Validation of a microsimulation of the port of Dover

Modelling and simulating the traffic of heavily used but secure environments such as seaports and airports is of increasing importance. Errors made when simulating these environments can have long standing economic, social and environmental implications. This paper discusses issues and problems that may arise when designing a simulation strategy. Data for the Port is presented, methods for lightweight vehicle assessment that can be used to calibrate and validate simulations are also discussed along with a diagnosis of overcalibration issues. We show that decisions about where the intelligence lies in a system has important repercussions for the reliability of system statistics. Finally, conclusions are drawn about how microsimulations can be moved forward as a robust planning tool for the 21st century

Extending a microsimulation of the Port of Dover

Modelling and simulating the traffic of heavily used but secure environments such as seaports and airports is of increasing importance. This paper discusses issues and problems that may arise when extending an existing microsimulation strategy. This paper discusses the simulations and how extensions of these simulations can aid planners with optimal physical and operational feedback. Conclusions are drawn about how microsimulations can be moved forward as a robust planning tool for the 21st century

Masterplanning at the Port of Dover: The Use of Discrete-Event Simulation in Managing Road Traffic

The Port of Dover is Europe’s busiest ferry port, handling £119 billion or 17% of the UK’s annual trade in goods. The Port is constrained geographically to a small area and faces multiple challenges, both short- and long-term, with managing the flow of five million vehicles per year to/from mainland Europe. This article describes some of the work that the Port is doing to minimize the impact of port road traffic on the local community and environment using discrete-event simulation modeling. Modeling is particularly valuable in identifying where future bottlenecks are likely to form within the Port due to projected growth in freight traffic and comparing the effectiveness of different interventions to cope with growth. One of our key findings is that space which can be used flexibly is far more valuable than dedicated space. This is supported by the much greater reduction in traffic congestion that is expected to be achieved given a 10% increase in freight traffic by reallocating space at the front of the system to temporarily hold vehicles waiting to pass through border control and check-in compared to extending the amount of space for ferry embarkation at the rear of the system. The importance of flexible space has implications for port design that can be applied more broadly. Modeling is also useful in identifying critical thresholds for vehicle processing times that would cause the system to become overwhelmed. Increasing the check-in time by just three to five minutes, for example, would completely exceed the Port’s capacity and produce indefinite queueing. This finding has important implications for Brexit planning. From a wider context, the research presented here nicely illustrates how simulation can be used to instill more evidence-based thinking into port masterplanning and support “green port” and other corporate sustainability initiatives

Charting outsourcing in UK public planning

Working in the Public Interest (WITPI) is a research project involving academics from the University of Sheffield, Newcastle University and UCL investigating the involvement of private companies in carrying out professional spatial planning work for local government, and the broader implications of the changing organisational delivery of planning. The project is funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and has involved some joint work with the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI). As part of the research project, and particularly to aid the overview of current practice in planning service provision which forms part of ‘Work Package 2’ of the project, an FOI request was sent to all UK local planning authorities. The FOI work was undertaken by Dr Ben Clifford at the Bartlett School of Planning, UCL, and did not directly involve the RTPI. This report summarises the findings from this exercise

On agent-based modeling: Multidimensional travel behavioral theory, procedural models and simulation-based applications

This dissertation proposes a theoretical framework to modeling multidimensional travel behavior based on artificially intelligent agents, search theory, procedural (dynamic) models, and bounded rationality. For decades, despite the number of heuristic explanations for different results, the fact that "almost no mathematical theory exists which explains the results of the simulations" remains as one of the large drawbacks of agent-based computational process approach. This is partly the side effect of its special feature that "no analytical functions are required". Among the rapidly growing literature devoted to the departure from rational behavior assumptions, this dissertation makes effort to embed a sound theoretical foundation for computational process approach and agent-based microsimulations for transportation system modeling and analyses. The theoretical contribution is three-fold: (1) It theorizes multidimensional knowledge updating, search start/stopping criteria, and search/decision heuristics. These components are formulated or empirically modeled and integrated in a unified and coherent approach. (2) Procedural and dynamic agent-based decision-making is modeled. Within the model, agents make decisions. They also make decisions on how and when to make those decisions. (3) Replace conventional user equilibrium with a dynamic behavioral user equilibrium (BUE). Search start/stop criteria is defined in the way that the modeling process should eventually lead to a steady state that is structurally different to user equilibrium (UE) or dynamic user equilibrium (DUE). The theory is supported by empirical observations and the derived quantitative models are tested by agent-based simulation on a demonstration network. The model in its current form incorporates short-term behavioral dimensions: travel mode, departure time, pre-trip routing, and en-route diversion. Based on research needs and data availability, other dimensions can be added to the framework. The proposed model is successfully integrated with a dynamic traffic simulator (i.e. DTALite, a light-weight dynamic traffic assignment and simulation engine) and then applied to a mid-size study area in White Flint, Maryland. Results obtained from the integration corroborate the behavioral richness, computational efficiency, and convergence property of the proposed theoretical framework. The model is then applied to a number of applications in transportation planning, operations, and optimization, which highlights the capabilities of the proposed theory in estimating rich behavioral dynamics and the potential of large-scale implementation. Future research should experiment the integration with activity-based models, land-use development, energy consumption estimators, etc. to fully develop the potential of the agent-based model

Applicazione del concetto di Superblock alla città di Bologna: analisi dell'impatto sul trasporto pubblico locale

L’elaborato si pone l’obiettivo di valutare gli impatti dati dall’applicazione del modello di Superblock sulla città di Bologna e sul Trasporto Pubblico Locale, attraverso un’analisi svolta con il software di micro-simulazione SUMOPy. Il modello di Superblock è una strategia di pianificazione urbana innovativa, intelligente e sostenibile in grado di integrare le strategie esistenti per raggiungere gli obiettivi di decarbonizzazione e neutralità climatica delineati nell’Accordo di Parigi. Le finalità del modello mirano a rivendicare lo spazio pubblico, ridurre i mezzi motorizzati, favorire la mobilità sostenibile e uno stile di vita attivo e mitigare gli effetti del cambiamento climatico attraverso la riorganizzazione della circolazione, senza implicare ingenti investimenti economici e interventi infrastrutturali. Dapprima, lo studio descrive lo stato dell’arte sulla micro-simulazione e sui superblocks, già applicati in altre città. In seguito, si definisce il metodo per valutare gli impatti, ovvero si illustrano i criteri per l’individuazione dei blocchi e gli scenari da analizzare. Tali strategie si attuano per implementare i superblocks nella città di Bologna, precedentemente studiata nel dettaglio. Infine, si svolge l’analisi dei risultati ottenuti dall’applicazione dei superblocks, confrontandoli con i dati relativi allo stato attuale simulato e ai target futuri. I risultati mostrano che i superblocks provocano la variazione della distribuzione dei flussi sugli archi della rete e della ripartizione modale, evidenziando, malgrado i miglioramenti apportati al servizio autobus, un trasferimento modale rilevante dall’auto privata e dai bus verso i taxi condivisi, strategia assimilabile a un ulteriore sistema di trasporto pubblico. Dunque, si ha un netto miglioramento in termini ambientali, dato dal calo del 9% del livello di inquinamento acustico e dalla riduzione del 50% delle emissioni totali di monossido di carbonio rispetto alla situazione attuale simulata

STANDARDIZING AND SIMPLIFYING SAFETY SERVICE PATROL BENEFIT-COST RATIO ESTIMATION

Safety Service Patrol (SSP) programs operate nationwide with the aim of mitigating the impact of traffic incidents, especially along urban freeways. The central mission of the SPP programs is to reduce incident duration thereby reducing congestion related travel delays, fuel consumption, emission pollutants, and the likelihood of secondary incidents. The SSP-BC Tool was developed herein to fill the need for a standardized benefit-cost ratio estimation methodology for SSP programs with wide applicability and substantiated and needed updatable monetary conversion rates. The developed tool is designed to capture characteristics of incident, traffic, roadway geometry, and weather particular to the state area. VISSIM, a traffic microsimulation platform, was used to develop several multiple regression models with R-square values of 0.7 to 0.9 to assess the impact of travel delay, fuel consumption, and emission pollutants. Separate approaches were employed to estimate the savings in secondary incidents. In addition, a comprehensive method to compute fuel consumption and emissions is presented

Toward composing variable structure models and their interfaces: a case of intensional coupling definitions

In this thesis, we investigate a combination of traditional component-based and variable structure modeling. The focus is on a structural consistent specification of couplings in modular, hierarchical models with a variable structure. For this, we exploitintensional definitions, as known from logic, and introduce a novel intensional coupling definition, which allows a concise yet expressive specification of complex communication and interaction patterns in static as well as variable structure models, without the need to worryabout structural consistency.In der Arbeit untersuchen wir ein Zusammenbringen von klassischer komponenten-basierter und variabler Strukturmodellierung. Der Fokus liegt dabei auf der Spezifikation von strukturkonsistenten Kopplungen in modular-hierarchischen Modellen mit einer variablen Struktur. Dafür nutzen wir intensionale Definitionen, wie sie aus der Logik bekannt sind, und führen ein neuartiges Konzept von intensionalen Kopplungen ein, welches kompakte gleichzeitig ausdrucksstarke Spezifikationen von komplexen Kommunikations- und Interaktionsmuster in statischen und variablen Strukturmodellen erlaubt

Evaluation of a specialist weight management service for patients with severe obesity in Liverpool

Objective: To evaluate a specialist weight management treatment for patients with severe obesity and follow up at 3 months, monitoring changes in weight, BMI and clinical outcome variables. Changes in food intake, self esteem and health related quality of life (HRQL) were also compared to pre- and post- intervention. Design: Step by step is a new obesity servive which specifically targets obese patients at greater risk of further ill health. Only patients who are referred by their G.P. or health professional have been included in the evaluation. After an assessment appointment all patients choose one of two treatment options: group programme, individual dietetic care or both. The group programme offered weekly contact over twelve weeks and monthly follow up thereafter in a community setting. One-to-one care offered monthly appointments with the Dietician over a three month period. Subjects: A total of 50 patients with a BMI>30kg/m2, mean age 59 years, mean weight for males 113.5kg, BMI 39,3kg/m2 and females 92.7kg, BMI 36.5kg/m2. Main outcome measures: weight, BMI, total cholesterol, LDL, TG, HDL, FBG, HbA1C, blood pressure, food intake, self esteem and quality of life were measured pre and post intervention. Results: Patients who attended the group programme showed significant weight loss 1.99kg (P<0.05) and BMI 0.66kg/m2 at three months. Male patients lost more weight (3.9kg) during the three month period compared to females (1.4kg). Data was not available for individual dietetic care. Patients significantly reduced intake of negative marker foods (P<0.00). No changes were observed between self esteem pre and post programme however quality of life score increased considerably, 44.83 (S.D. 34.26) to 70.37 (S.D. 15.86) P<0.001. Conclusion: Patients attending a twelve week weight management programme run by community dietians and foodworkers achieve clinically worth while reducations in weight and BMI, improvements in food choice and choice and improved HRQL