In order to realize the simulation and evaluation of road traffic noise among urban buildings, a spatial subdivision-based beam-tracing method is proposed in this study. First, the road traffic source is divided into sets of point sources and described with the help of vehicle emission model. Next, for each pair of source and receiver, spatial subdivision-based beam-tracing method is used in noise paths generation. At last, noise distribution can be got by noise calculation of all receivers considering the complex transmission among urban buildings. A measurement experiment with a point source is carried out to validate the accuracy of the method; the 0.8 m height and 2.5-m height average errors are about 0.9 dB and 1.2 dB, respectively. Moreover, traffic noise analysis under different building layouts and heights are presented by case applications and conclusions can be reached: (1) Different patterns result in different noise distributions and patterns designed as self-protective can lead to an obvious noise abatement for rear buildings. Noise differences between the front and rear buildings are about 7–12 dB with different patterns. (2) Noise value might not show a linear variation along with the height as shielding of different layers is various in reality.

The high-quality development of urban–rural buses is an important way to narrow the gap between urban and rural areas. However, studies on the quality of bus services and its impact on bus travel-mode choice have mostly focused on urban buses, with less attention paid to urban–rural buses. This paper aims to explore how urban–rural bus service quality affects rural residents’ travel-mode-choice behavior based on survey data from rural residents in Henan Province, China. A structural equation model (SEM) is applied to examine the critical factors affecting rural residents’ satisfaction with urban–rural bus service quality and the heterogeneity of satisfaction among rural residents with different attributes. Furthermore, an integrated approach of SEM and the multinomial logit (MNL) model is proposed to identify the key factors that affect rural residents’ bus travel-mode choice. The results indicate that reliability and convenience are the key factors affecting satisfaction with urban–rural bus service quality. There are significant differences in rural residents’ satisfaction by gender, age, income, education level, occupation, and travel-mode attributes. Urban–rural bus service quality has a significant positive impact on rural residents’ bus travel-choice behavior, and its degree of influence is greater than all explicit variables except private car ownership. The findings of this study can help operators and governments formulate policies to improve the service quality of urban–rural buses and ultimately promote the use of buses.

In the process of transportation system construction, the tunnel is always an indispensable part of the traffic network due to terrain constraints. A collapse of the tunnel under construction may give rise to a potential for significant damage to the traffic network, complicating the road conditions and straining relief services for construction workers. To cope with the variety of vehicle types during the rescue effort, this paper divides them into small, medium, and large sizes, herein correcting the corresponding speed considering six road condition factors on account of the previous research. Given the influence of different special road conditions on the speed of different sized vehicles, a multi-objective model which contains two stages is presented to make decisions for rescue vehicle scheduling. Under the priority of saving human life, the first-stage objective is minimizing the arrival time, while the objective of the second stage includes minimizing the arrival time, unmet demand level, and scheduling cost. To solve the currently proposed model, a non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA-II) with a real number coding method is developed. With a real tunnel example, the acceptability and improvement of the model are examined, and the algorithm’s optimization performance is verified. Moreover, the efficiency of applying real number coding to NSGA-II, the multi-objective gray wolf algorithm (MOGWO), and the traditional genetic algorithm (GA) is compared. The result shows that compared with the other two methods, the NSGA-II algorithm converges faster.

Enhancing the efficiency of intercity transportation networks is crucial for sustainable regional transport development, significantly impacting travel behaviors and energy consumption. The transportation infrastructure within the city cluster is rapidly developing to accommodate the increasing traffic demand, necessitating substantial investments. It is imperative to investigate the effectiveness of intercity traffic within urban clusters, to evaluate the influence of transportation infrastructure enhancements on regional traffic efficiency. Circuity is a conventional metric used to assess the efficiency of transportation networks, primarily emphasizing distance, while overlooking factors such as travel time and traffic flow. In this study, the concept of circuity has been redefined in terms of travel time and has been referred to as the transportation network travel speed. Subsequently, the amalgamation of travel speed within the transportation network and traffic flow culminates in the proposition of Flow-Weighted Time Circuity (FWTC). Real-time intercity navigation data, offering accurate travel time estimations, are utilized to analyze the spatial distribution of intercity transport efficiency in the seven major city clusters of China, via both automobile and train modes of transportation. The results indicate that (1) as the travel distance extends, the speed of transportation within the network typically increases, albeit with increasing fluctuations, especially in the case of intercity train travel; (2) concerning the efficiency of intercity automobile travel, most city clusters demonstrate satisfactory performance, with the exception of the Guanzhong Plain. The Yangtze River Delta and Beijing–Tianjin–Heibei regions stand out for their superior performance. In terms of intercity train efficiency, the Yangtze River Delta, Beijing–Tianjin–Heibei, and Mid-Yangtze River regions exhibit higher levels of efficiency in intercity train transportation, while the Guanzhong Plain city cluster falls behind in this aspect. On the whole, the efficiency of intercity travel using automobiles surpasses that of train travel, indicating a pressing need for improvement in the latter.