Benefits of Informing Travellers in Case of Extreme Precipitation Events: A Model-Based Case Study for Zurich Using MatSim

One expected effect of climate change will be an increase in intra- and inter-seasonal weather variations, including substantially more frequent and more severe weather extremes in several parts of Europe. A substantial part of the short term total economic costs caused by extreme weather events occur through an impaired transport system. This paper applies an innovative model-based analysis of the impact of weather extremes, taking the perspective of disruptions of the urban transport system. This analysis was performed with an agent-based micro-simulation model (MatSim), applied for the city of Zurich, Switzerland. The focus of the paper is on the response(s) of agents to extreme events that can help to reduce the cost of weather extremes on the basis of timely weather prediction. Concretely, the authors simulate a series of major traffic disturbances on the road network, as well as a public transit disruption in Zurich, possibly (but not necessarily) caused by weather extremes. For each scenario, the authors differentiate agent responses between nothing (worst case), rerouting, switching between transport modes, rescheduling activities as well as relocating activities. When extreme events occur, the adaptive response of travelers plays an essential role in mitigating the cost of extreme events, reducing the cost of ‘worst case’ scenarios with more than two thirds. The most effective strategies in this model being: rerouting (avoiding congested areas) as well as making modal changes (switching to non-congested modes).

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AH010 Standing Committee on Surface Transportation Weather.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Heyndrickx, Christophe
  • Frederix, Rodric
  • Bosch, Patrick
  • Ciari, Francesco
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 95th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2016-1-10 to 2016-1-14
• Date: 2016

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Web
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 13p
• Monograph Title: TRB 95th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Climate change; Economic factors; Highways; Routes and routing; Traffic congestion; Traffic control centers; Urban transit; Weather conditions
• Geographic Terms: Europe; Zurich (Switzerland)
• Subject Areas: Environment; Highways; Public Transportation; Safety and Human Factors; I10: Economics and Administration; I73: Traffic Control;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01590036
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 16-3433
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Feb 9 2016 9:18AM