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The purpose of this paper is to develop a method to benchmark the service quality of any public facility based on users’ perception, by taking the case of “bus design”. While some researchers have defined level of service (LOS) for highways, transit system and pedestrian facility to measure their service quality, limited attempt has been made to measure users’ perception of service quality for other public facilities which cannot be described by quantitative service levels.

In this research, an average weighted scoring technique has been integrated with the method of successive interval scaling to develop a five graded LOS scale that benchmarks users’ perception of service quality for “bus design”. The method has been exemplified by taking five types of buses currently operating in Kolkata that represent five types of “bus design”. This method can be applied for other public facilities.

By applying the method an LOS scale from LOS A to LOS E was developed for “bus design” in Kolkata that represent users’ perception from “very good” to “very poor”. “Bus design” has been described by a list of attributes identified in this research. “Degree of criticality” of different design attributes based on users’ requirements was used to identify the key attributes for improvement which was also found to vary for different bus user groups in Kolkata.

This research is the first ever attempt to benchmark service quality of a qualitative facility like “bus design” based on users’ perception instead of expert opinion as used by previous researchers.

Electrical energy distribution systems must be low losses systems in order to enhance the system efficiency. Therefore, it is preferred to distribute electrical energy by bus-ducts in the place of cables over all energy levels and decrease the losses. The purpose of this paper is to focus on a comprehensive survey of various aspects of bus-ducts design including electromagnetic, mechanical and thermal. Advantages and disadvantages of different available design techniques are reviewed.

Different works on various bus-based power transmission and distribution systems are reviewed. Generally these are done in three categories including systems modeling methods, heat transfer in the systems, short circuit and electromagnetic force. The attempt is made to provide geometrical and materials specifications in order to present the analyzed system well.

Different types of bus-ducts from used materials, voltage level and insulation types are reviewed. Bus-duct modeling techniques are introduced which can be easily applied for bus-ducts design. Electromagnetic field distribution, thermal pattern inside and outside of the bus-duct in normal and short circuit modes and finally mechanical considerations are dominant factors which must be taken into account in the bus-ducts design. This leads to an optimal design of bus-ducts which prolong the life span of the bus-ducts fixed in the installations.

This paper for the first time systematically reviews the latest state of arts in the design of bus-ducts for efficient electrical energy distribution. It summarizes a variety of design techniques applicable to bus-ducts design.

The purpose of the present study is to examine the effectiveness of tourist shuttle bus advertising for the corporate brand image of gaming and hospitality operators.

Grounded in the theoretical framework of Message Response Involvement (MRI) theory, a multilevel design with hierarchical modeling was adopted to examine the hypothesized paths between consumers’ message processing components and corporate brand equity. The moderating effects of shuttle bus design were also investigated. The data were collected via a self-administered questionnaire from 595 tourists visiting Macao.

The results indicated that advertising effectiveness (i.e., corporate brand equity) was largely dependent on consumers’ motivation and ability to process information. When design was included as a moderator, it enhanced the influence of consumers’ motivation to process information on advertising effectiveness.

The findings highlight the importance of tourist shuttle buses as an advertising platform in the hospitality and gaming industry and depict important aspects of consumers and executional cues that corporations should focus on improving shuttle bus advertising effectiveness.

This study examines an underexplored, yet frequently used, advertising channel – the shuttle bus. Specifically, it offers a better understanding of transit advertising effectiveness from the corporate level (design) and individual level (consumers’ motivation, ability and opportunity) in the tourism and hospitality industry.

This paper aims to analyze the dominant stray parameters of the DC bus bar and focus on weakening the influence of the stray parameters instead of reducing the value of the stray parameters in DC bus bar while switching. By finding the mechanisms to reduce the effects of stray parameters on switching transient, the simple and straightforward optimization methods could be given for the engineering designer.

The investigations are focused on the equivalent circuit by segmented impedance evaluation in the low-frequency band and the energy propagation by wave impedance evaluation in the high frequency band. This paper proposes an equivalent impedance calculation model to locate the dominant stray parameters in the DC bus bar and takes the energy propagation characteristics using wave impedance into consideration, which can simplify the optimization design of DC bus bar.

According to the equivalent circuit and electromagnetic field analysis, this paper proves the existence of the dominant stray parameters in DC bus bar that is widely used on high-power converters and certifies that not all the stray parameters in different areas of DC bus bar have the same effects on switching process, which can give a good guidance for the optimization design of DC bus bar.

The positions of DC-link capacitors, resulting in only part of stray parameters in DC bus bar has more impact during switching, are significant to the DC bus bar optimization design. These stray parameters named dominant stray parameters in this paper play a leading role in the switching transient process. The area of DC bus bar, which is close to IGBTs and far from DC-link capacitors, contains the dominant stray parameters in the switching transient process. Therefore, the distance between DC-link capacitors and IGBTs should be shortened as much as possible. Based on the results, the efficiency for the DC bus bar optimization design could be improved by weakening the influence of the stray parameters, such as reducing the dominant stray parameters only. Therefore, it can save the cost and time of DC bus bar optimization design.

While the popular image of the Sherman Act is that of a “trust-busting” statute, conduct remedies have been more common than structural relief. This paper evaluates the effect on economic welfare of conduct remedies that have resulted from ten prominent Sherman Act monopolization cases. In general, we find that in some cases the behavioral relief has had no consequence other than the cost of litigation and cost of compliance; in other cases, the remedies probably reduced consumer welfare. Cases studied are United Shoe Machinery, AT&T, Std. Oil of California, IBM, United Fruit, Kodak, Safeway, GM, Jerrold, and Blue Chip Stamp.

This study aims to optimize the traffic capacity allocation to solve the problem of low share of public transit in the landside system so as to get rid of the congestion trouble in landside traffic. The optimal timetable for airport buses can be searched by changing the departure interval of each line and evaluating the corresponding performance continuously.

This paper constructs a simulation model based on the real-world situation in Beijing Capital International Airport (BCIA), which simulates the whole process of airport bus schedules and analyzes the connections among multiple steps for transferring. The evaluation system is constructed by considering the benefits of passengers, airports and companies comprehensively. The optimal timetable for airport buses can be searched by changing the departure interval of each line and evaluating the corresponding performance continuously.

According to the experimental results, an excellent evacuation effect can only be achieved when the majority of departure intervals of airport buses are shortened to 50% of their original values, and some busy routes such as the Beijing Station line are supposed to be reduced to one-third of their original fixed intervals. As the airport bus passenger flow presents an obviously periodic variation over days, the timetable of the airport bus is supposed to be redesigned every day. A flexible bus timetable can not only meet the dynamic passenger flow but also enhance the attractiveness of public transit.

This paper constructs a simulation model based on the real-world situation in BCIA, which can not only model the complex scenes in the whole process of airport bus schedules but also reflect the intricate interaction between transferring passengers and vehicles caused by dense streamlines.