Collaborative Research on Urban Auto Congestion

这个项目的目的是改进城市交通拥堵的建模，重点是乘坐汽车的通勤者的出行决策。最终目标是构建一个实用且理论上合理的仿真模型，以便对道路收费和其他政策进行评估。这项研究建立在早期工作的基础上，在早期工作中，道路被建模为具有固定流量的瓶颈。将对该模型进行六个扩展：1)通过模拟市中心工人之间的互动，直接结合通勤者的到达时间偏好。错开工作时间和弹性工作时间政策被认为是分散通勤行程和减少拥堵的方法；2)使用更现实的交通流模型评估通行费和容量扩张的收益，其中流量依赖于密度；3)调查交通流变得极度拥挤的情况；4)在瓶颈模型中增加停车模块，以确定停车收费和步行时间对出行时间决策的影响，提高对停车拥堵和移动交通拥堵之间相互作用的理解；5)简单路网分析；借此向驾驶者提供有关交通情况的即时资讯及建议。这个项目很重要，因为它将提高我们规划和更有效地管理交通系统的能力。

The purpose of this project is to improve the modeling of urban traffic congestion, with an emphasis on the travel decisions made by commuters traveling by automobile. The ultimate goal is to construct a practical and theoretically sound simulation model in which road pricing and other policies can be evaluated. This research builds on earlier work in which roads are modeled as bottlenecks with fixed flow capacity. Six extensions of this model will be pursued: 1) Incorporating directly the arrival time preferences of commuters by modeling the interaction between workers in the city center. Staggered working hours and flexitime policies are considered as ways of spreading out commuting trips and reducing congestion, 2) Evaluating the gains from tolls and capacity expansion using more realistic models of traffic flow in which flow is density-dependent, 3) Investigation of the circumstances under which traffic flows become hypercongested, 4) Addition of a parking module to the bottleneck model to determine the effect of parking fees and walking time on trip time decisions and to improve the understanding of the interaction between parking congestion and moving-traffic congestion, 5) Analysis of simple road networks, 6) Evaluation of the welfare effects or route guidance systems, whereby real-time information and advice is provided to drivers on traffic conditions. This project is important because it will enhance our ability to plan and more effectively manage our transportation system.