PTV Group

Functions and assignment results

The target of today is the assessment of network model based on volumes.

Which functions can be compared to the calculation?

What are the possibilities of description of the impedance?
What methods are available to assess a demand on the network model, to calculate an
assignment?
PTV Group
PTV Group

Prepared for you:

Functions and assignment methods, how is the driving desire from O to D set in a macroscopic
transportation model on the existing network model?

Scenario management, a delightful aid, a "personal assistant" for the user. Many things are
handled automatically and the user can concentrate on the essentials.
PTV Group

1-6 Functions

How will the trip desire from O to D calculated in a macroscopic network model?

Description of Volume delay functions (VDF) and description of the assignment methods for an
assessment inside a network model, based on an existing demand.
PTV Group

q-v-Diagramm (Fundamental diagram)

The basis for the definition of a capacity-restraint function, the fundamental diagrams. In
general, you want draw a conclusion on the traffic behavior and the associated different route
search of road users from the knowledge of the traffic situation on the right boarder (near
qmax).

From the fundamental diagrams are no clear function over the entire range of values ​can be
determined. Rather, different regression curves are assumed for different traffic conditions.

Akcelik initiated in 1964 BPR function in the form tcur = t0 • (1 + α • (q/qmax)β). In his function
he chose for the variables α = 0.15 and β = 4.00

However, this function is the result of measurements. Our goal is supposed to be the traffic
condition and the route choice behavior as a conclusion from the observation model. This
means that the input function should provide the "right" result later.

*Source: N. Wu / Straßenverkehrstechnik, Heft 8, 2000. Verkehr auf Schnellstraßen im

Fundamentaldiagramm. Ein neues Modell und seine Anwendungen. Ning Wu. Abbildung 5 -
Maximale Verkehrsstärke in der q-v-Ebene.
PTV Group

v-sat Diagram

The above diagram shows the relationship between the saturation grade sat and the velocity v
in analogy to qv-graph before. With increasing traffic volume q, we expect a decreasing velocity
v.

As saturation grad or volume grade, we describe the relationship between q and qmax.
PTV Group

Volume delay function

A basis for all assignment procedures in PrT is the selected volume delay function (VDF),
which can be defined for each network object.

VDF can be defined for

 Links
 Nodes
 Turns
 Connectors
 Main nodes
 Main turns

The mathematical description of the first function is:

tcur=t0 • {1 + a • [q/(c • qmax)]b}

This function is called BPR (Bureau of Public Roads) and is ascribed to the first regression
curves in the publication of HCM in 1964.
PTV Group

VDF in Visum

Preset VDF can be selected in Visum. Besides the various BPR functions, we also mention an
example, the function of the French Institut national de recherche sur les transports et leur
Sécurité (INRETS). This function is just beginning a somewhat steeper slope of the function.

In the diagram, three different curves of the curves are shown INRETS.

— a = 0,25
— a = 0,50
— a = 0,90

To compare the different VDF, please open the file

PTV_Visum_VD_FUNCTION_Distribution.XLS
PTV Group

Impedance function

Shortest patch search is always the basis for the impedance may result from the various
attributes on a network model.

Without changing the settings when impedance function only the values ​summed contact on all
network objects.
Since the range of values of the impedance is Integer, the value tcur is multiplied by the factor
of 100.
PTV Group

Impedance function

The impedance function can also be used in great detail. You simply check the checkbox
"detailed".

We could include the user defined attribute (UDA) "attractiveness" of links into the impedance
formula as shown above. This could be helpful when calibrating the assignment. E.g. by
increasing the UDA for a link and thus lowering the impedance, this link would usually attract
more traffic during the assignment. In our example the UDA has the standard value of 1 for all
links , which means it will not have an effect on the assignment.
PTV Group
PTV Group
PTV Group
PTV Group
PTV Group
PTV Group

Incremental assignment

The incremental assignment procedure models how a network continuously fills up. At the
beginning, road users can use a free network for which exactly one shortest route exists for
every origin/destination relation. The traffic network is then successively loaded. Every step
congests the road network with additional vehicles and, in this way, increases impedance on
the congested links, turns and connectors. Because of the changed impedance, alternative
shortest routes may be found in every step.

The matrix is incrementally assigned to the network in the form of several parts. In this process,
the entire demand is proportionally distributed over the number of iteration steps defined by the
user (maximum 12). The default is an incremental assignment with three iteration steps (33 %,
33 % and 34 %).

The first step determines lowest impedance routes for all required OD-relations of the current
network for either a free network or based on a basic volume.
PTV Group

Incremental assignment

The defined percentage of the first incremental step of the matrix is then assigned to these
routes.

Subsequently, the new network impedances resulting from these volumes are calculated via the
VD functions.

The darken blue volume bar shows us the flow bundle volume from all trips from and to A
Village.
PTV Group

Incremental assignment

On this basis, the next iteration step again calculates lowest impedance routes.
In our example the result of the second shortest path search is the same than in the first step.
PTV Group

Incremental assignment

This procedure is continued and we assign the next 33% to the network. We have now 66% of
the demand assigned.

The darken blue volume bar shows us the flow bundle volume from all trips from and to A
Village.
PTV Group

Incremental assignment

Again on this basis, the last iteration step calculates lowest impedance routes.
In our example the result of the third shortest path search is for one route (A Village to X Town)
different.
PTV Group

Incremental assignment

Now the rest-volume of the demand (34%) is assigned to our network.

In total we have 100% of our trips assigned.

The darken blue volume bar shows us the flow bundle volume from all trips from and to A
Village.
PTV Group

Incremental assignment

Whole flow-chart of the incremental assignment.

PTV Group

Incremental assignment

Open the method parameter file 01_06_Incremental.xml.

Here three examples of an incremental assignment are listed.

 100%, „All-or-Nothing“
 Three equidistant steps (33%, 33%, 34%)
 Unequally shared in twelve steps (1%, 3%, 7%, 16%, 32%, 16%, 9%, 5%, 4%, 3%, 2%,
2%)

As an additional option, a step for automatically storing the file version has been created after
each calculation.
PTV Group

Equilibrium assignment

The Equilibrium assignment distributes the demand according to Wardrop's first principle .
"Every road user selects his route in such a way, that the impedance on all alternative routes is
the same, and that switching to a different route would increase personal travel time (user
optimum)."
This behavioral hypothesis underlies the unrealistic assumption that every road user is fully
informed about the network state. In transport planning this hypothesis is approved of given a
fundamental methodical advantage of the equilibrium assignment - with quite general
requirements, the existence and uniqueness of the assignment result (expressed in volumes of
the network object) is guaranteed. Moreover, measures for the distance of an approximation
solution from the equilibrium exist, from which an objective termination criterion can be derived
for the procedure, which generally is an iterative problem solution.
The equilibrium assignment determines a user optimum which differs from a system optimum.

A user optimum means that the same impedance results for all routes of a traffic relation
between zones i and j (within the scope of calculation accuracy). This results directly from the
condition, that changing to another route is not profitable for any road user.
A system optimum however means that the total impedance in the network, which is the product
of route impedance and route volume is minimized for all OD pairs. On average, this procedure
leads to shorter journey times per road user, but there are (few) road users which use routes to
serve the general public, with an impedance above average.
PTV Group

Equilibrium assignment

Please open file 01_06_Equilibrium.xml

In the procedure dialog we find two equilibrium assignments with a different Gap for calculating
the equilibrium state.

Gap = (Veh.Imp.- hypothet. Veh. Imp.) / hypothet. Veh. Imp.

Degree of convergence for the network.

The value is the weighted volume difference between the vehicle impedance of the network of
the current iteration and the hypothetical vehicle impedance.

Hypothetic vehicle impedance

Minimum impedance value calculated hypothetically for the next iteration step on the
assumption that all vehicles – based on the current impedances in the network – use the best
path.
PTV Group

Linear User Cost Equilibrium (LUCE)

Similarly to origin-based methods, the problem is partitioned by destinations in the LUCE

procedure. The main idea is to seek at each node a user equilibrium for the local route choice of
drivers directed toward the destination among the arcs of its forward star.. The travel
alternatives that make up the local choice sets are the arcs that belong to the current bush. A
bush is an acyclic sub-graph that connects each origin to the destination at hand. The cost
functions associated to these alternatives express the average impendence to reach the
destination linearized at the current flow pattern.

The unique solutions to such local linear equilibrium in terms of destination flows, recursively
applied for each node of the bush in topological order, provide a descent direction with respect
to the classical sum-integral objective function. The network loading is then performed through
such splitting rates, thus avoiding explicit path enumeration.

Optimizing the proportionality in the route distribution

According to Wardrop's equilibrium condition the link volumes are determined explicitly, but the
path volumes are not necessarily. This is clearly illustrated in the example above.
PTV Group

The zones 1 and 2 are connected to node A, the zones 3 and 4 are connected to node B. A and
B are connected by the two links x and y, which have the same VDF. Demand is 500 trips each
from 1 to 3 and from 1 to 4. The image shows the resulting link volumes in the balanced state.
But the link volumes can result from the various route volumes overlaying on the links.
PTV Group

Equilibrium assignment LUCE

Open the procedure parameter file 01_06_LUCE.xml.

The two steps are different in the optimization of the proportionality of route volumes a meshes.
PTV Group

Equilibrium Lohse

The Equilibrium_Lohse procedure was developed by professor Lohse and is described in

Schnabel (1997). This procedure models the learning process of road users using the network.
Based on an "all or nothing" assignment, drivers make use of information gained during their
previous trip for the new route search. Several shortest routes are searched in an iterative
process whereby for the route search the impedance is deduced from the impedance of the
current volume and the previously estimated impedance. To do this, the total traffic flow is
assigned to the shortest routes found so far for every iteration step.
During the first iteration step only the network impedances in the free network are taken into
account (like 100 % best-route assignment).
The calculation of the impedance in every further iteration step is carried out using the current
mean impedances calculated so far and the impedances resulting from the current volume, i.e.
every iteration step n is based on the impedances calculated at n-1.
The assignment of the demand matrix to the network corresponds to how many times the route
was found ("kept in mind" by Visum).
The procedure only terminates when the estimated times underlying the route choice and the
travel times resulting from these routes coincide to a sufficient degree; there is a high probability
that this stable state of the traffic network corresponds to the route choice behavior of drivers.
To estimate the travel time for each link of the following iteration step n+1, the estimated travel
time for n is added to the difference between the calculated actual travel time of n (calculated
from the VD functions) and the estimated travel time of n. This difference is then multiplied by
the value DELTA (0.15...0.5) which results in an attenuated sine wave.
The termination condition arises from the requirement that the estimated travel times for
PTV Group

iteration steps n and n-1, and the calculated actual travel time of iteration step n,
sufficiently correspond to each other. This is defined by the precision threshold
EPSILON.
PTV Group

Equilibrium Lohse

Open the parameter file 01_06_Lohse.xml

The two methods differ in the estimation procedure for each iteration step.
PTV Group

Goodness of PrT assignment

Statistics on the results of an assignment in IV you get under the menu item lists -> Statistics ->
Goodness of PrT assignment

In this list, among others, the impedance values ​for the vehicle, the vehicle hypothetical
impedance and the gap are listed.
PTV Group

Number of paths

Also, it may be interesting to find out how the frequency distribution of paths to a reallocation is.
To open a list of PrT-paths (Lists -> Paths -> PrT-Paths).

This list is shown with the attribute index, how many different routes were calculated from a
origin to a destination zone.

You can save this list as a database (see Database icon in the menu bar of the list) and there
then create a frequency distribution of the index.
PTV Group
PTV Group

Transport system-based assignment

The transport system-based assignment does not differentiate between individual PuT lines.
Modeling the transport supply only considers the links of a basic network with their specific run
times. The basic network can comprehend the following sets of links.
 All road and rail links of the link network
 Only those links which are traversed by PuT lines
 Only those links which are traversed by active PuT lines
From the links of this basic network a graph is constructed which is the basis for a best-route
search.
Because individual lines are not distinguished, transfer stops with their respective transfer times
cannot be included in the search. It is possible, however, to include transition times between
different transport systems (transfer penalties for transport system changes, for example
between bus and train).
The transport system-based assignment calculates exactly one route for each pair of origin
zone and destination zone, which consists of one origin connector and one destination
connector for the PuT as well as of links and turns, which are permitted for a public transport
system. Transfers are changes of the transport system which are considered in the form of a
time penalty in the route search.
For links, t-PuTSys is considered
A transport system change can only take place at selected nodes
At nodes, where a transport system change is necessary, a transfer time penalty TP is assigned
TP = node type-specific time penalty + penalty per transfer
At nodes, at which no turn for the public transport system is permitted between the links, the
PTV Group

time penalty TP is also added if option Consider prohibited turns is active.

PTV Group

Transport system-based assignment

Open the parameter file 01_06_PuT_TSys.par

In the Search tab, the following values ​should be used:

 Permissibility at node: from allocated stop points
 consider prohibited turns
 Network for the path search: links used by line routes
PTV Group
PTV Group

Definition of the base version

Before we start with the scenario management, we change the procedure sequence and the
graphic parameter as shown above (alternatively load
01_07_01_StartScenarioManagement.ver)

Then you create a new project (see screenshot above)

PTV Group

The project should be saved under the name Training_2030. Please write the filename and
select the base directory (please select your removable disc)

We will use the currently loaded data.

PTV Group

Basic settings

Please write in the Log some information for a later editing.

PTV Group

Modifications

Create for two possible detours of C-Hamlet any necessary modifications.

The modifications can be selected that are either independent, or that they are dependent on
other modifications.

In the example, we first create a node in the north of C-Hamlet. At this node we can connect
three links. The connector road to the center of C-Hamlet and the western and the eastern
branch of the Northern Bypass.

A single modification you can look at later by selecting the corresponding row and a click on the
icon "Edit Modification”.
PTV Group

Define scenarios

Modifications of the scenarios can now be created.

As the first scenario, we define the comparison case, also called zero-case. This comparison
case includes only of the basic version.

Any scenario can now be arranged.

The project can be closed at any time. The Scenario Manager automatically stores all data.

To calculate the scenarios any rows can be selected (all at once). Then click on the icon
"calculate scenarios”.
PTV Group

Display volumes for a scenario

Click the scenario North Bypass an then click the button „load marked scenario“

In this way you can create all evaluations and print outs. The scenario manager is organizing
everything inside your project for you
PTV Group

Create Comparison pattern

In the tab Comparison patterns you can create various graphic parameters to compare different
scenarios. Here you create only a pattern based on two scenarios. Later you can use this
pattern to compare all required comparisons.
PTV Group

Comparison of two scenarios

Set the graphics parameters so that you represent traffic increases and decreases traffic with
corresponding colors. The pattern shows what it looks like later in the application.
PTV Group

Comparison of two scenarios

Select in the tab scenarios the 0 Case and the North Bypass. Click then on the button
„compare scenarios“
PTV Group

Comparison of two scenarios

Select as Leading scenario which includes all required network objects. In our case we use the
North Bypass.
Confirm your inputs with a click on the push-button „Compare“
PTV Group

Comparison of two scenarios

Layout of the result of this comparison.

Now you can select any scenario and compare it in the same way. If you need further
comparison patterns, go back to the register Comparison Patterns and define a new one.

Finally click close project. All required data are already saved.