A Roundabout Animation (Final Report: Year 10 Traffic Circle Animation Project No. MEE10-2 and Year 11 Data Collection for Traffic Circle Animation Project No. ME11E-2)

University Transportation Centers Program2000PDFTech ReportPearce, BryanGarder, PerFolsom, TravisUniversity of MaineUniversity of Maine at Orono. Department of Civil and Environmental EngineeringNew England University Transportation CenterUnited States. Department of Transportation. University Transportation Centers (UTC) ProgramNew England University Transportation CenterUnited StatesSimulationComputer animationRoundaboutsHighway designHighway transportationIntersectionsMotor vehiclesTraffic circlesTraffic countsTraffic delaysTraffic flowTraffic safetyGap acceptanceSpeed and delay studiesComputerized simulationTraffic count dataDTRS95-G-0001This report describes work done on a roundabout animation program during 1998 and 1999. The roundabout animation program began as an undergraduate class project and was presented in February 1998 in the New England University Transportation Center report "Animation of Traffic through Roundabouts". This new report presents the work funded by the Year 10 (97/98) grant Traffic Circle Animation (Project No. MEE10-2) and Year 11 (98/99) grant Data Collection for Traffic Circle Animation (Project No. ME11E-2). Undergraduate students were involved in all of these modifications. The program is based on the principle of an autonomous agent. The cars are programmed to speed up, to slow down, and to enter the roundabout based on an acceptable gap length - that is, the gap between themselves and the cars around them. The actual gap is compared to an allowed gap that is based on vehicle speed and assumed driver response time. If necessary, the vehicle speed is adjusted. The cars travel through the roundabout following a randomly assigned path. Traffic flow values may be input into the program manually during initialization. During simulation, the cars enter and exit randomly based on these values. After simulation, traffic count data and average delay data may be displayed.127