What Statistics Suggest about Required Runs for Simulating Signalized Intersection Delays

Engineering practitioners using VISSIM simulation software to evaluate transportation facilities have limited guidance from most state departments of transportation. To address some of this need, this study investigated the appropriate minimum number of VISSIM model runs when evaluating intersection delays. The methods included a thorough review of published studies and government guidelines, and an analysis of 55 intersections from three different models of transportation facilities in the Midwest state of Missouri. The findings suggested that average intersection delay is not always normally-distributed; therefore, the assumptions of most common sample size equations is not valid. These results also suggest that modeling intersection delays in VISSIM requires more care to reduce errors and a larger sample size compared to other common performance measures, such as average vehicle delay. Overall, these findings indicate a need for revisions to existing manuals to account for the possible non-normality and larger volatility of simulated intersection delays.

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  • Supplemental Notes:
    • © 2018 American Society of Civil Engineers. LINK TO MONOGRAPH: International Conference on Transportation and Development 2018: Traffic and Freight Operations and Rail and Public Transit
  • Corporate Authors:

    American Society of Civil Engineers

    1801 Alexander Bell Drive
    Reston, VA  United States  20191-4400
  • Authors:
    • Fries, Ryan N
    • Salehi, Reza
    • Panjebandpour, Yasaman
  • Publication Date: 2018-7

Language

  • English

Media Info

  • Media Type: Web
  • Features: References;
  • Pagination: pp 22-31
  • Monograph Title: International Conference on Transportation and Development 2018: Traffic and Freight Operations and Rail and Public Transit

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Filing Info

  • Accession Number: 01864311
  • Record Type: Publication
  • ISBN: 9780784481547
  • Files: TRIS, ASCE
  • Created Date: Nov 21 2022 9:09AM