Overview
Thanks to new development in Intelligent Transportation Systems, real-time management systems are used for improvement of transportation systems organisation. In the Swiss context, it becomes obvious that a national traffic management centre is necessary, where such tools are indispensable for efficient real-time management. They must be able to capture transportation demand, and to exploit in real-time all available data, to compensate missing data with accurate and performant models, and to develop anticipative strategies, based on prediction models. These tools allow an operational approach of ITS. In order to benefit from them in Switzerland, it is crucial to develop appropriate demand models predicting traveller behaviour.
The aim of the project is to make available operational disaggregate demand models allowing efficient dynamic management strategies for transportation systems. A range of Swiss demand models will be set up and a decision-aid demand simulator in the context of ITS strategies will be developed. These models will be designed to be integrated in the future into dynamic transportation management systems.
Construction (data, algorithms, parameters) and applications of dynamic traffic models for traffic information, traffic management and traffic control are the crucial activities of the project.
Funding
Results
The result of the research work are individual model instruments. A concrete use in traffic management systems was not intended. These models can be applied and calibrated with additional data for a range of applications.
There are essentially four practical applications of research results.
- Support Tool Decision [Application Simulator]. This tool predicts and understands the impact of various strategies on telematics transportation demand. These predictions better define pricing policies for new services.
- Standards for data collection. The importance of data on transport demand requires a systematic methodology to collect them optimally. The purpose of the standards is to describe the methodology that should lead to the development of standards to a systematic collection of such data in Switzerland.
- Templates. The prediction models developed in this project are indispensable complements to data on the demand for transport in general, and particularly in the telematics context. Indeed, no data are available for systems or already existing strategies, these models are an essential source of information (both qualitative and quantitative). In precise terms, one can predict the evolution of origin-destination matrices when implementing new telematics strategies.
- Dynamic management of transport systems. In the medium term, demand models can be integrated in dynamic transportation management systems (such as DynaMIT), integrated into a Traffic Management Centre. The quality of such systems and their ability to respond in real time properly depends crucially on the quality of the underlying demand models.
Policy implications
The results can be used for disaggregate demand modelling allowing efficient dynamic management strategies for transportation systems.
Other results
Publication:
„Development of Swiss models for transportation demand prediction in response to real-time traffic information” by M. Bierlaire and M. Thémans , proceeding of the 5th Swiss Transportation Research Conference, Ascona (Switzerland), 9-11 March 2005