A modeling framework for large-scale traffic networks

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The Canadian Transport Ministry identified in its last Report on Plans and Priorities the need for a better inter-modal integration and consistent transportation infrastructure design and rehabilitation in order to sustain Canada's needs for productivity gains and overall economic growth.  The release of a recent study performed for Transport Canada, that investigated the cost of roadway urban congestion in Canada, shows that for nine metropolitan areas of the country the total annual congestion costs ranges between 2.0 and 3.4 billion (in 2002 dollars).  The availability of accurate and reliable traffic modeling tools impacts the effectiveness of traffic management authorities in addressing safety, security, and efficient utilization of national and regional roadways infrastructure.  Currently, the state-of-the-art of large-scale traffic network modeling tools, in spite of recent substantial developments in this area, have mix success in striking the balance between the simplicity, versatility, efficiency, comprehensiveness, and flexibility of modeling the transportation networks.  The long term goal of the proposed research program is to develop a comprehensive modeling framework that integrates various traffic modeling tools.  This framework will encompass a collection of proposed theoretical models specialized in traffic analysis of various transportation facilities (expressways, arterials, intersections, etc.).  In addition, a comprehensive software package will be developed in order to integrate the proposed models in a modular approach.  This feature will facilitate future developments beyond the scope the first five-year term of the proposed research program, such as specialized traffic simulators, GIS interfaces, repository databases, analysis emulators, etc.  The major benefit of this research program is two-fold.  First, this program will provide transportation professionals communities, practitioners and researchers, a robust and integrated support that serves an array of purposes.  Second, this research will also provide support in educational activities of traffic engineering students at both levels, applied and basic-research.