A traffic accident, a traffic collision or crash occurs when a vehicle collides with another vehicle, pedestrian, animal, road barriers, or any stationary obstruction such as a tree or a utility pole. Traffic collisions may result in injury, death, vehicle damage and possession damage. Motor vehicle collisions cause death and disability as well as a financial burden. Traffic accidents cause many losses especially of human life, property damages, and loss of resources. Indeed, even in strife influenced countries such as Afghanistan, Libya, Pakistan, and Yemen, road traffic remains the most common cause of fatal injuries, causing between two and eight times more fatalities than war and lawful mediation. The World Health Organization (WHO) 2013 assessed the traffic casualty rate in the Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR) to be the second most elevated rate universally after the African Region and extending a few other countries in the region. The aim of this paper was to enrich the global highway safety knowledge by revealing the catastrophic impact of traffic accidents on the economy of the societies and the safety of the common worldwide.
30 October 2017 in Periodica Polytechnica Transportation Engineering
This paper investigates the constraints that limit the use of public bus by people commuting to work in Putrajaya, Malaysia. Putrajaya was built to replace the city of Kuala Lumpur as the new administrative centre for the government of Malaysia. This research adopted qualitative methods which involved a total of 29 respondents who use car and/or bus to commute to their workplaces. The findings of this study show that several factors, such as reliability, safety, and customer service, play considerable roles in promoting the use of public transportation. The respondents agree that reliability (e.g. frequency, punctuality, and transfer) is an important factor in choosing a particular mode of transport. Safety is one of the major concern amongst the respondents, which need to be improved along with customer satisfaction of the public bus service. The results of this study suggest that a more reliable and accessible service is required to promote public bus as an attractive mode of transport.
Putrajaya is a new federal administrative capital of Malaysia which has been set to achieve a 70% share of all travels by public transport in the city area. However, the current modal split between the public transport and private transport is 15 : 85. In order to understand travelers’ willingness to use the public transport, a conceptual model has been developed to determine the factors that affect them to use the public transport instead of travelling in their own cars. Various variables such as service quality, environmental impact, attitude, and behavior intention were analyzed and tested using structural equation model (SEM). Results indicate that the service quality and attitude are found to have positive effects on the behavioral intention of taking the public transport. Other than this, this study also shows that the service quality and environmental impact have some positive influences on the attitude to using the public transport. However, environmental impact has no significant, positive, and direct effect on behavioral intention. The results of this study demonstrate that the model that was developed is useful in predicting the public transport and it could provide a more complete understanding of behavioral intention towards public transport use.
Fire and extreme heat environmental changes can have an impact on concrete performance, and as climate change increases, new concrete structures are being developed. Nano-silica and nano-calcium carbonate have shown excellent performances in modifying concrete due to their large specific surface areas. This review describes the changes in concrete modified with nano-silica (NS) and nano-calcium carbonate (NC), which accelerate the hydration reaction with the cementitious materials to produce more C-S-H, resulting in a denser microstructure and improved mechanical properties and durability of the concrete. The mechanical property decay and visualization of deformation of mixed NS and NC concrete were tested by exposure to high temperatures to investigate the practical application of mixed composite nanomaterials (NC+NS) to concrete. The nano-modified concrete had better overall properties and was heated at 200 °C, 400 °C, 600 °C and 800 °C to relatively improve the mechanical properties of the nano concrete structures. The review concluded that high temperatures of 800 °C to 1000 °C severely damaged the structure of the concrete, reducing the mechanical properties by around 60%, and the dense nano concrete structures were more susceptible to cracking and damage. The high temperature resistance of NS and NC-modified nano concrete was relatively higher than that of normal concrete, with NC concrete being more resistant to damage at high temperatures than the NS samples.
In recent years, the topic of climate change has been increasingly noticed by the public, and carbon emission reduction is one of the primary targets for various industries worldwide. The construction industry has a profound influence in this field, so it is significant to consider what kind of efforts can be made in building projects. Many scholars agree to promote prefabrication technology for construction, but its application still faces several challenges. By undertaking desk research, this paper explores the motivation and barriers to adopting modular techniques in construction projects under the lifecycle analysis. The preliminary information of the literature review is collated from dozens of peer-reviewed academic papers. Under the whole lifecycle thought, the PEST analysis tools also present the analytical results. This research finds that the top five barriers are the attitudinal resistance to using modular constructions, lack of sufficient modular expertise and practice, increasing costs and risks on supply chain management, insufficient government support and policy making, and high design and planning requirements. Moreover, the lifecycle analysis can divide the collated barriers into each stage, and adequate government support can assist in promoting the prefabrication in building projects in financial, legal, and technical aspects. The current findings can facilitate the broader use of prefabrication in building projects, improving the environmental sustainability of stakeholders. The process of proposed desk research can also be considered a referenced pattern for other related studies. More first-hand data should be collected and evaluated in further research to improve accuracy and adapt to the newest research field and industrial situations.
29 April 2016 in International Journal of Technology