Interconnectivity in the Region of Eurasia:Mongolia’s Presence in the SCO(Shanghai Cooperation Organization)

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization(SCO)was formed in 2001 after breakdown of the socialist system and the Soviet Union as a new form of cooperation between former socialist countries in Eurasian region.Mongolia joined the SCO in 2005 with an observer member status.Since 2007,Presidents of Mongolia began to participate every year to the Summit of the heads of SCO member states.By the initiative of Mongolian President,in 2014 the tripartite format of the meetings of the leaders of three countries:Russia,China,and Mongolia were established.In June 2016,during the third meeting of the leaders of Russia,China,and Mongolia in Tashkent(Uzbekistan),“The Russia-China-Mongolia Economic Corridor Program”document was signed.This program is aiming to develop the infrastructure of three countries,ensuring the competitiveness of products on the world market,and strengthening the Eurasian integration.The content of this program is combining the main ideas of Chinese“Belt-Road”megaproject,Russian initiative for developing of Eurasian economic integration and Mongolian“Steppe Road”project.The main goal of the“Steppe Road”initiative is to involve Mongolia to become the transit territory for transportation of natural gas,oil,and other products between Russia and China.In conclusion,the author gives some comments regarding the issue of full membership status of Mongolia to the international organization—SCO.

Modeling the effect of a freeway road construction project on link-level travel times

Drivers experience variations in travel time due to congestion and delays associated with road construction projects on existing transportation facilities. The effect on the travel time of a link decreases as its distance from the road construction project increases. In addition, the effect could extend to the connecting arterial street links within the vicinity of the road construction project. Therefore, the focus of this research is to model the effect of a road construction project on the freeway and connecting arterial street link-level travel times. Data pertaining to a resurfacing construction project, which lasted for six months,was gathered from the traffic incident management systems(TIMS). The travel time data was collected and processed, for each selected freeway and connecting arterial street link,for six months before the start of the resurfacing construction project and six months during the construction of the resurfacing project. Generalized linear models(GLM) were developed and validated for before and during the construction project periods with the average travel time on a link as the dependent variable. Data such as time-of-the-day, dayof-the-week, the distance of a link from the work zone, subject link characteristics, and upstream and downstream link characteristics were collected and used as the predictor variables. The results indicate that the subject link, upstream link and downstream link characteristics have a significant effect on the freeway and connecting arterial street linklevel travel times due to the resurfacing construction project.