Seal surfacing is frequently used on low-volume roads throughout the world. However, seal surfacing is also used on high-volume roads in Turkey. Seventy-nine percent of the total amount of road length for which the General Directorate of Turkish Highways is responsible is coated with seal surfacing, and most of the 15 000 km of divided roads under construction are projected to be seal-surfacing roads. For this reason, there is a need for more information about seal surfacing. Within the context of the present study, the state and provincial roads located in the south-western part of Anatolia were investigated and core samples were taken from multi-layered seal-surfacing pavements. The core samples were fixed in size to match the standard Marshall sample size. The physical characteristics were defined by carrying out unit weight tests, ultrasound tests and Marshall stability tests. Skid resistance tests were performed around the core extraction areas on the road surfaces. In order to conduct analyses of the binder portions and the aggregate portions of the core samples, binder was extracted from the core samples through the use of a centrifuge extractor. As a consequence, attempts were made to determine the physical characteristics and actual conditions of multi-layer seal surfacing. In conclusion, it emerged that in the case of both building techniques and material characteristics, seal surfacing differs from hot mix asphalt. However, multi-layer seal surfacing demonstrates properties that are similar to those of hot mix asphalt. It must be taken into consideration that there are significant differences in stability and yield values.

The service level of a road is an indicator which measures the traffic flow operating condition and service quality experienced by drivers and passengers. In the present study, the service level classification and evaluation of Beijing urban expressway, China were established on the basis of three parameters of traffic flow. As a result of the interference of the external environment, some abnormal data existed in the raw data and so the multivariate quality control method and the time-related method were used initially to screen and recover them. Next the service level classification was set up on the basis of the Delphi method and the semi-supervised clustering method, and finally a BP neural network was used to evaluate the service level. This study of the service level of Beijing urban expressway, China provides a scientific basis for traffic management and plays an important role in the traffic decision-making.

Transportation is an important human activity which has many economic, social and other effects. In particular, freight transportation is economically very important for any country, and includes transporting a wide variety of goods ranging from raw materials to finished goods. These freights must be transported to the market efficiently and safely at reasonable cost. In addition, the external effects caused by freight transportation must be at an environmentally and socially acceptable level. To achieve these goals, an effective freight transportation planning model is required for forecasting the future trends of freight transportation. This paper presents a framework which includes empirical modelling methods to estimate the freight transportation between defined zones. The gravity method was used to estimate origin and destination matrices by using observed link flows, gross domestic product by provinces and interzonal distances. The coefficients of the gravity method were estimated by using advanced statistical techniques and regression analyses. The final freight transportation matrix was calibrated with the link flows data by using iterative techniques. The suggested framework was successfully applied to a data set provided by the Turkish General Directorate of Highways.