Problem
The Moscow subway station and transport interchange, Volokolamskaya, is situated in the northwest part of town. The main road traffic in the area comes from the neighboring districts and the suburban parts of the Moscow region. ITS Consulting was contracted to test the efficiency of the planned roadway network during the peak traffic hours (morning and evening) with due regard to perspective increases of traffic within a timeframe until 2025.
Solution
The company decided to build a road traffic simulation model that would include public and private transport of various sizes and movement logic: signalized junctions with various sets of lights, unsignalized junctions with "main road" and "give way" signs, uncontrolled pedestrian crossings, and bus stops with several boarding/debussing lines. For modeling, the consultants used AnyLogic Road Traffic library that was in the preview mode at this time. The simulation model was used to test possible scenarios of road network development within the timeframe until 2025.
The modeling process included three stages that you can find in the table.
Users can work with the model in the interactive mode by editing and tuning such parameters as:
- Traffic flow density.
- Signal phase duration.
- Probability of stopping at parking lot.
- Ratio of buses and fixed-route taxis.
Results
At stage one, the model showed the traffic-congested area. The two exposed bottlenecks were located in front of signal lights and had the queue length of 65 and 80 vehicles in a lane. The running model at stage two revealed that with perspective traffic growth, the situations at traffic-congested areas will go from bad to worse. The traffic flow will grow from 65 to 80 vehicles in section one, and from 80 to 140 vehicles in section two.
Based on simulation modeling results, several measures were suggested to the customer to improve the roadway system performance. In both sections, the consultants offered signal phase optimization, adding a lane and a bay. In addition, they proposed redesign of the entrance to the parking lot in the section 2.
At stage three, a new model was built to reflect the reconstruction plans and perspective traffic flow. The running model showed that road system capacity will increase more than twice within 10 modeling years (until 2025). At section 1, the queue length will be 25 vehicles in one lane, and at section 2, this queue will be 20 vehicles in one lane.
The road traffic simulation model allowed the client to officially approve the network reconstruction project.