MODELLING PEAK SPREADING IN CONTINUOUS TIME

In the 1994 SACTRA report, changing departure time was recognised as an important response to both increasing congestion and transport policy, second only to routing changes. Unfortunately, techniques available to model departure time choice and peak spreading have suffered from conceptual drawbacks, generally related to the time dimension. For example, many of the existing techniques have simulated choice of departure PERIOD (peak/off-peak, or peak hour/shoulder), whilst in reality shifts may be expected to have much smaller orders of magnitude, and to take place in continuous time. Techniques have been developed in the past to model peak spreading in continuous time for a single bottleneck. Such methods assume personal preferred arrival times (PATs) dependent on, say, trip purpose and personal characteristics, and scheduling trade-offs between travel duration, early and late arrival. This paper presents the implementation of these ideas into a network wide application, generalising individual choices into more aggregate relationships at origin-destination level. Software has been developed to interface with standard commercial assignment software (SATURN, TRIPS, CONTRAM), ready for application in practice. The paper addresses the following issues: (1) conceptual background; (2) estimating preferred arrival times; (3) development of software; (4) operational issues for application; and (5) results of tests on real-life networks. The DETR funded research project has been in progress since April 1998, and in the paper genuine new material based on achievements up till now is presented. A remaining task in the study is the comparison of application of the new techniques with current practice (mainly logit models of time). For the covering abstract see ITRD E105584.

• Record URL:
  http://abstracts.aetransport.org/conference/index/id/5
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/isbn/0860503259
• Corporate Authors:

  PTRC Education and Research Services Limited

  Glenthorne House, Hammersmith Grove
  London W6OL9,   England 
• Authors:
  • VAN VUREN, T
  • CARMICHAEL, S
  • Polak, J
  • HYMAN, G
  • CROSS, S
• Conference:
  • TRANSPORTATION PLANNING METHODS. PROCEEDINGS OF SEMINAR F, EUROPEAN TRANSPORT CONFERENCE, 27-29 SEPTEMBER 1999, CAMBRIDGE, UK.
• Publication Date: 1999-9

Language

• English

Media Info

• Features: References;
• Pagination: p. 93-105
• Serial:
  • Volume: P434

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Computer programs; Conferences; Itinerary; Networks; Origin and destination; Peak periods; Policy; Tests; Time; Traffic delays; Transportation; Travel; Travel time; Trip length
• Uncontrolled Terms: Modifications; Selection; Traffic relief; Transportation networks
• ITRD Terms: 8525: Conference; 9010: Delay; 699: Itinerary; 698: Journey; 697: Journey time; 9048: Modification; 1054: Network (traffic); 687: Origin destination traffic; 612: Peak hour; 173: Policy; 9072: Selection; 8645: Software; 6255: Test; 5414: Time; 631: Traffic relief; 1155: Transport
• Subject Areas: Policy; Transportation (General);

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00796490
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: Transport Research Laboratory
• ISBN: 0-86050-325-9
• Files: ITRD
• Created Date: Aug 2 2000 12:00AM