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FamiliarTrafficDiversion

by Gary O'Brien (Submitted: 12/30/2012)

Download FamiliarTrafficDiversion If clicking does not initiate a download, try right clicking or control clicking and choosing "Save" or "Download". (You can also run this model in your browser, but we don't recommend it; details here.)

WHAT IS IT?

This project models the flow of traffic around a familiar 'diversion' scenario.
Each car follows a simple set of rules:
- Adhere to the speed limit
- If car ahead is stopped, stop.
- If road ahead is closed, find available route.
- If light is red, stop.
- If light is green, go.

The model is used to demonstrate how small adjustments in the world can affect traffic flow, including phasing of traffic lights, acceleration/deceleration variables and road closures.

HOW TO USE IT

- Set the NUM-OF-CARS slider to adjust how many cars you want in the world.
- Set whether you want the model to contain ROAD-HUMPS
- Set whether you want the model to contain a SPEED-TRAP
- Set RED-LENGTH and GREEN-LENGTH to the number of ticks between light changes
- Set ACCELERATION and DECELERATION variables to preference.
- Click SETUP FULL SCENARIO (or SETUP-BYPASS-CLOSURE) to create the entire world, turtles and traffic lights (or simulate a closed road).
- Click GO to run the model.

THINGS TO NOTICE

- What is the average speed of the vehicles? What is the range of speeds that can be identified with running the model with different parameters?

- Why does the AVERAGE-CLUSTERING increase with the introduction of more vehicles?

- If the bypass is closed, do the cars always take the same route?

- Why do some of the cars not queue 'in-line' when at traffic lights? Despite all starting along the same value on the X-Axis?

THINGS TO TRY

- Adjust ACCELERATION/DECELERATION sliders.
- Increase/decrease NUM-OF-CARS
- Adjust RED-LENGTH and GREEN-LENGTH
- Manually SWITCH the traffic lights.

EXTENDING THE MODEL

- Try closing another lane of traffic instead of the bypass, what happens?
- What happens when the traffic lights are removed altogether?
- Try perhaps introducing a 'cold weather' scenario, ice on the road, for example.
- Create a model with a circular roundabout with a number of 'exits'.
- What happens when the speed-limit is
a) Increased
b) Decreased
c) Removed altogther?

RELATED MODELS

- Traffic Basic
- Traffic Grid
- Traffic 2 Lanes
- Traffic Intersection

CREDITS AND REFERENCES

This project greatly acknowledges the work and support from the following NetLogo models:

- Traffic Basic
- Traffic Grid
- Traffic 2 Lanes
- Traffic Intersection
- Hill Climbing example
- Patch Clusters example
- Flocking
- Ants
- Termites
- Vision in-cone example
- Moths