Intelligent Transportation Systems

ITS Lab @ PSU

Intelligent Transportation Systems Laboratory

A broad range of diverse technologies, known collectively as intelligent transportation systems (ITS), holds the answer to many of our society's transportation problems. ITS are comprised of existing and new technologies, including information processing, sensors, communications, control, and electronics. Combining these technologies in innovative ways and integrating them into our multimodal transportation system will save lives, time, and resources.Transportation is the backbone of our society the movement of people and goods provides the foundation of our quality of life and economic prosperity. Fulfilling the need for a transportation system that is both economically sound and environmentally efficient requires a new way of looking at and solving our transportation problems. The strategy of adding more and more highway capacity neither solves our transportation problems, nor meets the broad national vision of an efficient, integrated transportation system. We focus on the integration and improvement of all modes highway, transit, bicycle, pedestrian and freight.Traffic crashes and congestion take heavy tolls in lives, lost productivity, and wasted energy. ITS enables people and goods to move more safely and efficiently through a state-of-the-art, intermodal transportation system.

 
 

Intelligent Transportation Systems Laboratory's Featured Project:

Evaluation of Paramics Microsimulation Software

This report has documented experience with the use of a computerized microscopic stochastic traffic simulation tool (Quadstone PARAMICS) as means of evaluating a small urban traffic network including a diamond interchange on an interstate highway. From the analysis of results, the following conclusions were drawn. Simulated interchange delay results from the PARAMICS model appear to be consistent with delays predicted by HCM 2000 methodologies. Model to model comparisons in themselves are not entirely meaningful. However, it appears that the microscopic simulation and the animation that is inherent in the simulation provide a good tool for evaluating the movement of traffic at diamond interchanges. The importance of modeling nearby intersections that influence the diamond interchange intersections was clearly observed. The PARAMICS model generates traffic according to a random distribution, therefore it is vital that the metering effects of nearby intersections be included in the analysis of an interchange. The ramp terminals studied had non-random arrival patterns and only by modeling adjacent intersections were these non-random arrivals properly simulated. The stochastic nature of the PARAMICS simulation models will result in unique results each time the model is executed with new random seed numbers. It is vital, therefore, that a statistically sound method be followed in de

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