An improved approach for the sensitivity analysis of computationally expensive microscopic traffic models: a case study of the Zurich network in VISSIM

Microscopic traffic simulators are useful tools for designing, evaluating and optimizing transportation systems. In order for a simulator to accurately describe reality, the corresponding traffic model must be properly calibrated. However, the calibration can be rather difficult when the model is computationally expensive and has many parameters. To overcome these difficulties, Sensitivity Analysis (SA) can be applied as an essential instrument for supporting model calibration. Through SA the practitioners can obtain valuable information about the relationship between model inputs and outputs, and hence focus on the proper set of most influential parameters for the calibration. In this paper we developed an SA approach based on the Elementary Effects (EE) method. It screens the most influential parameters in a complex model through computing the corresponding EE and qualitatively comparing the Sensitivity Indexes. With the improved sampling strategy, this approach is much more efficient than the original EE method. A case study of the Zurich network in VISSIM is included here to illustrate the methodology of the proposed approach. The results demonstrate its efficiency and accuracy. In addition, they show that it can be a very useful tool for the SA of computationally expensive microscopic traffic models like VISSIM, as well as other complex models in the general scientific community.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AHB45 Traffic Flow Theory and Characteristics
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Ge, Qiao
  • Menendez, Monica
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 92nd Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2013-1-13 to 2013-1-17
• Date: 2013

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 11p
• Monograph Title: TRB 92nd Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Case studies; Mathematical models; Microscopic traffic flow; Optimization; Sensitivity analysis; Traffic simulation
• Identifier Terms: VISSIM (Computer model)
• Geographic Terms: Zurich (Switzerland)
• Subject Areas: Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; I70: Traffic and Transport; I73: Traffic Control;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01473832
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 13-0075
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Feb 26 2013 9:24AM