Calibration of Microsimulation Models to Account for Safety and Operation Factors for Traffic Conflict Risk Analysis

Road safety is a critical issue for transportation systems. The use of crash data-based methodologies to analyze traffic safety problems has been problematic due to shortcomings such as unavailability and low quality of historical crash data. Other than crash data-based analysis, development of micro-simulation models in conjunction with surrogate safety measures has been shown to complement traditional safety analysis. However, for the adopted simulation model to achieve high fidelity, it is important to calibrate and validate it before use. This paper proposes a numerical optimization approach to calibrate a traffic simulation model for rear-end traffic conflict risk analysis on highways. The proposed calibration approach is developed based on the stochastic gradient approximation algorithm to find optimal parameters of stochastic traffic simulation models. The calibration methodology accounts for multiple calibration criteria and is implemented on a selected traffic simulation platform to test its performance. Simulated operational measurements and traffic conflict risk in terms of surrogate safety measures are quantified and compared with observations derived from real-world vehicle trajectory data from the Next Generation Simulation (NGSIM) program. The calibrated traffic model has been validated by using independent vehicle trajectory data saved as a hold-out sample. The results show that the fine-tuning of parameters using the proposed calibration approach can significantly improve the performance of the simulation model to describe actual traffic conflict risk and operational performances.

• Record URL:
  http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/conferences/2011/RSS/2/Yang,H.pdf
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• Supplemental Notes:
  • Distribution, posting, or copying of this PDF is strictly prohibited without written permission of the Transportation Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences. Unless otherwise indicated, all materials in this PDF are copyrighted by the National Academy of Sciences. Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

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• Authors:
  • Yang, Hong
  • Ozbay, Kaan
• Conference:
  • 3rd International Conference on Road Safety and Simulation
  • Location: Indianapolis Indiana, United States
  • Date: 2011-9-14 to 2011-9-16
• Publication Date: 2011

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 17p
• Monograph Title: 3rd International Conference on Road Safety and Simulation

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Crash data; Microsimulation; Rear end crashes; Risk analysis; Simulation; Traffic safety; Traffic simulation; Vehicle trajectories
• Identifier Terms: Next Generation Simulation program
• Uncontrolled Terms: Surrogate safety measures
• Subject Areas: Highways; Safety and Human Factors; I80: Accident Studies;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01506188
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Jan 30 2014 1:14PM