Microscopic Vehicular Traffic Simulation: Comparison of Calibration Techniques

Casey Bowman, John A. Miller, Yulong Wang

Abstract: Modeling the flow of traffic is an extremely important endeavor for city planners around the world. Accurate models of traffic systems are the main tool researchers require to solve traffic problems. From traffic congestion to unsafe traffic corridors to forecasting travel times, accurate traffic models are essential to improve our experience on our roads and highways. Traffic is a highly complex and dynamic system that, nevertheless, also shows clear patterns of regular behaviors, and as such appears to be a problem that is solvable. Effective traffic models need to be constructed with real-world data informing the design and must be calibrated with the data as well. This paper presents an arrival modeling technique using online data that improves upon offline arrival modeling. The calibration of traffic simulation models is also discussed, and three techniques are compared and contrasted according to accuracy and efficiency.