Trip-Length Estimation for the Macroscopic Traffic Simulation: Scaling Microscopic into Macroscopic Networks

After the seminal works of Daganzo (1) and Geroliminis and Daganzo (2), the traffic simulation based on the Macroscopic Fundamental Diagram (MFD) has been gaining more and more interest from the scientific community, especially in applications for control purposes. One fundamental question for this type of simulation is the proper definition of the macroscopic trip lengths. Some approaches have been discussed in the literature (Daganzo, Yildirimoglu and Geroliminis, Ramezani et al., 1, 3, 4). However, no study focus on the definition of the macroscopic trip lengths based on the microscopic network.In this paper, the authors discuss three methods to calculate the macroscopic trip lengths based on the aggregation of microscopic trips, within each reservoir considering: (i) no further information; (ii) the next reservoir to be traveled; and (iii) the related macro-path (i.e., the list of reservoirs that are crossed from the Origin to the Destination). Based on a static analysis of the network, the authors show that these methods: yield different average trip lengths at the reservoir level; and give similar average trip lengths at the macroscopic-path level, where the aggregation effect is on the standard deviation. The authors analyze the dependence of the trip lengths on the Origin-Destination matrix. The authors discuss a procedure to estimate the macroscopic trip lengths based on a new Origin-Destination matrix. The authors show that the estimated trip lengths show a good agreement with the ones calculated based on a new calculation of the microscopic trips, for the new Origin-Destination matrix. The authors analyze the impact of the macroscopic trip lengths on the traffic states, that are simulated using an accumulation-based simulator. The authors show that the trip lengths have a strong impact on the traffic states. And, the trip lengths are congestion-dependent when calculated at the reservoir level.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AHB45 Standing Committee on Traffic Flow Theory and Characteristics.
• Authors:
  • Batista, S F A
  • Leclercq, Ludovic
  • Krug, Jean
  • Geroliminis, Nikolas
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 97th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2018-1-7 to 2018-1-11
• Date: 2018

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 10p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Estimation theory; Macroscopic traffic flow; Microscopic traffic flow; Networks; Trip length
• Subject Areas: Highways; Operations and Traffic Management;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01660298
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 18-04700
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Feb 20 2018 9:27AM