2008 International Conference on Information Management, Innovation Management and Industrial Engineering

A Multiple Representation Entity-Based Approach to Hybrid Trafc Simulation Model

HUANG, Weinan Institute of Transportation Engineering Tongji University Caoan Road 4800, Shanghai willhwn@gmail.com SUN, Jian ; LI, Keping Institute of Transportation Engineering Tongji University

Abstract
Trafc simulation is a widely used tool to analyze dynamic trafc system. In trafc simulation eld, Microscopic simulation offers detailed representation of trafc system, but it is difcult to model large trafc network; Macroscopic and mesoscopic simulations can capture the dynamics of large network, but only on a low level of details. These limitations of mono-resolution trafc simulation emerge more clearly, as the development of its application. Multi-resolution trafc simulation, which uses hybrid trafc simulation model, can overcome those limitations by integrating trafc simulation models on different levels into a hybrid model, which combines advantages of all composing models. In this paper, we introduced UNIFY framework into trafc simulation and developed UNITRANS, a Multiple Representation Entity-based (MRE-based) framework, to integrate trafc simulation models on different resolution levels and maintain the consistency among their jointlyexecuting. A hybrid model was built using UNITRANS and a three-legged intersection was modeled with it. The results showed that UNITRANS was feasible and effective.

games, etc. In another key application of modeling and simulation technology, trafc simulation, we have found no systematic application of MRM theory but several examples vaguely bearing similar concepts. On the other side, if we want to introduce MRM theory into a new eld as a theoretical foundation, the approach way should be discussed with the application background, because this application in one eld should be very different to those in the other eld. Trafc simulation is a exible and effective method for evaluating the operation of trafc system. The level of detail in trafc simulation models ranges from macroscopic via mesoscopic to microscopic. Macroscopic models tend to describe trafc as continuous ows and model the evolution of trafc system over time and space by a set of differential equations built according to hydromechanics theory. Microscopic model is based on Car-following theory [3], which assumes that the behavior of the following vehicle is decided by its relationship with the leading vehicle and its own features. This kind of models describes trafc phenomenon on the level of individual vehicle. Mesoscopic model is on the level of detail between those of macroscopic and microscopic models. There are two types of mesoscopic model: One is to decide the speed of a vehicle by the speed-density relationship on a specic link and record the Origin-Destination information for each vehicle but pay no attention to the interaction between two adjacent vehicles. Another is to consider a link as a queue-server system; therefore, a link is modeled as a combination of a running part and a queue part. Mono-resolution trafc simulation has been greatly developed, but the limitations emerged with the extension of simulation application In microscopic simulation, the large amount of input data necessary for establishing the entire network oftentimes result in high costs of data collection and computation, which signicantly reduced the feasibility of the method. In addition, the high sensitivity to input data increases the difculty of model calibration. In con7

1. Introduction
Modelling and simulation are methods to study systems without involving the system itself. Since the limitations of mono-resolution model have been widely noticed by scholars in the eld of system simulation, multi-resolution modeling (MRM) has emerged as a critical technology in system simulation research. Many research achievements on MRM methods have been accomplished [1], such as aggregation and disaggregation, selective viewing, multi-resolutions entities, and IVHR, etc. In practice, MRM has mainly been applied in the eld of graphical modeling, battleeld simulation, nested climate modeling, and multi-level computer
978-0-7695-3435-0/08 $25.00 2008 IEEE DOI 10.1109/ICIII.2008.129

trast, in macroscopic or mesoscopic models, the entire network is modeled on the macroscopic or mesoscopic level of resolution, these models fail to capture the individual behavior of vehicles or pedestrians and the detailed situation of trafc network such as the signal control of a intersection. In a word, models at various levels of resolution have their own advantages and disadvantages, and no model can be completely replaced by another. As stated above, MRM theory has been largely developed in the past decade. In trafc simulation, the corresponding issue has been discussed by several papers, but limited to unsystematic applications of hybrid trafc simulation models. In [5], a macroscopic continuous model is integrated with a microscopic car fallowing model, and the consistency of volume-density and speed-density relationships has been discussed; in [6], macroscopic and microscopic models both derived from LWR model have been integrated into a hybrid model. In [7], a hybrid model based on a second order macroscopic model and a microscopic Follow-the Leader type model is proposed. All three results mentioned above focused on the consistency of volumedensity-speed relationship between two models on different levels of resolution and solved the problem about the interface between the two models. In [8] a Cell Transmissionbased mesoscopic trafc ow model and a control theorybased microscopic model are integrated together, and the consistency maintenance problem, occurring when trafc ow propagates across the interface, is discussed. In [9], state of the art, the consistency maintenance problem in hybrid trafc simulation model has been largely extended.And a concept of visual links is proposed to handle the problem of consistency in route choice. But the [9] has problems such as difculty in building visual links, limitation of its integrating framework, and rationality of consistency categories. Consistency problem is taken as the core problem of hybrid simulation model not only in [6][7][8][9], but also in MRM theory, this phenomenon shows the universality of MRM theory. All the mentioned results, in [5][6][7][8] and [9], pay no attention to the relationship between hybrid trafc simulation model (HTSM) and multi-resolution trafc simulation system (MRTSS), thereby, the frameworks they presented were not general, and with low expendability. In this paper, the objective is to introduce UNIFY framework into the eld of trafc simulation and present a newly developed MRTSS framework, UNITRANS. The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 gives an introduction to UNITRANS framework. Section 3 presents a case study which applies UNITRANS framework to realize the integration of Cell Transmission models and Cellular Automata models, and to build a concise network model for a three-legged intersection. Section 4 draws conclusions and summarizes the paper.

2. UNITRANS
2.1 Background

UNIFY is a framework proposed by Anand Natrajan[10]. This framework can maintain the consistency among representations of jointly-executing models. UNIFY is based on the concept of Multi-Representation Entity (MRE), in which the entity on every level of resolution would exist at any given time, as opposed to selective viewing and aggregation & disaggregation. The feature ts the needs of trafc system simulation. Because that 1) to get a trafc simulation needs a lot of work in data collection, so trafc simulation model cannot be obtained or discarded arbitrarily; 2) MRE can work as interface zones between macroscopic mesoscopic sub-network and microscopic, this feature is useful especially in trafc network representation.

2.2

Framework Objectives

As mentioned above, UNITRANS should be a general, exible, and feasible framework for building HTSM and MRTSS. We present 3 detailed objectives to describe the goal: Objective 1: This framework will work to maintain the consistency among representations of jointly-executing models. Objective 2: This framework should be a general one. This is to say, existing models which can be integrated using this framework should be as many as possible. Objective 3: All the problems of compatibility and consistency in the hybrid model or multi-representation system are solved within the boundary of MRE.

2.3

Consistency Requirements

To satisfy the consistency requirements is the main task of intergration framework[10], so does in UNITRANS. These requirements have been discussed in many papers. In this paper, we focus on 3 integration requirements for our framework, which is derived from Wilcos summarization: 1) Consistency of trafc dynamics: UNITRANS should maintaince the consistency of ow representation form. 2) Consistency of network representation: UNITRANS should decide how to represent a road network effectively by those different entities. 3) Consistency of simulation cycle: UNITRANS should ensure time synchronizatoin in jointlyexecuting. One point which is worth noticing is that we do not pay much attention to the consistency of simulation system performance. There are two reasons: (1) this problem can be

solved through adjusting model parameters in trafc simulation. Therefore, this process is not the business of integrating framework, but the process of implementing this framework. (2) the rational deviation between the results of two models on different levels of resolution is worth studying, because this deviation can reect the different of data resource of different models.

2.4

Composition of TMRE

In UNITRANS, we inherit the composition of the UNIFY framework. TMRE in UNITRANS consists of 5 main parts: 1) Macro/Meso Layer (MaLayer): the core of this layer is a Macroscopic/Mesoscopic trafc simulation model. 2) Microscopic Layer (MiLayer): the core of this layer is a Micro trafc simulation model. 3) Interaction Resolver (IR): this component is used to handle interactions, especially the concurrent interactions with TMRE. 4) Consistency Enforcer (CE): this component is used to handle the conict among different attributes of different layers. This module includes two main parts: Attributes Dependency Graph (ADG) and Mapping Functions. ADG is used to show where the relationships are, and Mapping Functions is used to show what the relationship is. 5) Attributes Core (AC): this component is used to storage the information of the road network. This information can be shared both by MaLayer and MiLayer.

The typical working process can be described as below: a TMRE gets a serious of external event, such as a trafc ow transferred by the upstream link entities; IR should decide the sequence of dealing with them; and then, IR transfers an event, which should be handled in current cycle, to CE; CE identies the type of this event, and translate it into forms which can be accepted by MaLayer and MiLayer; and then, both layers will run separately; nally, a output ow will be give as a external event sent by TMRE, the discrepancy between MaLayer and MiLayer should be handled by CE too.

2.6

Consistency Requirements Satisfaction

As discussed above, we have proposed 3 requirements on consistency. UNITRANS is designed to satisfy them. Consistency of dynamics: this requirement is satised by CE. When an entity interacts with TMRE, the input data (describe as an external event) will be conveyed to CE. CE will translate the data to the form which can be processed by MaLayer or MiLayer. The mathematical relationship between two attributes on different layers has been widely discussed in the previous researches, such as Ludvodic [6], Wilco [9], SHI [8], and Daganzo [11], and thus this problem will not be discussed as a key point in this paper.

Figure 1. Struct of TMRE Figure 2. Network Representation The structure of this MRE is shown in Fig.1. Consistency of network representation: in UNITRANS, TMRE is used as the boundary between Macroscopic/Mesoscopic and Microscopic sub-networks. As showed in Fig.2, Link 1, Link 5 and Link 6 are in the Macro/Meso layer network, and they are modeled using MaRE; Link 2, Link 4, Link 3and Link 12 are arterial links, and they are considered both on the layers of Macroscopic/Mesoscopic and Microscopic, they are modeled using TMRE. Link 7, Link 9, and Link 10 are the boundary links between Macroscopic/Mesoscopic networks and Microscopic networks, so they are modeled using TMRE; Link 8 and Link 11 are minor links, they are considered in the Microscopic layer but not the Macroscopic/Mesoscopic layer, so they are modeled using MiRE. Consistency of simulation cycle: In UNITRANS, all the

2.5

Function Mechanism of UNITRANS

In UNITRANS, we take Link in a network as the elemental object to be modeled, and we call the model entity, entity is the basic element in UNITANS. There are two types of entity: mono-representation entity and multirepresentation entity (TMRE). And mono-representation entity include two types: macro/meso entity (MaRE) and micro entity (MiRE). Interactions are dened as the process that one entity accepts external events and gives responses. In the interior of TMRE, MaLayer and MiLayer execute jointly, CE should satisfy the consistency requirements. IR decide what to do when TMRE get concurrent interaction.

entities are considered as event-based. The events for an entity are diversity, such as the system clock stimulate, or the demand from the entity which represent the upstream link. Because of this, contentious model and discrete model both can be contained in the framework. For example, In order to drive the discrete MiRE, such as the MiRE based on the Cellular Automata model, TMRE can be drove by the system clock. Meanwhile, the stimulate from the connecting entity can also be taken as an external event in TMRE.

Case Study HTSM from Cell Transmission and Cellular Automata

where, Ni (t): The maximum number of vehicles that can be present in cell i at instant t. Qi (t): The maximum number of vehicles which can ow into cell i at time interval (t, t + 1). ni (t): the current number of vehicles contained in cell i. = / : is the speed of shockwave, is the free ow speed in this link. In the classic CT, The length of a cell is constant, which is equal to the distance a vehicle can cover with the speed of free ow speed and at the time interval of one simulation cycle. In this model, the ow-density diagrams can be divided into two regimes : Free ow: q = kv ; Congested kj wo: q = (kj k ); Maximum ow: qmax = 1 + 1

3.2

Cellular Automata (CA)

Figure 3. Three-Legged Intersection In order to certify that the UNITRANS framework is feasibility and effective for modeling a hybrid trafc network system, we chose two classic trafc simulation models: Cell Transmission [2] (CT) and Cellular Automata [12] (CA) to build a HTSM, and develop a MRTSS for a three-legged intersection. See Fig.3. There are two main reasons for selecting a three-legged intersection as a modeling objective. 1) Three-legged intersection is the most concise intersection pattern in trafc design. There are only two conicting trafc ows in the structure. The control strategies are concision. 2) representativeness. This pattern can represent kinds of trafc phenomenon, such as diverging, and converging, etc. And some important rule of trafc control can be represented in this structure, such as yielding behaviors, arterial road priority, etc.

Cellular Automata is a discrete form of car following rules. This model derived from CA-184, is proposed by Nagel [12]. The Cellular Automata trafc simulation model can be described by the following rules: 1) All the lanes are divided into several cells; the length of a cell is 7.5m. Each cell can be occupied by only one vehicle at one instant; 2) The speed of a vehicle is described by an integer, which means the multiple of 7.5; 3) The position of a vehicle i at instant j+1 is:xi,j +1 = xi,j + min{vi,j , xi1,j , xi,j 1}; 4) A speed change probability is used to describe the occasional speed change. In this model, the ow-density diagrams can be divided into two regimes. Free ow: q = vmax ; Congested ow: vmax q = v = 1 ; Maximum ow: qmax = 1+ vmax , where, 1 = 1+vmax .

3.3

The Hybrid Trac Simulation Model (HTSM)

3.1

Cell Transmission Model (CT)

CT is a macro trafc simulation, proposed by Daganzo [2]. This model is a famous trafc simulation model, because many newly developed Macroscopic or Mesoscopic simulation model is based on that. In CT, a link is divided into several sections named cell. The lanes of the link are not considered. The state of the system which is modeled at instant t is given by equ.1: yi (t) = min{ni1 (t), Qi (t), [Ni1 (t) ni1 (t)]} (1)

We use the UNITRANS framework to analyze integration of CT and CA. Representation of Network and Attributes Core (AC) In this MRTSS, there are 3 links. Link 1 is modeled by MaRE, which is a basic CT model; Link 2 is modeled by MiRE, which is a basic CA model; and Link 3 is modeled by the TMRE developed from CA and CT. The attributes sorted in AC comes form 3 resources: 1) The attributes which represent geometric information of the network; 2) The attributes which represent connection information of the network; 3) The attributes which represent input and output ow; Interaction Resolver (IR) As stated in the previous, Interaction Resolver is used to handle the problem of concurrent interaction. The rules for handling this problem are decided by the modeling object itself. In this three-legged interaction, specically, we

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assume that it is a non-signal control intersection. Additionally, Link 1 is the major road. In other words, the framework gives priority to handling the demand from Link 1, when the Link 1 and Link 2 have concurrent interactions with Link 3. Consistency Enforcer (CE) When the upstream links, such as Link 1 and Link 2, have some ow to be transferred to the downstream link, Link 3, the Consistency Enforcer works. CE should translate the ow information into form which can be processed by MaLayer or MiLayer. For example, if the ow comes from Link 2, a micro model, to transfer it to TMRE MiLayer should be easy; but, a mapping process is necessary to translate the discrete vehicle information into continuous ow information too. In order to maintain the consistency in trafc dynamic ow, two basic problems should be solved: Macroscopic/Mesoscopic layer model and Microscopic layer model should share the same ow-density relationship; attributes on both layers can be translated to each other.

Figure 5. ADG As mentioned above, ADG is an important component of CE. See Fig.5 Simulation Result The effectiveness of a trafc model can be veried from two aspects: the free ow situation and the congested ow situation. In the free ow situation, we assumes the downstream links can satisfy the trafc demand from the upstream links completely, and the ow conservation should be examined by the model developer; in the congested situation, we assumes that a accident occurred in some position at some time, and the vehicles should start to decelerate and queue. This phenomena is called shockwave in the eld of trafc engineering. We concern about the propagating speed of shockwave and the position of shockwave front at some time point. Furthermore, the phenomena that the shockwave front get across the interaction is important, because this phenomena show weather the two entities in the model interact effectively. If in the mentioned two situations the trafc system operational performance is simulated rational, the built model is effective. The built model runs for 2000 Microscopic cycles (100 macro cycles). In order to simulate a congested situation, a trafc accident is set on cell 150th of Link 3, at 1000th cycle. Since Link 2 is a minor road and its demand cannot be fully satised by downstream link even if the demand of arterial road can be satised, a queue should be formed disregard the occurrence of the accident, as seen in Fig.6.(b). Before the accident occurred, the demand from Link 1 can be satised by Link 3. However, after the trafc accident, the trafc jam in link 3 propagates back to the upstream link, including link1 and link 3. The shockwave is clearly shown in Fig.6.(a) and Fig.6.(c). As shown in Fig.6.(a) and Fig.6.(c), when the Cell 1 100 of Link 3 achieve the jam density, the upstream link, Link 1, begins to accumulate its density. This phenomenon

Figure 4. Shared Flow-Density Relationship To solve the rst problem, we set the CT and CA model have the ow-density relationship as Fig.4. In this chart, the unit of length is Cellm , which stands for the length of one CA cell. The unit of time is Cyclem , which stands for the cycle of CA. The ow-density relationship is: q= 5 1 >
1 6 1 6

In order to get the above ow-density relationship, in CA model: Free ow speed: vmax = 5; In CT model: Jam density: kj = 1; Shockwave speed: = 1; Length of the CT cell: CellM = 100; Simulation cycle of CT: CycleM = 20. To solve the second problem, CE works. CE has two separate modules: Generator and Sampler. Generator handles the interface from macro to micro. This module will generate new vehicles in the rst cell of microscopic layer, according to the ow rate of upstream MaLayer. Sampler handles the interface from micro to macro. This module will count the number of vehicle pass from the macro side to the micro side, and take this quantity as the ow rate in the rst cell of Macroscopic/Mesoscopic layer.

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[4] Jayakrishnan, R. An evaluation tool for advanced trafc information and management systems in urban networks, Transportation Research Part C:Eemerging Technologies, vol. 2C, pp. 129-147, 1994 [5] Laurent MAGNE. Towards an hybrid macro-micro trafc ow simulation model, ONERA-Centre de Toulouse, INFORMS Salt Lake City String 2000 Conference , 2000 [6] Leclercq Ludovic. Hybrid approaches to the solutions of the Lighthill-Whitham-Richards model, Laboratoire dIngenierie Circulation Transport LICIT (ENTPE/INRETS), F-69518 Vaulx-en-Velin Cedex, France, Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, vol. 41, pp. 701-709, 2007 [7] Leclercq Ludovic. Hybridization of a class of second order models of trafc ow, Simulation Modeling Practice and Theory, vol. 15, pp. 918-934, 2007 Figure 6. Density of Link 1, Link 2, and Link 3 [8] Huanjing SHI. A hybrid mesoscopic-microscopic trafc simulation model: design, implementation and computational analysis, TRB 2006 Annual Meeting CD-ROM, 85th Meeting of the Transportation Research Board [9] Wilco Burghout. Hybrid microscopic-mesoscopic trafc simulation, Ph.D. dissertation, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden , 2004 [10] Anand Natrajan. Consistency Maintenance in Concurrent Representations, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Virginia, January 2000 [11] Daganzo, Carlos F. In trafc ow, cellular automata = kinematic waves, Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, vol. 40, pp. 396-403, 2006 [12] Nagel, K. A cellular automaton model for freeway trafc, Journal de Physique I, vol. 2, pp. 2221-2229, 1992

shows the propagation of a queue back to the upstream. One point worth noticing is that the maximum density of Cell 101 200th remains on the level around 0.5 along the change of time. This is resulted from the fact that the accident occurs in the middle of Cell(M) 2 and thus reduced the ultimate average density of the corresponding cell.

Conclusion

UNIFY framework supplies an effective and exible approach to building HTSM and MRTSS. In our concise case study, UNITRANS works well. Furthermore, there are still problems which are not fully considered in this paper, such as the Dynamic Trafc Assignment or route choice. These problems will be researched in our further research on UNITRANS.

References
[1] LIU, Baohong. The theory and key technology of multi-resolution modelling, Ph.D. dissertation, National University of Defense Technology. 2003 [2] Carlos F. Daganzo. The Cell Transmission Model Part II: Network Trafc, Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, vol. 29B, pp. 79-93, 1995 [3] Constantine, T. Trafc dynamics: Car Following Studies, Trafc Engineering and Control, vol. 8, pp. 551, 1963

Acknowledgement
This work was supported by Natural Science Foundation of Shanghai (NO. 07ZR14120).

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