PROJECT OPTIMA: optimisation of policies for transport integration in metropolitan areas

The overall objectives of Project OPTIMA were: (i) to identify optimal urban transport and land use strategies for a range of urban areas within the EU; (ii) to compare the strategies which are specified as optimal in different cities, and to assess the reasons for these differences; (iii) to assess the acceptability and feasibility of implementation of these strategies both in nine case study cities (Edinburgh, Merseyside, Vienna, Eisenstadt, Tromsø, Oslo, Helsinki, Torino and Salerno) and more widely in the EU; and (iv) to use the results to provide more general guidance on urban transport policy within the EU

Optimisation of policies for transport integration in metropolitan areas: report on work packages 30 and 40

The overall objectives of Project OPTIMA are:- (i) to identify optimal urban transport strategies for a range of urban areas within the EU; (ii) to compare the strategies which are specified as optimal in different cities, and to assess the reasons for these differences; (iii) to assess the acceptability and feasibility of implementation of these strategies both in the case study cities and more widely in the EU, and (iv) to use the results to provide more general guidance on urban transport policy within the EU. There is a wide range of objectives of transport policy in urban areas, but most can be grouped under the broad headings of economic efficiency, including economic development, on the one hand, and sustainability, including environment, safety, equity and quality of life, on the other. It is now generally accepted that the overall strategy for achieving these objectives must include an element of reduction of private car use and transfer of travel to other modes. The policy instruments for achieving these objectives can include infrastructure provision, management measures to enhance other modes and to restrict car use, and pricing measures to make public transport more attractive and to increase the marginal cost of car use. It is now widely accepted that the most appropriate strategy will involve several of these measures, combined in an integrated way which emphasises the synergy between them. The most appropriate strategy for a city will depend on its size, the current built form, topography, transport infrastructure and patterns of use; levels of car ownership, congestion and projected growth in travel; transport policy instruments already in use; and the acceptability of other measures in political and legislative terms. These will differ from city to city. Policy advice cannot therefore be generalised, but must be developed for a range of different types of city. This is the approach adopted in this study, in which nine different cities in five countries (Edinburgh, Merseyside, Vienna, Eisenstadt, Trams@, Oslo, Helsinki, Torino and Salerno) have been studied in detail, using a common study methodology. This report summarises the output of two work packages in OPTIMA: WP30: Test Combinations of Policy Instruments WP40: Identify Optim

Project FATIMA Final Report: Part 2

The final report of project FATIMA is presented in two parts. Part 1 contains a summary of the FATIMA method and sets out the key recommendations in terms of policies and optimisation methodology from both project OPTIMA and project FATIMA. Part 1 is thus directed particularly towards policy makers. Part 2 contains the details of the methodology, including the formulation of the objective functions, the optimisation process, the resulting optimal strategies under the various objective function regimes and a summary of the feasibility and acceptability of the optimal strategies based on consultations with the city authorities. This part is thus mainly aimed at the professional in transport planning and modelling

Project FATIMA Final Report: Part 1.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This Final Report covers the results of the EU-funded research project FATIMA (Financial Assistance for Transport Integration in Metropolitan Areas) which had the following objectives: (i) to identify the benefits to the private sector of optimal urban transport strategies, and the potential for obtaining private sector funding to reflect those benefits; (ii) to determine the differences between strategies optimised using public funds and those optimised within the constraints imposed by private funding initiatives; (iii) to propose mechanisms by which private sector funding can be provided so as to achieve appropriately optimal transport strategies while maintaining quality of operation; and (iv) to use the results to provide more general guidance on the role of private sector funding for urban transport in the EU. The project adopted an approach which involved the application of the same study method to nine cities, chosen to reflect a range of urban transport policy contexts in Europe: Edinburgh, Eisenstadt, Helsinki, Merseyside, Oslo, Salerno, Torino, Tromsø and Vienna. This method involved specifying appropriate policy objective functions against which transport strategies could be assessed, and finding the specific strategy that optimised each of these functions. The objective functions covered a range of differing regimes with respect to constraints on public finance and the involvement of the private sector. It was found that, in a majority of the case study cities, optimal socio-economic policies could be funded by road pricing or increased parking charges, considered over a 30 year time horizon. Such measures would typically be used to make it feasible to increase public transport frequency levels or decrease public transport fares. In general it was found to be important that the city transport planning authority had complete control over all transport measures, affecting both private and public transport. However, such strategies are likely to require significant levels of investment and, given current attitudes towards constraints on public spending, it might be politically awkward for the public sector to raise such finance. There is thus a potentially useful role for private finance to be used to help overcome such (short term) financing problems. However, it must be appreciated that the private sector will expect to make a profit on such investment. In cities where optimal policies are funded by travellers, the private sector can be reimbursed by travellers. In cities where it is unfeasible for travellers to fund all the costs of optimal policies, it will be necessary for the private sector to be reimbursed from public funds (raised from taxes). An important issue here is that the use of private finance should not be allowed to replace optimal policies with sub-optimal policies. Whether or not the private sector is involved in financing a strategy, there may be interest in private sector operation of the public transport service. However, evidence on the scale of benefits or losses from such operation is unclear. If, though, a city authority decides that private operation is beneficial, it should use, where legally possible, a franchising model in which it specifies optimal public transport service levels and fares. On the other hand, if a deregulation model is required (in order to comply with national law), private operators should not be given complete freedom to determine the operating conditions which meet their profitability target, even if the level of profitability is itself constrained as a result. There are typically a number of combinations (e.g. of fares and frequency) which achieve a given level of profitability, and not all will be equally effective in terms of public policy objectives

A conceptual approach for estimating resilience to fuel shocks

We examine a conceptual approach to the estimation of resilience of transport systems to fuel shocks, i.e. a severe and long lasting reduction in the availability of fuel for motorised transport. Adaptive capacity is an element of resilience and is defined in the paper. There is currently no indicator of adaptive capacity of individuals in small geographies sensitive to a variety of policy measures, such as those affecting fitness, obesity, bicycle availability and bicycle infrastructure, whose impacts (at least in the short term) are on a smaller scale than large-scale land use and urban morphology change. We propose a conceptual approach for designing a method to quantify this indicator. The indicator shows the proportion of the population of areas who would have the capacity to commute to work principally by bicycle or walking following the shock. It assesses capacity grounded in current data and avoids as far as possible the need for speculation about the future. We believe this makes progress towards producing a good indicator with relatively un-controversial, transparent simplifying assumptions. The indicator can compare the resilience of different areas and can be updated over time

Pathways to achieving radically different urban walking and cycling futures in the UK by 2030

This paper builds upon earlier work which was presented at Walk21 in 2009 and 2010 which outlined the development of a number of radically different visions for the role of walking and cycling in urban areas in the year 2030. These visions, which were developed through consultation with a wide range of stakeholders, present a 2030 where walking and cycling play a significantly greater role in urban transportation than is currently the case, accounting for as much as 80% of urban trips in the most extreme vision. Previous reported work had focussed on the kinds of measures, contextual background and lifestyle changes which would be required to support such visions, how urban areas may appear and the practicalities of daily life. Subsequent research (not yet reported in the public domain) has developed methods for constructing pathways to show how these visions might be reached. A pathway (in a specific city) to the successful occurrence of a vision is defined as being made up of a combination of developments on two separate levels: a Macro level , involving both developments external to the transport system and developments within the transport system but “out of control” of the local authority of the city concerned ; and a Micro level, involving developments within the control of the city’s local authority. The trajectory of developments on a particular level is referred to as a ‘storyline’, so that a distinction is made between Macro - storylines and Micro- storylines. Whilst generic macro - storylines have been developed which are relevant to all UK cities, micro - storylines can only be constructed ‘locally’ by those with sufficient knowledge of a particular city. The focus of the current paper is upon two workshops carried out in the summer of 2011 in the UK cities of Leeds and Norwich. The main purpose of these workshops was to explore how one of the visions could be mapped/adapted to their specific local circumstances and to develop pathways for achieving this vision, taking into account three alternative macro - storylines. The workshops aimed to attract relatively senior people from the local authorities in each area and representatives of stakeholder groups . The workshop size was between 10 - 15 people. The underlying aim of such exercises is to encourage city authorities and stakeholders to think in a more structured, systematic way about how the various potentially -conflicting issues concerning walking and cycling would play out in a long - term future, taking into account that the ‘external environment’ (e.g. the national economy) is highly unpredictable. The paper presents the results from the Leeds and Norwich workshops in terms of the local visions and pathways that they produced. Special attention is paid to results concerned with policies that directly facilitate walking, whilst recognising that a large number of factors (all urban transport modes, land use patterns, ‘society’) have impacts (direct or indirect) on walking. Various conclusions are presented, both with regard to transport policy and the methodology for constructing the visions/pathways and running the workshops

The protease inhibitor JO146 demonstrates a critical role for CtHtrA for Chlamydia trachomatis reversion from penicillin persistence

The Chlamydia trachomatis serine protease HtrA (CtHtrA) has recently been demonstrated to be essential during the replicative phase of the chlamydial developmental cycle. A chemical inhibition strategy (serine protease inhibitor JO146) was used to demonstrate this essential role and it was found that the chlamydial inclusions diminish in size and are lost from the cell after CtHtrA inhibition without formation of viable elementary bodies. The inhibitor (JO146) was used in this study to investigate the role of CtHtrA for penicillin persistence and heat stress conditions for Chlamydia trachomatis. JO146 addition during penicillin persistence resulted in only minor reductions (~1 log) in the final viable infectious yield after persistent Chlamydia were reverted from persistence. However, JO146 treatment during the reversion and recovery from penicillin persistence was completely lethal for Chlamydia trachomatis. JO146 was completely lethal when added either during heat stress conditions, or during the recovery from heat stress conditions. These data together indicate that CtHtrA has essential roles during some stress environments (heat shock), recovery from stress environments (heat shock and penicillin persistence), as well as the previously characterized essential role during the replicative phase of the chlamydial developmental cycle. Thus, CtHtrA is an essential protease with both replicative phase and stress condition functions for Chlamydia trachomatis. © 2013 Ong, Marsh, Lawrence, Allan, Timms and Huston

Chlamydia trachomatis Genital Tract Infections: When Host Immune Response and the Microbiome Collide

© 2016 Genital infections with Chlamydia trachomatis continue to be a major health problem worldwide. While some individuals clear their infection (presumed to be the result of an effective Th1/interferon-γ response), others develop chronic infections and some are prone to repeat infections. In females in particular, chronic asymptomatic infections are common and can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease and infertility. Recent studies suggest that the genital tract microbiota could be a significant factor and explain person-to-person variation in C. trachomatis infections. One hypothesis suggests that C. trachomatis can use its trpBA genes to rescue tryptophan from indole, which is a product of anaerobic members of the genital tract microbiota. Women with particular microbiota types, such as seen in bacterial vaginosis, have increased numbers of anaerobes, and this would enable the chlamydia in these individuals to overcome the host's interferon-γ attempts to eliminate it, resulting in more repeat and/or chronic infections

Atomic kinetic energy, momentum distribution and structure of solid neon at zero-temperature

We report on the calculation of the ground-state atomic kinetic energy, $E_{k}$, and momentum distribution of solid Ne by means of the diffusion Monte Carlo method and Aziz HFD-B pair potential. This approach is shown to perform notably for this crystal since we obtain very good agreement with respect to experimental thermodynamic data. Additionally, we study the structural properties of solid Ne at densities near the equilibrium by estimating the radial pair-distribution function, Lindemann's ratio and atomic density profile around the positions of the perfect crystalline lattice. Our value for $E_{k}$ at the equilibrium density is $41.51(6)$ K, which agrees perfectly with the recent prediction made by Timms {\it et al.}, $41(2)$ K, based on their deep-inelastic neutron scattering experiments carried out over the temperature range $4 - 20$ K, and also with previous path integral Monte Carlo results obtained with the Lennard-Jones and Aziz HFD-C2 atomic pairwise interactions. The one-body density function of solid Ne is calculated accurately and found to fit perfectly, within statistical uncertainty, to a Gaussian curve. Furthermore, we analyze the degree of anharmonicity of solid Ne by calculating some of its microscopic ground-state properties within traditional harmonic approaches. We provide insightful comparison to solid $^4$He in terms of the Debye model, in order to size the relevance of anharmonic effects in Ne.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figures. To be published in Physical Review

Chlamydia Serine Protease Inhibitor, targeting HtrA, as a New Treatment for Koala Chlamydia infection

© The Author(s) 2016. The koala, an iconic marsupial native to Australia, is a threatened species in many parts of the country. One major factor in the decline is disease caused by infection with Chlamydia. Current therapeutic strategies to treat chlamydiosis in the koala are limited. This study examines the effectiveness of an inhibitor, JO146, which targets the HtrA serine protease for treatment of C. pecorum and C. pneumoniae in vitro and ex vivo with the aim of developing a novel therapeutic for koala Chlamydia infections. Clinical isolates from koalas were examined for their susceptibility to JO146. In vitro studies demonstrated that treatment with JO146 during the mid-replicative phase of C. pecorum or C. pneumoniae infections resulted in a significant loss of infectious progeny. Ex vivo primary koala tissue cultures were used to demonstrate the efficacy of JO146 and the non-toxic nature of this compound on peripheral blood mononuclear cells and primary cell lines established from koala tissues collected at necropsy. Our results suggest that inhibition of the serine protease HtrA could be a novel treatment strategy for chlamydiosis in koalas