Abstract
In a time of economic austerity, more pressure is being put on the existing transport systems to be more sustainable and, at the same time, more equitable and socially inclusive. Regular public road transportation traditionally uses fixed routes and schedules, which can be extremely expensive in rural areas and certain periods of the day in urban areas due to low and unpredictable demand. Demand Responsive Transportation systems are a kind of hybrid transportation approach between a taxi and a bus that try to address these problems with routes and frequencies that may vary according to the actual observed demand. Demand Responsive Transportation seems to have potential to answer the sustainability and social inclusion challenges in a context of austerity. However, DRT projects may fail: it is not only important to solve the underlying model in an efficient way, but also to understand how different ways of operating the service affect customers and operators. To help design DRT services, we developed an innovative approach integrating simulation and optimization. Using this simulator, we compared a real night-time bus service in the city of Porto, Portugal, with a hypothetical flexible DRT service for the same scenario.

Abstract
Traditionally, travel demand modelling focused on long-term multiple socio-economic scenarios and land-use configurations to estimate the required transport supply. However, the limited number of transportation requests in demand-responsive flexible transport systems require a higher resolution zoning. This work analyses users short-term destination choice patterns, with a careful analysis of the available data coming from various different sources, such as GPS traces and social networks. We use a Multinomial Logit Model, with a social component for utility and characteristics, both derived from Social Network Analyses. The results from the model show meaningful relationships between distance and attractiveness for all the different alternatives, with the variable distance being the most significant.

Abstract
Over the last years, the numerical simulation of integrated processes has become the major challenge in virtual try-out of sheet metal components, including trimming operations that may occur between forming steps. Detailed simulation of trimming processes is a challenging task, particularly when integrated with other forming operations such as deep drawing or hemming. A simplified approach can be adopted in which elements outside the trim surface are deleted from the finite element (FE) model adjusting the remaining to the surface. Following this approach, the state variables are mapped from the old FE mesh to the new trimmed mesh to continue the simulation. This paper addresses this simplified approach to the trimming process exploring a previously presented algorithm (Finite Elem Anal Des 42: 1053-1060, Baptista et al. 2006), which allows the treatment of hexahedral finite element meshes. Particularly, it focuses on the performance evaluation of the implemented strategies for correcting the FE mesh to the trimming surface, including the treatment of pentahedral-shaped elements. Different correction and treatment strategies are evaluated on different types of meshes, based on numerical simulation results of simple mechanical tests: uniaxial tensile test and simple bending test. Finally, two practical applications are given where the local effect of the trimming algorithm is highlighted.

Abstract

Abstract
For efficient planning of waste collection routing, large municipalities may be partitioned into convenient sectors. The real case under consideration is the municipality of Monção, in Portugal. Waste collection involves more than 1600 containers over an area of 220 km2 and a population of around 20,000 inhabitants. This is mostly a rural area where the population is distributed in small villages around the 33 boroughs centres (freguesia) that constitute the municipality. In most freguesias, waste collection is usually conducted 3 times a week. However, there are situations in which the same collection is done every day. The case reveals some general and specific characteristics which are not rare, but are not widely addressed in the literature. Furthermore, new methods and models to deal with sectorization and routing are introduced, which can be extended to other applications. Sectorization and routing are tackled following a three-phase approach. The first phase, which is the main concern of the presentation, introduces a new method for sectorization inspired by Electromagnetism and Coulomb’s Law. The matter is not only about territorial division, but also the frequency of waste collection, which is a critical issue in these types of applications. Special characteristics related to the number and type of deposition points were also a motivation for this work. The second phase addresses the routing problems in each sector: new Mixed Capacitated Arc Routing with Limited Multi-Landfills models will be presented. The last phase integrates Sectoring and Routing. Computational results confirm the effectiveness of the entire novel approach.

Abstract
Airports have traditionally been considered as public utility providers, with little potential to develop significant market opportunities. Liberalisation of the air transport market around the globe has introduced new dynamics into the airport industry. The emergence of competition and the transition in ownership (towards privatisation or commercialisation) demand a different perspective in airport management. This paper aims at explaining the complexity of the airport business, in particular in what concerns the role of the airport as a firm that operates in a network of stakeholders, to produce a set of service packages targeted at several types of customers. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of Scientific Committee