Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Analyzing Transportation Services For Older Adults In Southeastern Wisconsin, Elizabeth Jean Saunderson

Theses and Dissertations

Older adults are important users to consider in the evaluation of transportation services. Many older non-drivers take fewer trips than their driving peers. It is important that transportation services meet the needs of older adults to provide greater access to this subset of the population. This thesis applies the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) to evaluate the thirty-one non-private transportation services that exist in southeastern Wisconsin. The AHP structure uses multiple criteria to evaluate and rank several alternatives based on a stated goal. An optimization model using the LINGO solver introduces a fuzzy scale level to the AHP and assigns weights …

Developing Sampling Strategies And Predicting Freeway Travel Time Using Bluetooth Data, Hasan Md Moonam

Theses and Dissertations

Accurate, reliable, and timely travel time is critical to monitor transportation system performance and assist motorists with trip-making decisions. Travel time is estimated using the data from various sources like cellular technology, automatic vehicle identification (AVI) systems. Irrespective of sources, data have characteristics in terms of accuracy and reliability shaped by the sampling rate along with other factors. As a probe based AVI technology, Bluetooth data is not immune to the sampling issue that directly affects the accuracy and reliability of the information it provides. The sampling rate can be affected by the stochastic nature of traffic state varying by …

Solid State Protective Device Topological Trade-Offs For Mvdc Systems, Vikas Singh

Theses and Dissertations

Presently accepted approaches to protection are “Unit-Based” which means the power converter(s) feeding the bus coordinate with no-load electromechanical switches to isolate faulted portions of the bus. However, “Breaker-Based” approaches, which rely upon solid state circuit breakers for fault mitigation can result in higher reliability of power and potentially higher survivability. The inherent speed of operation of solid state protective devices will also play a role in fault isolation, hence reducing stress level on all system components. A comparison study is performed of protective device topologies that are suitable for shipboard distribution systems rated between 4kVdc and 20kVdc from the …

Strategic Inventories In A Supply Chain With Vertical Control And Downstream Cournot Competition, Vijayendra Viswanathan

Theses and Dissertations

Strategic Inventory (SI) has been an area of increased interest in theoretical supply chain literature recently. Most of the work so far however, has only considered a supply chain without downstream competition between retailers. Competition is ubiquitous in most market situations, hence, interactions between SI and retailer competition merits study as a first step in bringing the conversations and insights from this stream of literature to the real world.

We present here a two-period and a three-period model of one manufacturer supplying an identical product to two retailers who form a Cournot duopoly. We also study a Commitment contract, where …

Covert Contrast: The Acquisition Of Mandarin Tone 2 And Tone 3 In L2 Production And Perception, Liya Mar

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation investigates the occurrence of an intermediate stage, termed a covert contrast, in the acquisition of Mandarin Tone 2 (T2) and Tone 3 (T3) by adult speakers of American English. A covert contrast is a statistically reliable distinction produced by language learners that is not perceived by native speakers of the target language (TL). In second language (L2) acquisition, whether a learner is judged as having acquired a TL phonemic contrast has largely depended on whether the contrast was perceived and transcribed by native speakers of the TL. However, categorical perception has shown that native listeners cannot perceive a …

Integrated Special Event Traffic Management Strategies In Urban Transportation Network, Peng Li

Theses and Dissertations

How to effectively optimize and control spreading traffic in urban network during the special event has emerged as one of the critical issues faced by many transportation professionals in the past several decades due to the surging demand and the often limited network capacity. The contribution of this dissertation is to develop a set of integrated mathematical programming models for unconventional traffic management of special events in urban transportation network. Traffic management strategies such as lane reorganization and reversal, turning restriction, lane-based signal timing, ramp closure, and uninterrupted flow intersection will be coordinated and concurrently optimized for best overall system …