Gianluca Dell'Acqua - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Gianluca Dell'Acqua

Sustainability, Apr 25, 2020

The evaluation of friction is a key factor in monitoring and controlling runway surface character... more The evaluation of friction is a key factor in monitoring and controlling runway surface characteristics. For this reason, specific airport management and maintenance are required to continuously monitor the performance characteristics needed to guarantee an adequate level of safety and functionality. In this regard, the authors conducted years of experimental surveys at airports including Lamezia Terme International Airport. The surveys aimed to monitor air traffic, features of geometric infrastructure, the typological and physical/mechanical characteristics of pavement layers, and runway maintenance planning. The main objective of this study was to calibrate specific models to examine the evolution of friction decay on runways in relation to traffic loads. The reliability of the models was demonstrated in the light of the significance of the friction measurement patterns by learning algorithms and considering the traffic data by varying the geometric and performance characteristics of the aircraft. The calibrated models can be implemented into pavement management systems to predict runway friction degradation, based on aircraft loads during the lifetime of the surface layers of the pavement. It is thus possible to schedule the maintenance activities necessary to ensure the safety of landing and takeoff maneuvers.

International journal of transport development and integration, Dec 10, 2021

the latest advancements in road asphalt materials and construction technologies have increased th... more the latest advancements in road asphalt materials and construction technologies have increased the difficulty for engineers to select the appropriate pavement design solution with consideration of life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology. on the other hand, infrastructure building information modeling (BIM) tools allow practitioners to efficiently store and manage large amounts of data, supporting decision making in road asphalt pavement design and management. this research contributes to setting up a dynamic LCA tool for the specific evaluation of designed road asphalt pavement solutions involving alternative materials and advanced recycling technologies; the tool is structured to minimize the need of input data by the designer, that are usually unknown during the early design stage, and automate the entire LCA calculation process to reduce the designer efforts and avoid any errors during data transcription. A traditional BIM workflow was integrated with additional user-defined property sets to simultaneously compute the environmental impact of the entire life cycle of the asphalt pavement, and dynamically update the result basing on the design thickness of the pavement layers, the specific features of materials and an external database of several life cycle impact category indicators that can be edited and updated gradually during more advanced design stage. the proposed BIM-LCA aims to be a practical and dynamic way to integrate environmental considerations into road pavement design, encouraging the use of digital tools in road industry and ultimately supporting a pavement maintenance decision-making process oriented toward circular economy.

International Journal of Transport Development and Integration, 2021

the latest advancements in road asphalt materials and construction technologies have increased th... more the latest advancements in road asphalt materials and construction technologies have increased the difficulty for engineers to select the appropriate pavement design solution with consideration of life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology. on the other hand, infrastructure building information modeling (BIM) tools allow practitioners to efficiently store and manage large amounts of data, supporting decision making in road asphalt pavement design and management. this research contributes to setting up a dynamic LCA tool for the specific evaluation of designed road asphalt pavement solutions involving alternative materials and advanced recycling technologies; the tool is structured to minimize the need of input data by the designer, that are usually unknown during the early design stage, and automate the entire LCA calculation process to reduce the designer efforts and avoid any errors during data transcription. A traditional BIM workflow was integrated with additional user-defined property sets to simultaneously compute the environmental impact of the entire life cycle of the asphalt pavement, and dynamically update the result basing on the design thickness of the pavement layers, the specific features of materials and an external database of several life cycle impact category indicators that can be edited and updated gradually during more advanced design stage. the proposed BIM-LCA aims to be a practical and dynamic way to integrate environmental considerations into road pavement design, encouraging the use of digital tools in road industry and ultimately supporting a pavement maintenance decision-making process oriented toward circular economy.

Periodica Polytechnica Civil Engineering, 2018

Airfield pavements are designed to handle an increasing volume of conventional aircraft, but in t... more Airfield pavements are designed to handle an increasing volume of conventional aircraft, but in the future they may be required to accommodate both unmanned aircraft and space vehicles; these have their own unique requirements in terms of pavement strength and durability.This study deals with the problem of application of loads on the runway during landing. The solution of this problem, necessary for the correct construction of the decay curve, has been studied with reference to the Grip Number (GN). The experiment has been conducted on the runway of the Airport of Lamezia Terme ( IATA: SUF, ICAO: LICA) - Italy. Traffic data (from 2010 to 2014) and data on surface features (in terms of GN) for the same period (according to the Publication-ICAO Doc.9137-AN / 898, where guidelines Speed equals 65 km / h) were acquired for the goals of this study.The analysis of the data has supplied important information about the conditions of application of the loads on the Runway. In particular, th...

Sustainability, 2020

The evaluation of friction is a key factor in monitoring and controlling runway surface character... more The evaluation of friction is a key factor in monitoring and controlling runway surface characteristics. For this reason, specific airport management and maintenance are required to continuously monitor the performance characteristics needed to guarantee an adequate level of safety and functionality. In this regard, the authors conducted years of experimental surveys at airports including Lamezia Terme International Airport. The surveys aimed to monitor air traffic, features of geometric infrastructure, the typological and physical/mechanical characteristics of pavement layers, and runway maintenance planning. The main objective of this study was to calibrate specific models to examine the evolution of friction decay on runways in relation to traffic loads. The reliability of the models was demonstrated in the light of the significance of the friction measurement patterns by learning algorithms and considering the traffic data by varying the geometric and performance characteristics...

Transportation Research Procedia, 2017

In general in case of crash situations the quality of collected data is very limited and several ... more In general in case of crash situations the quality of collected data is very limited and several information are usually unreliable. Thus it is recognised that a significant effort is required in order to improve the quality of the crash prediction models moreover a crucial role is played by the identification of the factors influencing the crashes occurrence and the levels of severity estimation. In this paper two injury crash rate prediction models related to single-vehicle run-off-road crashes type are calibrated and in particular significant attributes estimated are identified not only with roadway geometric characteristics and surface conditions, but also with gender/number-of-drivers. To this aim a survey of injury crashes on two-lane rural roads collected in the Southern Italy was considered and analysed. Finally before the calibration step, a preliminary analysis of the data was provided through the estimation of the levels of severity by multinomial logit; in fact by this model only segments with highest values of severity are identified and involved in the calibration procedure.

Construction and Building Materials, 2018

Effects of the gyratory shear and Impact Marshall compactors were investigated. Studying the effe... more Effects of the gyratory shear and Impact Marshall compactors were investigated. Studying the effects of bulk density evaluation methods on expected air voids content. Calibration and validation phases. Prediction models for percent air voids content. Results validated by residuals analysis and one way ANOVA.

The Baltic Journal of Road and Bridge Engineering, 2017

The work addressed a study on pollution caused by traffic on the highway. In particular, it was c... more The work addressed a study on pollution caused by traffic on the highway. In particular, it was considered the concentration of pollutant, resulting from the passage of vehicles on the freeway. Five different stations (sensors and samples) used to collect data. The data collection period around six months. Also, the following parameters were detected: wind speed and direction, temperature and traffic flow rate. Data processed with Multivariate Analysis and Artificial Neural Network approach. The best model it obtained with Artificial Neural Network approach. In fact, this model presented the best fit to the experimental data.

The study presented here aims to validate some operating speed prediction models calibrated on tw... more The study presented here aims to validate some operating speed prediction models calibrated on two-lane rural roads by using speed data collected in Northern and Southern Italy. Operating speed is defined as the speed at which drivers of passenger cars travel on a dry road in free flow conditions during daylight hours and it is calculated using a specific percentile of speed distribution, typically the 85 th . Speed measurements were carried out by using laser detectors in connection with previous environmental and traffic conditions. The study is addressed to emphasize the reliability and easy application of one predictive speed model working both on tangent segments and on circular curves. The calibration phase involved roads in the Northern Italy, while the validation phase involved roads in the Southern Italy. Three models were validated applying them on eight two-lane rural roads falling within the road network of the Province of Salerno with features that reflect those adopted in the calibration phase; the selected models to be validated present the simplest analytical structure for type and number of explanatory variables and for the performance diagram shape of the operating speed values. The validation procedure was to estimate some synthetic statistical parameters as mean absolute deviation, mean squared error and coefficient of variation. The results allow in a simple way to trace continuous operating speed profiles on two-lane rural roads and to carry out safety analyses on the horizontal alignment.

TRANSPORT, 2016

Surfaces of airport pavements are subject to contamination that can be very dangerous for the mov... more Surfaces of airport pavements are subject to contamination that can be very dangerous for the movement of aircraft particularly on the runway. A recurrent problem is represented by the deposits of vulcanized rubber of aircraft tires in the touchdown area during landings and lesser during take-offs. This causes a loss of grip that compromises the safety of aircraft movements in take-off and landing operations. This study deals with the surface characteristics decay phenomenon related to contamination from rubber deposits. The experiment was conducted by correlating the pavement surface characteristics, as detected by Grip Tester, to air traffic before and after de-rubberizing operation and two models were constructed for the assessment of functional capacity of the runway before and after the operations de-rubberizing.

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2012

Infrastructure design is always a very complex task because of the many variables involved. Rail ... more Infrastructure design is always a very complex task because of the many variables involved. Rail design, in particular, takes on considerable importance (together with the socioeconomic variables) among the environmental variables. The latter is a factor that contributes strongly to the definition of design choices. This paper proposes a method for optimizing the choice of the corridors/line of "high speed rail" (HRS). In particular, the method is based on "multi criteria analysis" with GIS support. The method was applied to a real case in order to evaluate its economic feasibility, social and environmental impact. We considered three possible corridors (conservative, compromise and innovative) for the construction of high-speed rail lines in an area located in the south of Italy The analysis performed gave the following results: a conservative point of view: the better hypothesis was a corridor near the coast but more tortuous; this solution preserves the environment, but involves higher costs and greater "travel time"; an innovative point of view and a compromised point of view: the better hypothesis was a corridor crossing the territory in the central part (central park zone of great importance for the environment). In this case the corridor gives higher speeds and lower "travel times"; however for this solution the environmental components are jeopardized to a greater degree.

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2012

The paper reports the results of an application of the Bayesian approach-based cluster analysis a... more The paper reports the results of an application of the Bayesian approach-based cluster analysis applied to a problem of road safety. 1000 accidents were recorded (from 1 January 2003 to December 31, 2006) on a stretch of about 100 km. The incidents belonging to the years 2003-2004-2005 were used to construct the Bayesian model (EB) and accidents belonging to the year 2006, were used to check for the reliability of the EB model. The Bayesian model was constructed with the help of cluster analysis. In particular, Cluster Analysis was used to identify the entity on which the Empirical Bayesian was subsequently applied. From the model, obtained by combining the two techniques, the accident waiting in the different entities for the year 2006 was estimated. The reliability of this model was very good. In fact, by comparing accident rates estimated by the EB model(for the year 2006) with the observed accident, a very low error was found. With the help of this procedure (EB technique combined with Cluster Analysis) it was also possible to identify the more dangerous "Black Spot"; so as to have the necessary support to plan infrastructure projects designed to reduce danger.

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2011

The sustainability of transport systems largely depends on the safety guaranteed by the infrastru... more The sustainability of transport systems largely depends on the safety guaranteed by the infrastructures. The first step for transportation agencies to improve transportation sustainability is to identify and rank hazardous sites on roadways. By focusing on these hazardous sites, funds can be allocated to address critical safety concerns by developing and implementing countermeasures to reduce crash frequency and severity. For this reason a system has been built and validated making it possible to identify and rank hazardous sites on roadways, establishing terms for infrastructure design to decrease "Black Spot" danger. Estimated safety benefits.

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2012

Operating speeds, implemented by drivers, are noticeably higher than design speeds. Many authors ... more Operating speeds, implemented by drivers, are noticeably higher than design speeds. Many authors demonstrated that these inconsistencies determine particular hazardous "black spots". In this study we propose a procedure (based on two models) to identify these "black spots". With this aim, four different road sections were selected in southern Italy (Salerno, Cosenza and Catanzaro). For each road section the accident data since 2004 to 2008 were collected. The good statistical fitting between the estimated parameters and those surveyed confirms the validity of the models and, at the same time, their reliability to define road safety improvements.

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2012

The results relative to an experimental investigation regarding the speeds implemented, on motorw... more The results relative to an experimental investigation regarding the speeds implemented, on motorways, in free flow conditions, are presented. The results demonstrate that the maximum speed, in free flow conditions, is to be found on flat straight stretches, with a section width of around 11 meters. In such conditions the FFS is found to be at values of around 131 km /h. Such a speed tends to decrease when some of these conditions vary. In particular the dimensions which influenced the FFS are: slope, curvature, tortuousness and the width of the section. The lowest FFS value was encountered in ascent(+4,5%), on a straight stretch, section width of around 9 meters and tortuousness degree equal to 21 degrees/Km; in these conditions the FFS is found to be around the value of 105 km/h. These results consented the forming of the first consideration for the identification o the structure of the model for speed estimation, implemented by drivers, on the motorway in free flow conditions. It is believed that this information could be extremely useful in the evaluation of the level of service (LOS) in the motorway field.

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2012

This paper analyses the correlation between the number of crashes on freeways and weather conditi... more This paper analyses the correlation between the number of crashes on freeways and weather conditions on dense and porous asphalt before and after road modernization operations. The data were collected along 43 km of the A3 freeway, located in Southern Italy from the Tarsia road interchange to the South Cosenza interchange. Crash data were made available by the Police Station of North Cosenza, with traffic data from the ANAS Compartment in Cosenza, and the rainfall measurements were provided by the ARPACAL Centre in Calabria. Data were collected over two periods: before the modernization operations with existing dense asphalt and after modernization using porous asphalt. A porous pavement system is a structural and environmentally mindful alternative to the traditional pavement system. Safety tests were carried out correlating the number of crashes to the rainfall detected using two rain gauges and the traffic data. The results show that crash frequency depends considerably on the intensity of rainfall, both for porous and dense asphalt. In the first case, the accident rate increases to a rainfall of 0.5 mm/h, and then decreases due to probable greater prudence adopted by drivers in adverse meteorological events. The use of porous asphalt allows a reduction in the accident rate both in adverse meteorological conditions and for light rain, and confirms that, in terms of risk, the psychological effect on drivers increases with the amount of rain on the road rather than a reduction of adherence on a wet road surface.

The 9th International Conference "Environmental Engineering 2014", 2014

In this paper, were conducted a study on the noise produced by traffic on the freeway. In particu... more In this paper, were conducted a study on the noise produced by traffic on the freeway. In particular, it was rated the Sound Pressure Level Equivalent, resulting from the passage of vehicles on a highway located in southern Italy. It was carried out a number of readings using five sensors Orione Cel 500 Model 573 located close to the highway. The period of data collection lasted about six months and involved a stretch of about 20 km. In addition, the following atmosphere and environmental parameters were detected: Speed and Wind Direction, Temperature, Rainfall, and Traffic Flow. The data, organized and stored in an appropriately trained GIS system, were processed using Artificial Neural Network procedures. The Artificial Neural Network has proved particularly valid in fact, in comparison with the main models in the literature it was the most reliable.

ICSDC 2011, 2012

Road safety management may be improved if quantitative assessment of safety levels is carried out... more Road safety management may be improved if quantitative assessment of safety levels is carried out. One of the most frequent roadway characteristics that affect crashes is the geometric alignment. Many highway design standards in the world have introduced rules to assess the alignment consistency. In this paper we report an experimental analysis conducted in 2010 on statistically significant number of roadway sections belonging to two - lane rural highways in Northern Italy. The aim of this research is to develop operating speed prediction models on tangents and circular curves. Acquired relationships were particularly interesting and different explanatory variables were introduced in the predictive models which are dependent on examined geometric roads features. These relationships constitute a new set of models about the operating speeds to design and verify geometric highways alignments adding to those already available in the scientific literature.

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2012

Design consistency assessment is a tool employed by designers to improve road safety. This study ... more Design consistency assessment is a tool employed by designers to improve road safety. This study illustrates an investigation on two-lane rural roads in the Southern Italy without spiral horizontal transition curves to check a prediction consistency model. Two consistency measures were compared with the results in the scientific literature: the first was the area bounded by the speed profile and the average weighted speed; the second was the standard deviation of operating speeds for each segment. Combining these two measures by sensitivity analysis, a consistency model was developed by using results of a 2011 research project performing V 85 prediction models.

Sustainability, Apr 25, 2020

The evaluation of friction is a key factor in monitoring and controlling runway surface character... more The evaluation of friction is a key factor in monitoring and controlling runway surface characteristics. For this reason, specific airport management and maintenance are required to continuously monitor the performance characteristics needed to guarantee an adequate level of safety and functionality. In this regard, the authors conducted years of experimental surveys at airports including Lamezia Terme International Airport. The surveys aimed to monitor air traffic, features of geometric infrastructure, the typological and physical/mechanical characteristics of pavement layers, and runway maintenance planning. The main objective of this study was to calibrate specific models to examine the evolution of friction decay on runways in relation to traffic loads. The reliability of the models was demonstrated in the light of the significance of the friction measurement patterns by learning algorithms and considering the traffic data by varying the geometric and performance characteristics of the aircraft. The calibrated models can be implemented into pavement management systems to predict runway friction degradation, based on aircraft loads during the lifetime of the surface layers of the pavement. It is thus possible to schedule the maintenance activities necessary to ensure the safety of landing and takeoff maneuvers.

International journal of transport development and integration, Dec 10, 2021

the latest advancements in road asphalt materials and construction technologies have increased th... more the latest advancements in road asphalt materials and construction technologies have increased the difficulty for engineers to select the appropriate pavement design solution with consideration of life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology. on the other hand, infrastructure building information modeling (BIM) tools allow practitioners to efficiently store and manage large amounts of data, supporting decision making in road asphalt pavement design and management. this research contributes to setting up a dynamic LCA tool for the specific evaluation of designed road asphalt pavement solutions involving alternative materials and advanced recycling technologies; the tool is structured to minimize the need of input data by the designer, that are usually unknown during the early design stage, and automate the entire LCA calculation process to reduce the designer efforts and avoid any errors during data transcription. A traditional BIM workflow was integrated with additional user-defined property sets to simultaneously compute the environmental impact of the entire life cycle of the asphalt pavement, and dynamically update the result basing on the design thickness of the pavement layers, the specific features of materials and an external database of several life cycle impact category indicators that can be edited and updated gradually during more advanced design stage. the proposed BIM-LCA aims to be a practical and dynamic way to integrate environmental considerations into road pavement design, encouraging the use of digital tools in road industry and ultimately supporting a pavement maintenance decision-making process oriented toward circular economy.

International Journal of Transport Development and Integration, 2021

the latest advancements in road asphalt materials and construction technologies have increased th... more the latest advancements in road asphalt materials and construction technologies have increased the difficulty for engineers to select the appropriate pavement design solution with consideration of life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology. on the other hand, infrastructure building information modeling (BIM) tools allow practitioners to efficiently store and manage large amounts of data, supporting decision making in road asphalt pavement design and management. this research contributes to setting up a dynamic LCA tool for the specific evaluation of designed road asphalt pavement solutions involving alternative materials and advanced recycling technologies; the tool is structured to minimize the need of input data by the designer, that are usually unknown during the early design stage, and automate the entire LCA calculation process to reduce the designer efforts and avoid any errors during data transcription. A traditional BIM workflow was integrated with additional user-defined property sets to simultaneously compute the environmental impact of the entire life cycle of the asphalt pavement, and dynamically update the result basing on the design thickness of the pavement layers, the specific features of materials and an external database of several life cycle impact category indicators that can be edited and updated gradually during more advanced design stage. the proposed BIM-LCA aims to be a practical and dynamic way to integrate environmental considerations into road pavement design, encouraging the use of digital tools in road industry and ultimately supporting a pavement maintenance decision-making process oriented toward circular economy.

Periodica Polytechnica Civil Engineering, 2018

Airfield pavements are designed to handle an increasing volume of conventional aircraft, but in t... more Airfield pavements are designed to handle an increasing volume of conventional aircraft, but in the future they may be required to accommodate both unmanned aircraft and space vehicles; these have their own unique requirements in terms of pavement strength and durability.This study deals with the problem of application of loads on the runway during landing. The solution of this problem, necessary for the correct construction of the decay curve, has been studied with reference to the Grip Number (GN). The experiment has been conducted on the runway of the Airport of Lamezia Terme ( IATA: SUF, ICAO: LICA) - Italy. Traffic data (from 2010 to 2014) and data on surface features (in terms of GN) for the same period (according to the Publication-ICAO Doc.9137-AN / 898, where guidelines Speed equals 65 km / h) were acquired for the goals of this study.The analysis of the data has supplied important information about the conditions of application of the loads on the Runway. In particular, th...

Sustainability, 2020

The evaluation of friction is a key factor in monitoring and controlling runway surface character... more The evaluation of friction is a key factor in monitoring and controlling runway surface characteristics. For this reason, specific airport management and maintenance are required to continuously monitor the performance characteristics needed to guarantee an adequate level of safety and functionality. In this regard, the authors conducted years of experimental surveys at airports including Lamezia Terme International Airport. The surveys aimed to monitor air traffic, features of geometric infrastructure, the typological and physical/mechanical characteristics of pavement layers, and runway maintenance planning. The main objective of this study was to calibrate specific models to examine the evolution of friction decay on runways in relation to traffic loads. The reliability of the models was demonstrated in the light of the significance of the friction measurement patterns by learning algorithms and considering the traffic data by varying the geometric and performance characteristics...

Transportation Research Procedia, 2017

In general in case of crash situations the quality of collected data is very limited and several ... more In general in case of crash situations the quality of collected data is very limited and several information are usually unreliable. Thus it is recognised that a significant effort is required in order to improve the quality of the crash prediction models moreover a crucial role is played by the identification of the factors influencing the crashes occurrence and the levels of severity estimation. In this paper two injury crash rate prediction models related to single-vehicle run-off-road crashes type are calibrated and in particular significant attributes estimated are identified not only with roadway geometric characteristics and surface conditions, but also with gender/number-of-drivers. To this aim a survey of injury crashes on two-lane rural roads collected in the Southern Italy was considered and analysed. Finally before the calibration step, a preliminary analysis of the data was provided through the estimation of the levels of severity by multinomial logit; in fact by this model only segments with highest values of severity are identified and involved in the calibration procedure.

Construction and Building Materials, 2018

Effects of the gyratory shear and Impact Marshall compactors were investigated. Studying the effe... more Effects of the gyratory shear and Impact Marshall compactors were investigated. Studying the effects of bulk density evaluation methods on expected air voids content. Calibration and validation phases. Prediction models for percent air voids content. Results validated by residuals analysis and one way ANOVA.

The Baltic Journal of Road and Bridge Engineering, 2017

The work addressed a study on pollution caused by traffic on the highway. In particular, it was c... more The work addressed a study on pollution caused by traffic on the highway. In particular, it was considered the concentration of pollutant, resulting from the passage of vehicles on the freeway. Five different stations (sensors and samples) used to collect data. The data collection period around six months. Also, the following parameters were detected: wind speed and direction, temperature and traffic flow rate. Data processed with Multivariate Analysis and Artificial Neural Network approach. The best model it obtained with Artificial Neural Network approach. In fact, this model presented the best fit to the experimental data.

The study presented here aims to validate some operating speed prediction models calibrated on tw... more The study presented here aims to validate some operating speed prediction models calibrated on two-lane rural roads by using speed data collected in Northern and Southern Italy. Operating speed is defined as the speed at which drivers of passenger cars travel on a dry road in free flow conditions during daylight hours and it is calculated using a specific percentile of speed distribution, typically the 85 th . Speed measurements were carried out by using laser detectors in connection with previous environmental and traffic conditions. The study is addressed to emphasize the reliability and easy application of one predictive speed model working both on tangent segments and on circular curves. The calibration phase involved roads in the Northern Italy, while the validation phase involved roads in the Southern Italy. Three models were validated applying them on eight two-lane rural roads falling within the road network of the Province of Salerno with features that reflect those adopted in the calibration phase; the selected models to be validated present the simplest analytical structure for type and number of explanatory variables and for the performance diagram shape of the operating speed values. The validation procedure was to estimate some synthetic statistical parameters as mean absolute deviation, mean squared error and coefficient of variation. The results allow in a simple way to trace continuous operating speed profiles on two-lane rural roads and to carry out safety analyses on the horizontal alignment.

TRANSPORT, 2016

Surfaces of airport pavements are subject to contamination that can be very dangerous for the mov... more Surfaces of airport pavements are subject to contamination that can be very dangerous for the movement of aircraft particularly on the runway. A recurrent problem is represented by the deposits of vulcanized rubber of aircraft tires in the touchdown area during landings and lesser during take-offs. This causes a loss of grip that compromises the safety of aircraft movements in take-off and landing operations. This study deals with the surface characteristics decay phenomenon related to contamination from rubber deposits. The experiment was conducted by correlating the pavement surface characteristics, as detected by Grip Tester, to air traffic before and after de-rubberizing operation and two models were constructed for the assessment of functional capacity of the runway before and after the operations de-rubberizing.

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2012

Infrastructure design is always a very complex task because of the many variables involved. Rail ... more Infrastructure design is always a very complex task because of the many variables involved. Rail design, in particular, takes on considerable importance (together with the socioeconomic variables) among the environmental variables. The latter is a factor that contributes strongly to the definition of design choices. This paper proposes a method for optimizing the choice of the corridors/line of "high speed rail" (HRS). In particular, the method is based on "multi criteria analysis" with GIS support. The method was applied to a real case in order to evaluate its economic feasibility, social and environmental impact. We considered three possible corridors (conservative, compromise and innovative) for the construction of high-speed rail lines in an area located in the south of Italy The analysis performed gave the following results: a conservative point of view: the better hypothesis was a corridor near the coast but more tortuous; this solution preserves the environment, but involves higher costs and greater "travel time"; an innovative point of view and a compromised point of view: the better hypothesis was a corridor crossing the territory in the central part (central park zone of great importance for the environment). In this case the corridor gives higher speeds and lower "travel times"; however for this solution the environmental components are jeopardized to a greater degree.

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2012

The paper reports the results of an application of the Bayesian approach-based cluster analysis a... more The paper reports the results of an application of the Bayesian approach-based cluster analysis applied to a problem of road safety. 1000 accidents were recorded (from 1 January 2003 to December 31, 2006) on a stretch of about 100 km. The incidents belonging to the years 2003-2004-2005 were used to construct the Bayesian model (EB) and accidents belonging to the year 2006, were used to check for the reliability of the EB model. The Bayesian model was constructed with the help of cluster analysis. In particular, Cluster Analysis was used to identify the entity on which the Empirical Bayesian was subsequently applied. From the model, obtained by combining the two techniques, the accident waiting in the different entities for the year 2006 was estimated. The reliability of this model was very good. In fact, by comparing accident rates estimated by the EB model(for the year 2006) with the observed accident, a very low error was found. With the help of this procedure (EB technique combined with Cluster Analysis) it was also possible to identify the more dangerous "Black Spot"; so as to have the necessary support to plan infrastructure projects designed to reduce danger.

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2011

The sustainability of transport systems largely depends on the safety guaranteed by the infrastru... more The sustainability of transport systems largely depends on the safety guaranteed by the infrastructures. The first step for transportation agencies to improve transportation sustainability is to identify and rank hazardous sites on roadways. By focusing on these hazardous sites, funds can be allocated to address critical safety concerns by developing and implementing countermeasures to reduce crash frequency and severity. For this reason a system has been built and validated making it possible to identify and rank hazardous sites on roadways, establishing terms for infrastructure design to decrease "Black Spot" danger. Estimated safety benefits.

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2012

Operating speeds, implemented by drivers, are noticeably higher than design speeds. Many authors ... more Operating speeds, implemented by drivers, are noticeably higher than design speeds. Many authors demonstrated that these inconsistencies determine particular hazardous "black spots". In this study we propose a procedure (based on two models) to identify these "black spots". With this aim, four different road sections were selected in southern Italy (Salerno, Cosenza and Catanzaro). For each road section the accident data since 2004 to 2008 were collected. The good statistical fitting between the estimated parameters and those surveyed confirms the validity of the models and, at the same time, their reliability to define road safety improvements.

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2012

The results relative to an experimental investigation regarding the speeds implemented, on motorw... more The results relative to an experimental investigation regarding the speeds implemented, on motorways, in free flow conditions, are presented. The results demonstrate that the maximum speed, in free flow conditions, is to be found on flat straight stretches, with a section width of around 11 meters. In such conditions the FFS is found to be at values of around 131 km /h. Such a speed tends to decrease when some of these conditions vary. In particular the dimensions which influenced the FFS are: slope, curvature, tortuousness and the width of the section. The lowest FFS value was encountered in ascent(+4,5%), on a straight stretch, section width of around 9 meters and tortuousness degree equal to 21 degrees/Km; in these conditions the FFS is found to be around the value of 105 km/h. These results consented the forming of the first consideration for the identification o the structure of the model for speed estimation, implemented by drivers, on the motorway in free flow conditions. It is believed that this information could be extremely useful in the evaluation of the level of service (LOS) in the motorway field.

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2012

This paper analyses the correlation between the number of crashes on freeways and weather conditi... more This paper analyses the correlation between the number of crashes on freeways and weather conditions on dense and porous asphalt before and after road modernization operations. The data were collected along 43 km of the A3 freeway, located in Southern Italy from the Tarsia road interchange to the South Cosenza interchange. Crash data were made available by the Police Station of North Cosenza, with traffic data from the ANAS Compartment in Cosenza, and the rainfall measurements were provided by the ARPACAL Centre in Calabria. Data were collected over two periods: before the modernization operations with existing dense asphalt and after modernization using porous asphalt. A porous pavement system is a structural and environmentally mindful alternative to the traditional pavement system. Safety tests were carried out correlating the number of crashes to the rainfall detected using two rain gauges and the traffic data. The results show that crash frequency depends considerably on the intensity of rainfall, both for porous and dense asphalt. In the first case, the accident rate increases to a rainfall of 0.5 mm/h, and then decreases due to probable greater prudence adopted by drivers in adverse meteorological events. The use of porous asphalt allows a reduction in the accident rate both in adverse meteorological conditions and for light rain, and confirms that, in terms of risk, the psychological effect on drivers increases with the amount of rain on the road rather than a reduction of adherence on a wet road surface.

The 9th International Conference "Environmental Engineering 2014", 2014

In this paper, were conducted a study on the noise produced by traffic on the freeway. In particu... more In this paper, were conducted a study on the noise produced by traffic on the freeway. In particular, it was rated the Sound Pressure Level Equivalent, resulting from the passage of vehicles on a highway located in southern Italy. It was carried out a number of readings using five sensors Orione Cel 500 Model 573 located close to the highway. The period of data collection lasted about six months and involved a stretch of about 20 km. In addition, the following atmosphere and environmental parameters were detected: Speed and Wind Direction, Temperature, Rainfall, and Traffic Flow. The data, organized and stored in an appropriately trained GIS system, were processed using Artificial Neural Network procedures. The Artificial Neural Network has proved particularly valid in fact, in comparison with the main models in the literature it was the most reliable.

ICSDC 2011, 2012

Road safety management may be improved if quantitative assessment of safety levels is carried out... more Road safety management may be improved if quantitative assessment of safety levels is carried out. One of the most frequent roadway characteristics that affect crashes is the geometric alignment. Many highway design standards in the world have introduced rules to assess the alignment consistency. In this paper we report an experimental analysis conducted in 2010 on statistically significant number of roadway sections belonging to two - lane rural highways in Northern Italy. The aim of this research is to develop operating speed prediction models on tangents and circular curves. Acquired relationships were particularly interesting and different explanatory variables were introduced in the predictive models which are dependent on examined geometric roads features. These relationships constitute a new set of models about the operating speeds to design and verify geometric highways alignments adding to those already available in the scientific literature.

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2012

Design consistency assessment is a tool employed by designers to improve road safety. This study ... more Design consistency assessment is a tool employed by designers to improve road safety. This study illustrates an investigation on two-lane rural roads in the Southern Italy without spiral horizontal transition curves to check a prediction consistency model. Two consistency measures were compared with the results in the scientific literature: the first was the area bounded by the speed profile and the average weighted speed; the second was the standard deviation of operating speeds for each segment. Combining these two measures by sensitivity analysis, a consistency model was developed by using results of a 2011 research project performing V 85 prediction models.