Calibration of Steady-state Car-following Models using Macroscopic Loop Detector Data

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Date

2010-05

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Virginia Tech. Virginia Tech Transportation Institute

Abstract

The paper develops procedures for calibrating the steady-state component of various car following models using macroscopic loop detector data. The calibration procedures are developed for a number of commercially available microscopic traffic simulation software, including: CORSIM, AIMSUN2, VISSIM, Paramics, and INTEGRATION. The procedures are then applied to a sample dataset for illustration purposes. The paper then compares the various steady-state car-following formulations and concludes that the Gipps and Van Aerde steady-state car following models provide the highest level of flexibility in capturing different driver and roadway characteristics. However, the Van Aerde model, unlike the Gipps model, is a single-regime model and thus is easier to calibrate given that it does not require the segmentation of data into two regimes. The paper finally proposes that the car-following parameters within traffic simulation software be link-specific as opposed to the current practice of coding network-wide parameters. The use of link-specific parameters will offer the opportunity to capture unique roadway characteristics and reflect roadway capacity differences across different roadways.

Description

Keywords

Loop detectors, Car following, Macroscopic traffic flow, Calibration, Traffic simulation, State of the art, Links (networks), Highway capacity, Traffic flow--measurement, Traffic patterns, Vehicle detectors--calibration, Highway capacity, Traffic flow

Citation

Rakha, H. A., Flintsch, A. M., Arafeh, M., Abdel-Salam, A.-S. G., Dua, D., & Abbas, M. (2008). Access control design on highway interchanges. (CDOT-2013-17). Blacksburg, VA: Virginia Tech Transportation Institute. Retrieved from http://www.virginiadot.org/vtrc/main/online_reports/pdf/08-CR7.pdf.