Traffic Simulation in Regional Modeling: Concepts and Demonstration

Principal Investigators

Dr. Charles R. Standridge
Grand Valley State University

Project Dates:

09/01/2010 to 12/31/2011

Project year: Year 1

MIOH-UTC Project Identifier: TS 41

Focus Area:

Research: Intelligent Transportation Systems

Abstract:

Over the past four years, a team of university-based transportation system experts, simulation experts, optimization experts, and applied statisticians has received funding to pursue the goals of describing, explaining, and predicting the flow of traffic in a corridor with respect to time and space as well as to apply these results in the routing of voluminous traffic. This team, reconfigured as necessary, is well-positioned to apply the knowledge gained from these prior research efforts in other contexts such as regional transportation systems modeling in support of economic development. In this regard, the following research issues seem important: Assessing the impact of intermodal freight on the regional transportation infrastructure; developing the ability to model the detailed operations associated with intermodal freight as many large scale planning models supported by much data already exist; and showing potential for dealing with issues that cross political boundaries such as the Michigan-Ohio border. The research team hypothesizes that traffic flow simulation techniques can be used to address these issues. The traffic simulation framework previously developed by the research team will be enhanced and employed. A traffic flow simulation of intermodal freight movement at the Toledo Sea Port is proposed to test the enhanced framework. This facility is of sufficient complexity and has the characteristics needed to demonstrate how the key issues are addressed.