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• Public ecological aesthetic perception basically follows a three-step process (seeing ecological elements—concept perception processing—aesthetic experience). • Ecological and aesthetic perceptions vary in terms of conceptual relevance and processing. • Natural landscape elements are more likely to contribute to positive ecosystem aesthetic perception. • Evaluation models developed using Bayesian networks combined with deep learning and eye-tracking have practical applications. Public perceptions of ecological aesthetics are a crucial component in evaluations of the quality of urban green spaces (UGSs) and in guiding urban planning, design and renewal practices. In this paper, we propose a novel methodological framework that combines deep learning and eye-tracking to investigate the relationships between landscape elements, features, visual focus and public ecosystem aesthetic perceptions of UGSs. Our Public Ecosystem Aesthetic Perceptions (PEAP) model emphasises interactions between ecosystem quality and landscape aesthetic quality. To validate the model, we conducted a study in Shanghai, China, where we selected 54 representative UGSs for photography, perception surveys, and image processing. The results demonstrated that visual focus acts as a mediator between landscape stimuli (landscape elements and features) and perceptions of ecosystem aesthetics. Notably, we found that natural elements elicited significantly stronger visual focus than artificial elements. Thus, our PEAP approach can enhance understanding of aesthetic qualities of landscapes and ecological qualities of urban ecosystems, enabling creation of more aesthetically pleasing and ecologically sustainable UGSs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is critical for the management and control of urban rail transit (URT) to be able to predict passenger flow accurately and in real time. Considering that the high-resolution data aggregated by the automatic fare collection (AFC) system is wasted, this paper analyzes the problem of applying a multi-time granularity passenger flow data fusion forecasting process. First, we examine the challenge of constructing a dataset of passenger flow data with different time granularities. Thus, an algorithm is proposed for selecting passenger flow datasets with multi-time granularity. Furthermore, a multi-time granularity dense residual network (Mul-DesLSTM) with a dense residual structure and LSTM (long short-term memory) as the predictor is constructed, inspired by a residual network. Using Mul-DesLSTM, finer-grained passenger flow features can be fused layer by layer while maintaining the accuracy of traditional single-granularity passenger flow predictions. Lastly, Mul-DesLSTM is applied to the URT system of Shanghai, China, and compared with baselines. As a result, the proposed Mul-DesLSTM outperforms the baselines with LSTM as a predictor and state-of-the-art model. When the predicted time granularity is 30 min, compared to the single-time granularity LSTM network, the mean absolute error, root mean square error, and symmetric mean absolute percentage error can be reduced by 51%, 63%, and 15%, respectively. The results can serve as a reference and basis for the operation and management of URT systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The automatic detection and extraction of road pothole distress is an important issue regarding healthy road structures, monitoring, and maintenance. In this paper, a new algorithm that integrates the mobile point cloud and images is proposed for the detection of road potholes. The algorithm includes three steps: 2D candidate pothole extraction from the images using a deep learning method, 3D candidate pothole extraction via a point cloud, and pothole determination by depth analysis. Because the texture features of the pothole and asphalt or concrete patches greatly differ from those of a normal road, pothole or patch distress images are used to establish a training set and train and test the deep learning system. Subsequently, the 2D candidate pothole is extracted from the images and labeled via the trained DeepLabv3+, a state-of-the-art pixel-wise classification (semantic segmentation) network. The edge of the candidate pothole in the image is then used to establish the relationship between the mobile point cloud and images. The original road point cloud around the edge of the candidate pothole is categorized into two groups, that is, interior and exterior points, according to the relationship between the point cloud and images. The exterior points are used to fit the road plane and calculate the accurate 3D shape of the candidate potholes. Finally, the interior points of a candidate pothole are used to analyze the depth distribution to determine if the candidate pothole is a pothole or patch. To verify the proposed method, two cases, including real and simulation cases, are selected. The real case is an expressway in Shanghai with a length of 26.4 km. Based on the proposed method, 77 candidate potholes are extracted by the DeepLabv3+ system; 49 potholes and 28 patches are finally filtered. The affected lanes and pothole locations are analyzed. The simulation case is selected to verify the geometric accuracy of the detected potholes. The results show that the mean accuracy of the detected potholes is ∼1.5–2.8 cm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]