Examining the Use of Microsimulation Modeling to Assess Bicycle-Vehicle Conflicts at Intersections: A Case Study Incorporating Field-Observed Conflict Data

Microsimulation software has become an invaluable tool for analysis of operational performance at signalized intersections and can also examine safety performance through analysis of surrogate measures of safety, such as conflicts identified using Post Encroachment Time (PET) or Time To-Collision (TTC). Surrogate safety parameters can be extracted using vehicle, bicycle, and/or pedestrian trajectories obtained from microsimulation software (e.g. VISSIM) using the Surrogate Safety Assessment Model (SSAM) available from the United States Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). To progress knowledge on the use of VISSIM and SSAM to calibrate microscopic simulations to field observed bicycle-vehicle conflicts, this study performed a quantitative analysis on the impacts of changeable behavioral parameters in microsimulation on the frequency of bicycle-vehicle conflict outputs in an attempt to understand the steps and procedures required to calibrate microsimulation models to field observed bicycle-vehicle conflicts. After analysis, it was found that that the default driving behavior parameters within VISSIM underestimated bicycle-vehicle conflicts as compared with field-observed data. Various parameters and combinations of parameters within VISSIM were changed in an attempt to match the number of field observed conflicts with the VISSIM / SSAM output. Additionally, the results of this study indicate that the Random Seed value can significantly impact the occurrence of bicycle-vehicle conflicts in microsimulation. Future research is needed in this area to further understand the complex interaction of VISSIM user behavior parameters and their impact on the number of reported user conflicts.

• Record URL:
  https://annualmeeting.mytrb.org/OnlineProgram/Details/15916
• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ACH20 Standing Committee on Bicycle Transportation.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  ,    
• Authors:
  • Lemcke, David
  • Riffle, Katherine
  • Russo, Brendan J
  • Smaglik, Edward J
  • 0000-0002-7034-6619
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 100th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2021-1-5 to 2021-1-29
• Date: 2021

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; Photos; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 22p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Bicycle crashes; Case studies; Intersections; Microsimulation; Signalized intersections; Traffic conflicts; Traffic safety
• Subject Areas: Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Pedestrians and Bicyclists; Planning and Forecasting; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01764284
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: TRBAM-21-03286
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Feb 4 2021 11:00AM