Empirical and Simulation Analysis of the Relation between Microscopic and Macroscopic Traffic Considering Trajectory Data Sets

The development of communication and automated systems provide increasing ways to influence the dynamics of vehicles at every scale of the transportation network. Control of the acceleration dynamics, the speed limits or the route choice can be done to increase traffic flow stability properties, network capacity, balance the network load, etc. However, it is poorly understood how algorithms operating at different scales of the transportation network are tied to each other, for instance how controlling the acceleration dynamics of a proportion of automated vehicles impacts the network capacity. In the literature, some work has been done on linking microscopic and macroscopic models; however it is mostly theoretical and only applicable for homogeneous traffic. In this paper, the authors look into this problem and propose a methodology to investigate the empirical relation between Car-Following (CF) models and Fundamental Diagrams (FDs) as well as the influence of microscopic parameters over the macroscopic ones, using a NGSIM trajectory data set. The authors first estimate the parameters of the FD as well as the heterogeneous CF parameters with their confidence values. The authors compare the empirical FD with the one obtained with the CF parameters assuming steady-state Car-Following behaviour. The authors show that the estimated CF parameters enable a good approximation of the empirical FD for two different CF models. The authors then reproduce the FD with microscopic simulations and perform sensitivity analyses to determine which CF parameters have the most influence on macroscopic parameters such as the network capacity and critical density. This provides insights on understanding the macroscopic effects of microscopic control algorithms, e.g. on how the microscopic control of automated vehicles affects macroscopic level.

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

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Guyonnet, Remi
  • Monteil, Julien
  • Ghosh, Bidisha
  • Bouroche, Melanie
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 96th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2017-1-8 to 2017-1-12
• Date: 2017

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 22p
• Monograph Title: TRB 96th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Algorithms; Car following; Macroscopic traffic flow; Microsimulation; Network analysis (Planning); Sensitivity analysis; Vehicle trajectories
• Uncontrolled Terms: Fundamental diagram
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Highways; Planning and Forecasting;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01629713
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 17-05346
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Mar 22 2017 1:44PM