Simple queueing model applied to the city of Portland

The authors present a simple traffic micro-simulation model that models the effects of capacity cut-off, i.e. the effect of queue built-up when demand is exceeding capacity, and queue spillback, i.e. the effect that queues can spill back across intersections when a congested link is filled up. They derive the model`s fundamental diagrams and explain it. The simulation is used to simulate traffic on the emme/2 network of the Portland (Oregon) metropolitan region (20,000 links). Demand is generated by a simplified home-to-work assignment which generates about half a million trips for the AM peak. Route assignment is done by iterative feedback between micro-simulation and router. Relaxation of the route assignment for the above problem can be achieved within about half a day of computing time on a desktop workstation