle Train instead of onto trailers on roads; or 2) Austrian and Italian exports use the Blue Shuttle Train and PolCorridor for their northbound transport.

www.vti.se/nordic

Little concern for data protection Title: Pinning our faith on Big Brother... together with all the little brothers?

Author: Inger-Anne Ravlum TØI report no: 789/2005 Language: Norwegian with English summary Summary on www.toi.no

The report presents the results of a representative survey on the population’s attitude towards and knowledge of the protection of personal privacy. The population has strong trust that privacy is protected in a good way, and it is not particularly worried that personal data can be misused. A large part does not reflect at all over the fact that personal data on them is collected or they do not bother themselves with that.

This also applies to those who say that they do not trust that personal privacy is so well protected that one can safely disclose personal data. Many of us disclose data that we actually do not wish to disclose. This gives reason to ask how well we guard our own personal privacy.

Factors influencing driving speed Title: Factors influencing driving speed Author: Fridulv Sagberg TØI report no: 765/2005 Language: Norwegian with English summary Summary on www.toi.no

The project consisted of two parts. Part 1 was a study of whether changed speed limits influence driving speeds on road sections adjacent to the change. Reduction of the limit from 90 to 80 km/h resulted in lower speed even on the following section.

A similar 'speed generalisation' was observed also on a motorway where the limit was increased from 90 to 100 km/h; driving speed increased on the following section there as well.

Part 2 was a roadside study, in which drivers were stopped and interviewed about speed and speed limits, after their speed had been measured over a 3-km section. At

the same time, the speedometer was tested.

Seventy percent violated the speed limit in a 70 km/h zone. The most important variable explaining speed level was driver age; fewer elderly drivers violated the speed limit. The magnitude of the violations varied with the drivers' estimates of the most comfortable speed. The speedometers indicated on the average 4.4 km/h too high speed at 80 km/h. Only one out of three drivers knew about the error and adjusted their speed accordingly.

Therefore, the speedometer error contributes to increased speed variation, and thereby to platoon formation and overtakings.

Seventy percent violate the speed limit in a 70 km/h (43.5 mph) zone

Possibilities and barriers for road safety work in Sweden Title: Possibilities and barriers for road safety work in Sweden Authors: Claus Hedegaard Sørensen, Terje Assum Report no: 759/2005 Language: Danish with English summary Summary on www.toi.no

In Sweden and elsewhere in Scandinavia there are visions, objectives and plans for the reduction of fatalities and serious injuries in road traffic. Nevertheless, it is difficult to achieve the short-term road safety goals. Which are the barriers and potentials for the reduction of fatalities? An analysis of the Swedish Road Administration (SRA) and its close partners shows barriers and potentials for road safety work in Sweden. The most important barriers are

limited commitment to road safety in the police as well as in the SRA regional offices, in counties and municipalities. The most important potential is committed national politicians.

Market Analysis of European High Speed Rail Lines Title: Market Analysis of European High Speed Rail Lines Authors: Bertil Hylén, Gunnar Lindberg and JanEric Nilsson Series: VTI publication, N26-2005 Contact: Bertil Hylén bertil.hylen@vti.se

Banverket (the Swedish rail infrastructure manager) commissioned VTI to carry out a market analysis of High Speed Rail Lines in Europe. The analysis should serve as an important input in the further planning of High Speed Rail Lines in Sweden.

High Speed (HS) in this report refers to a speed higher than 250 km/h. VTI has cooperated with partners in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom and The Netherlands where HS lines are operational or under construction.

An important part of the work has been to present relevant comparisons between Götalandsbanan (Stockholm – Jönköping – Göteborg) in Sweden and similar lines in other countries. Götalandsbanan is intended to serve the heart of Sweden with 3–3_ million inhabitants; in many other countries the population along a HS line is several times larger. Furthermore the assumed travel distances along Götalandsbanan are similar to such distances abroad where rail has been able to compete successfully with air travel.

It has been difficult to identify any transport policy aspects which might influence HS rail’s ability to compete with other modes of transport. Competition from long distance buses (coaches) exists in Spain and the United Kingdom (UK) and nordic no. 2/3 2005 | 41

ANNOTATED REPORTS

School Transportation Vehicle’s Icon

to record speed and lateral position, the VTI instrumented vehicle was used along with an eye tracker for the measurements of eye movements.

Drivers meeting school buses at stand still on roads with a 70 km/h speed limit did not lower their speed or increase their lateral position to the bus if it was marked by the present school transportation traffic sign only. Actually, it did not matter if there was a sign at all. If, however, the sign was combined with blinking/running lights, the drivers decreased their speed and fixated longer and more often on the bus.

Title: Evaluation of the school transportation vehicle’s icon – an experimental study Authors: Anna Anund, Linda Kronqvist and Torbjörn Falkmer Series: VTI publication, R516 Contact: Anna Anund anna.anund@vti.se

This study aimed to test whether the present school transportation traffic icon sign leads to enhanced traffic safety, measured as adjustment of traffic behaviour from fellow road users. The fellow road users’ behaviour on roads with 50 km/h and 70 km/h was compared in meetings with school buses at stand still in real traffic. Three different types of marking the school buses were tested: • without any sign • with the school transportation traffic sign only • with the school transportation traffic sign equipped with blinking/running lights.

The fellow road users’ behaviour was measured by their speed, lateral position and fixation patterns on the buses. In order to further explore driver behaviour, self reported behaviour data and experiences from the study were gathered. In order

ILLUSTRATION: ARIOM

to a lesser extent in Italy. There are no common trends in the development of low cost airlines.

Germany is markedly polycentric with several major centres of population. There is no real HS network and there will not be any such network even in the long term.

Instead the HS lines are connected by the rest of the network which has been upgraded to 200 (230) km/h. The four HS lines act as “conduits”; traffic comes from major cities, passes through the conduit and then spreads out to different destinations.

High speed dominates rail services in France in a manner that is quite unlike any other country, at least in Europe. HS traffic represents 2/3 of all passenger rail traffic as measured in passenger km. Traffic to/from Paris dominates strongly, the relatively frequent TGV services on the three Parisian HS lines spread out to about 150 towns.

Rome–Florence is the first link in the Italian T-shaped network, the implementation of this network has taken a lot longer than planned – the Rome–Naples line will open five years behind schedule.

Spain is similar to Sweden in some respects – a relatively small population base and few people along parts of the Madrid–Seville HS line. Long distances and long travel times on the broad gauge network gave domestic air transport an advantage over rail for many years. The Madrid–Seville HS line changed this dramatically and also improved the rail sector’s image.

42 | nordic no. 2/3 2005

Drivers meeting school buses at stand still on roads with a 50 km/h speed limit did lower their speeds only in the nearby areas of the buses. Their lateral positions were not affected by any type of school transportation signs. However, lower speeds were found on roads with 50 km/h when the present school transportation sign, without blinking/running lights was present, in comparison with no sign at all.

When the sign was combined with blinking lights, the drivers fixated more often on the buses, i.e. they increased their visual foveal attention compared to when the buses were marked by the sign only or not marked at all.

The study suggests that future school transportation signs should have blinking/running lights, further confirmed by the drivers’ self reported acceptance for such a system. The sign should be in another format and with another type of icon than the present, which in turn requires future research.

Future regulations on school transportation signs should be clarified to ensure that fellow road users realise: • that increased attention is required • that children could be present in the traffic environment • which safety precautions to undertake.

www.vti.se/nordic

Title: Inhalable particles from the interaction between tyres, road pavement and friction materials.

Final report from the WearTox project.

Authors: Mats Gustafsson, Göran Blomqvist, Andreas Dahl, Anders Gudmundsson, Anders Ljungman, John Lindbom, Bertil Rudell and Erik Swietlicki Series: VTI publication, R520 Contact: Göran Blomqvist, goran.blomqvist@vti.se Mats Gustafsson, mats.gustafsson@vti.se

High concentrations of inhalable particles (PM10) in ambient air have a proven relation to mortality and different kinds of airway disorders in the population. There are also indications of a connection to cardio vascular diseases. The negative health effects of particles have caused the EU to adopt a directive, which in Sweden has been implemented in environmental quality standards for inhalable particles. These standards are today exceeded in many cities in Sweden, especially in highly trafficked road and street environments in dry periods during winter. In contrast to what might be expected, most of the PM10 do not originate from vehicle exhaust, but from the wear and resuspension of particles from the pavements, tyres and brakes.

The most significant source seems to be pavement wear caused by studded tyre use.

These facts have resulted in an increasing interest in the properties and effects of wear particles.

The aims of this project have been to describe PM10 from studded tyre wear and to study their inflammatory effects in human airway cells. The VTI circular road simulator has been used to generate “clean” wear particles from two different pavements; asphalt concrete (ABT) and stone mastic asphalt (ABS), with granite respectively quartzite as the main stone materials. The advantage of using the road simulator is that the contribution from other sources can be minimised.

During the project time, the project was

expanded also to study particle generation by non-studded winter tyres (friction tyres) and two kinds of winter sanding agents, namely washed crushed stone and unwashed natural sand in combination with both studded and friction tyres.

The results show that pavement wear by studded tyres generates about 40–50 times as much PM10 as that by friction tyres.

PM10 is totally dominated by fresh stone material. Apart from tyre type, the formation of PM10 also depends on speed and pavement type. Compared with the particle material in general, wear particles have a comparatively high inflammation potential. The particles' inflammation potential also depends on pavement type. Sanding material consisting of unwashed natural sand causes considerably higher PM10 formation than washed crushed stone, especially in combination with studded tyres.

Durability of porous asphalt Title: Durability of porous asphalt Authors: Carsten Bredahl Nielsen, Jørn Raaberg, Erik Nielsen Series: Report 139 (http://www.vejdirektoratet.dk/publikationer/VIrap 139/index.htm) Language: Danish with English abstract

‘ Three Danish asphalt contractors applied in March 2000 for financial support from the Danish Environmental Protection Agency programme for cleaner technology to develop more durable drainage asphalt mixes. The reference of the project as regards durability is the drainage asphalt pavement, which has been carried out on Øster Søgade in Copenhagen. It is thus the aim of the project to design a pavement, which has a better durability than the reference pavement evaluated by materials tested in the laboratory. The greatest possible noise reduction should at the same time be maintained for the longest possible period.

The present report integrates several more detailed reports. In the report asphalt testing (in Danish) the durability of different mixes is assessed from laboratory testing, whereas the report mortar testing (in Danish) is a more detailed assessment and opti-misation of the durability of the mixes and explains the results of the asphalt testing. A Dutch guide on design, laying and maintenance of drainage asphalt is translated into Danish and integrated in relevant sections of the present report after a rewriting and adaptation to Danish conditions.

PHOTOS.COM

Unhealthy particles

nordic no. 2/3 2005 | 43

NORDIC DENMARK Danish Road Institute Helen Hasz-Singh Guldalderen 12 Postboks 235 Fløng 2640 Hedehusene Phone +45 46 30 70 00 Fax +45 46 30 71 05 Email hhz@vd.dk Web www.vd.dk

NORWAY

FINLAND VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Kari Mäkelä P.O.Box 1000 FI-02044 VTT Phone +358 20 722 4586 Fax +358 20 722 7056 Email kari.makela@vtt.fi Web www.vtt.fi

NORWAY

ICELAND Public Roads Administration Hreinn Haraldsson Borgartún 7 IS-105 Reykjavik Phone +354 563 1400 Fax +354 562 2332 Email hrh@vegag.is Web www.vegagerdin.is

SWEDEN

Transportøkonomisk institutt Nils Fearnley Pb. 6110 Etterstad NO-0602 Oslo, Norway Visiting address: Grensesvingen 7, Oslo.

Phone +47 22 57 38 00 Fax +47 22 57 02 90 Email toi@toi.no Web www.toi.no

Norwegian Public Roads Administration P.O. Box 8142 Dep N-0033 Oslo Phone +47 22 07 35 00 Fax +47 22 07 37 68 Email firmapost@vegvesen.no Web www.vegvesen.no

VTI Magdalena Green SE-581 95 Linköping Phone +46 13 20 42 26 Fax +46 13 14 14 36 Orderphone +46 13 20 42 69 Email magdalena.green@vit.se Web www.vti.se/nordic

Questions concerning the content of the articles, or orders for the publications referred to, should be directed to the publishing institution, see addressed above.

Requests for back issues, and notification of address changes.

Readers outside the Nordic countries: see Swedish address. Readers in the Nordic countries: see adresses above.

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