I-85 Traffic Study: A State-of-the-Practice Modeling of Freeway Traffic Operation

Two levels of efforts advance the world: theory and application. Their highest levels of development are called the state of the art and the state of the practice , respectively, with the latter typically lags behind the former. This is particularly true with traffic simulation where applications are more concerned with reliability, operability, adaptability, and availability. The state-of-the-art traffic simulation theories and models have been documented comprehensively while literatures on the state-of-the- practice applications are relatively sparse. This paper illustrates the perspective that industry typically takes on how to conduct traffic simulation by means of an example application: I-85 traffic study. Background information is given first, which is followe d by general considerations such as simulation software selection and data requirements. A step-by-step procedure of model development is next, together with issues encountered during the development of the base model and strategies of solving these issues