Browsing by Subject "Freeway merging/diverging"

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    Enhancements of the Kronos Simulation Package and Database for Geometric Design Planning, Operations and Traffic Management in Freeway Networks/Corridors (Phase II)
    (Minnesota Department of Transportation, 1994-12) Kwon, Eil; Michalopoulos, Panos; Xie, Hui; Tong, Sai
    This report summarizes the enhancement results of the KRONOS freeway traffic simulation package. KRONOS is a personal computer-based, dynamic freeway simulation software, which is based on the continuum flow modeling approach. Unlike other macroscopic simulation programs, KRONOS explicitly models interrupted flow behavior such as merging, diverging, and weaving. The resulting KRONOS version, v8.0, which operates under the MS-DOS® environment, can simulate two freeways merging/diverging with a common section for a total length up to 20 miles with eight lanes. The new multi-stage incident module can handle up to six capacity-variant stages, which allows evaluation of various management strategies. A spread-sheet formatted output file stores the simulated results of traffic parameters, such as flow, speed, and density. Separate output files also store the measures of effectiveness, such as delay and total travel time. The current version takes approximately three minutes to simulate a 20-mile section for one hour on an IBM-PC compatible with the Pentium-90 MHZ processor.
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    Enhancements of the Kronos Simulation Package and Database for Geometric Design Planning, Operations and Traffic Management in Freeway Networks/Corridors (Phase III)
    (Minnesota Department of Transportation, 1997-07) Kwon, Eil; Kota, Ramesh; Coyle, Michael; Michalopoulos, Panos; Song, Sejun
    This report summarizes the final results of the research effort to develop a freeway traffic simulator with the capability to evaluate freeway operational strategies, such as traffic-responsive ramp metering and high-occupancy vehicles (HOV) lanes. Researchers first developed an efficient software data structure by adopting a dynamic memory allocation scheme to use the available memory as efficiently as possible. That work also included modifying the existing macroscopic, segment-based modeling structure and developing new types of pipeline segments to facilitate detection modeling and further model enhancements. Based on the new segment-based modeling structure, researchers developed a new simulation module to handle HOV lane traffic flows and extended the simulation procedure for an exclusive HOV lane to handle a network of freeways. Further, the simulation model also incorporates a new module to emulate the traffic-responsive ramp metering algorithm implemented by the Traffic Management Center since the 1980s. The new software structure developed in this research allows the future addition of new metering algorithms without major difficulties. To facilitate the data input process for the expanded simulation features, a new Windows-based user interface was developed using the Delphi software development tool kit. With the new user interface, most of the data input process can be done without exiting the main menu screen.