The historical development of cities and urban transportinevitably implies a conflict between mass transit and the urbanenvironment, regardless of the steps taken to influence (and thedegree of such influence) the ratio of mass transit to privatetranspmtation in cities. In fact, both are to be found among themost important factors reducing the standard of urban living insettlements and cities. The positive effect of transportation inte1ms of its overcoming physical distances is associated withquite a few negative impacts on man and the environment;within this scope the negative effects of passenger cars on the urbanenvironment are higher than those of mass transit.A realistic approach to the urban-transit-to-environmentrelation would involve the identification of its relative parameters,their objective quantification, and the selection of steps toreduce or prevent the occurrence of negative effects.The general transformation of th'e city - environment -transportation relation in Zagreb follows the same pattem. Theassessment of the relation between mass transit in Zagreb andother elements of the urban environment is as negative as therelation of the former to the population (whether it involves pedestrians,transit users or passenger car drivers).The range of possible steps which could improve this stateof affairs in Zagreb covers a span from secular to short-termmeasures. Unfortunately, the relation of transit (one of the elementsof the urban environment) and man does not seem to attractthe interest of the main agents of the city's transpmtationpolicies.

This article presents the influence of the Chinese economyon the World shipping industry. Changes in international economyand shipping market have pushed shipping industry tochange the market strategy. The Chinese trade growth has cometo a point at which any change of the Chinese demand will havean immediate influence on the shipping market (container, drybulk and tanker). Because of the rising demand of the transportof manufactured goods, cooperation between carriers will befurther developed, in order to satisfy the customer's requirements.In addition, shipping companies must change to globallogistic providers.

It is very complex to assure the dynamics of traffic networkin urban environment because of the intensity of traffic flowsand the limited space in the urban area. Signalized intersectionsare undoubtedly very important and frequent element inroad traffic network in urban regions, which greatly influencesthe traffic flow dynamics on each section as in the whole trafficnetwork. The time (delay) a vehicle needs to drive through anintersection directly influences the travel comfort, fuel consumption,traffic pollution and so on. There are many methodsfor dimensioning signalized intersections in the world literature.One of the most applied methods is the HIGHWAY CAPACI1YMANUAL (HCM) 2000 which is based on competentinput traffic flows and other characteristics of traffic signalregulations. The intention of this paper is to establish whetherwe can use the HCM 2000 method directly in the Slovenian realenvironment. Based on the established methodology of researchand limited number of delay measurement in real environmentintersections, there have been some deviations. Thecompletion of the level of service criterion for signalized intersectionshas been proposed, with the intention for more suitabilityestimation in the realistic environment.

Polymeric materials in automobiles have experienced a realboom in the last twenty years, and their application is increasingwith a tendency of further growth. The basic functions ofsuch wide application of polymeric materials in vehicles dictatethe appearance of the automobiles, their functionality, economyand low fuel consumption. The application of polymericmaterials allows more freedom in design, and in many casesonly the polymeric materials can enable safe geometrical oreconomical solutions for the design parts.

The experience of major cities in Europe and in the worldhas influenced the dimensioning of the required capacities ofthe transportation means. Based on this knowledge, the criteriafor using individual modes and systems as well as types of transportationmeans were created. The increase in passenger flowsbeyond capacity margins has resulted in the introduction oftransportation means of higher capacities. The decision on thevery choice is made on the basis of an integral analysis of advantagesand drawbacks of individual modes and systems, includingin the decision-making process the current situation inthe traffic in the city with the evaluation of passenger flow valuesin the future. The size of the traffic demands in the City ofZagreb requires higher capacity transportation means, on thestandard rail system gauge, featuring much higher commercialspeed, reliability, comfort, safety in relation to the previoustransportation means. The decision about the mode and thesystem should be made as soon as possible.

In the recent several years there has come to a rapid increasein the multimedia traffic in computer communicationnetworks. New applications of communication networks haveset new, high requirements on the networks, due to the need toprovide the users with high-quality service of multimedia datatransmission. In response to such requirements, numerousmechanisms have been developed and they insure the service ofprioritizing traffic in the communication networks which resultsin the possibility of determining the quality of service necessaryfor individual network applications.

Asymmetric flow of information is the key feature of theADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Loop) technology, i.e.higher data transmission rate towards the user than from theuser towards the network. Characteristic is the short messagesending by the user with a certain request to the se!Ver. These!Ver responds to the request by a significantly longer messageof various electronic forms (data, digitized speech, pictures orvideo). Therefore, this technology is most often used by smalland medium users. ADSL is currently the only commerciallyavailable DSL technology which is still experiencing the breakthroughon the seiVice market. It enables faster access to theInternet, LAN (Local Area Network), videoconferencing, VoD(Video on Demand) and interactive multimedia. In order tostandardize such se/Vices, the !TU (International TelecommunicationsUnion) G. 992.1 (standardized DMT-discrete multi-tone line coding technology) and ANSJ (American NationalStandards Institution) Tl.413-95!98 are used for ADSL. DMT(Discrete Multi Tone), as the more popular one, uses the linecoding technique, which splits a certain frequency range intoseveral sub-channels. Most of these sub-channels are used forupstream and downstream transmission of speech and data,whereas some are used as pilot signals or kept in rese/Ve. Suchmodulation technique expands the frequency spectrum, allowingthe usage ofbroadband se/Vices per one pair of wires. In thisway the sharing of speech and data se/Vice transmission is realized.