Comments on: Microsimulation of road traffic with a time-continuous model

Microsimulation of road traffic with a time-continuous model

crunchland — Wed, 02 Jul 2003 19:43:13 -0800

traffic jam simulator [note: java applet]

By: graventy

graventy — Wed, 02 Jul 2003 20:08:57 -0800

man! it's almost as fun as real life!

By: christian

christian — Wed, 02 Jul 2003 20:10:42 -0800

this has taught me that i am an evil, vengeful traffic god. [this is good]

By: weston

weston — Wed, 02 Jul 2003 20:13:36 -0800

Sweet. I love this sort of stuff. Good, if old related Washington Post article.

By: badzen

badzen — Wed, 02 Jul 2003 20:14:55 -0800

damn, feels like home if you kick up all the sliders, it becomes "405 at 5" simulator anyone in LA knows exactly what I mean...

By: xmutex

xmutex — Wed, 02 Jul 2003 20:19:47 -0800

"405 at 5" also rings sadly true here in Seattle.

By: NGnerd

NGnerd — Wed, 02 Jul 2003 20:22:47 -0800

that's really cool, now if only you could change the type of on and off ramp and throw in some 20 foot offramps directly into rotaries....BRU HA HA HA HA!

By: kliuless

kliuless — Wed, 02 Jul 2003 20:51:31 -0800

traffic waves: SOMETIMES ONE DRIVER CAN VASTLY IMPROVE TRAFFIC! starlogo traffic project :D

By: notsnot

notsnot — Wed, 02 Jul 2003 21:05:26 -0800

[this is fucking awesome]

By: birdherder

birdherder — Wed, 02 Jul 2003 21:11:46 -0800

fun. i got total gridlock by only adding about 100 more cars an hour. must forward the link to texdot.

By: madamjujujive

madamjujujive — Wed, 02 Jul 2003 21:52:26 -0800

you find great stuff, crunch - another winner! Thanks.

By: Fezboy!

Fezboy! — Wed, 02 Jul 2003 21:56:23 -0800

It's missing the option for percentage of tools who drive in the right lane with their left turn signal blinking for miles on end. Other than that, quite cool. So that's where the CogSci grad student got the model for his presentation this last spring that I was forced to sit through . . .

By: jonvaughan

jonvaughan — Thu, 03 Jul 2003 03:10:40 -0800

Great post. I once wrote something similar for a university project, although it was plagued with problems because my drivers each had their own reaction time, which eventually resulted in two or more of the cars crashing into each other.

By: DrDoberman

DrDoberman — Thu, 03 Jul 2003 07:48:51 -0800

Excellent! It is missing those annoying fools who skip lanes every 10 seconds when the traffic is almost at a stand still; and where are all the death wish bikers that weave about between the cars :)

By: five fresh fish

five fresh fish — Thu, 03 Jul 2003 09:06:09 -0800

I don't think it's much of a simulation. The cars tend to space out too evenly and everyone's too polite. A better simulation would give each driver some random characteristics: preferred following distance (simulating tailgaters), preferred lane-change margin (simulating gap required to change lanes), preferred speed variance (simulating faster/lower than speed limit), and aggravation (which, as it increases, changes the other characteristics). And then there should be my car, with it's fifty jillawatt laser, used to vapourize those assholes who just can't get their shit together. :-)

By: weston

weston — Thu, 03 Jul 2003 09:26:09 -0800

By: drezdn

drezdn — Thu, 03 Jul 2003 10:54:39 -0800

If I've learned anything from this, it's that trucks should not be allowed on the road.

By: freebird

freebird — Thu, 03 Jul 2003 11:05:01 -0800

This is so neat. Do any of the SimCity type games include real traffic simulation like this yet?

By: Blue Stone

Blue Stone — Thu, 03 Jul 2003 11:10:59 -0800

I don't buy it. On the initial screen set up, with the semi-circle road with one ramp road at the bottom, when I increased the inflow from the ramp road, there was a build up, as traffic failed to filter into the outside lane successfully. The traffic of the outside lane slowed down as the ramproad traffic eased into that lane, BUT the traffic in the inside lane also slowed down to a crawl, even though there was no reason (no inflow into that lane)! So, in short. Bollox. The end.

By: crunchland

crunchland — Thu, 03 Jul 2003 13:21:38 -0800

Yeah, it's not perfect. Though maybe the backup in the inside loop is from cars moving out of the backup in the outside loop into the inside loop. In any case, it seems realistic. Though I've noticed, in the 'blocked lane' simulation, it's clear that some vehicles inexplicably move into the blocked lane as they approach the back up. I guess we'll all have to wait for version 3.0.

By: kliuless

kliuless — Thu, 03 Jul 2003 20:49:54 -0800

or transims :D coming soon to a city near you!