Calibration of VISSIM for Freeways

In VISSIM, a widely used microscopic simulation software, the relationship between the microscopic driver behavior parameters and macroscopic parameters such as capacity has not been established. There is no systematic procedure and guidance for the users as to what parameters should be modified and how they should be modified to calibrate VISSIM to obtain the desire macroscopic performance. This paper presents a procedure for calibration of VISSIM for freeways to obtain desired capacity and queue length and illustrates its application to a bottleneck. It provides guidance on what parameters need to be modified and how to determine what values should be used for those parameters to obtain the desired capacity and queue length. Relationships were developed between capacity and the two most important driver behavior parameters (CC0, standstill distance and CC1, time gap between vehicles). When CC1 is below 0.8 seconds the variance in the capacity was orders of magnitude more than the variance when the CC1 is above 0.8 seconds. Using CC1 values below 0.8 seconds could result in range for capacity as high as 400pcphpl and is therefore not recommended. Sensitivity of capacity to changes in CC0 and CC1 were determined and suggestions are made to utilize this knowledge to reduce the number of simulation replications.

• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Chitturi, Madhav Vijaya
  • Benekohal, Rahim F
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 87th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2008-1-13 to 2008-1-17
• Date: 2008

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: DVD
• Features: Figures; References;
• Pagination: 10p
• Monograph Title: TRB 87th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers DVD

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Behavior; Calibration; Freeway operations; Highway capacity; Highway operations; Microscopic traffic flow; Operations; Traffic flow; Traffic queuing; Traffic simulation
• Identifier Terms: VISSIM (Computer model)
• Subject Areas: Administration and Management; Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Planning and Forecasting; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01099258
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 08-2317
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: May 21 2008 7:05AM