There are many simulation models available to study elements of the transportation system like freeways and intersections. Most of the simulation models do not come readily available with built-in toll plaza models. Researchers have independently developed toll plaza models that can only model an isolated plaza without the road network. Toll plaza models, which arebased on queuing theory, do not take into account headway, gap acceptance, or inter-vehicle interaction to follow a lead car, or to perform lane changing maneuvers. For instance, if a vehicle is traveling in the leftmostlane and the rightmost toll lane has the shortest queue length, then the queuing model will assign this vehicle to the rightmost lane, and the vehicle will do unrealistic maneuvering to reach to the assigned toll lane instantly. If a microscopic network simulation model could be customized to model a toll plaza, not only will it simulate the vehicular movements realistically; it can also model a toll road corridor integrated with the plaza, unlike isolated toll plaza models. PARAMICS is a simulation model with powerful tools like vehicle type and restrictions managers, next-lane allocation, and lane-choices rule. In this paper, PARAMICS have been customized to develop a corridor model, which overcomes the above mentioned shortcomings. The methodology was demonstrated using the Holland East Plaza andsections of SR408 corridor in Orlando, Florida. Various hypothetical scenarios were tested, and the results obtained from these scenarios were as per the expectations. The developed toll road corridor model can simulatemultiple toll plazas, and can be integrated with other road networks (i.e., freeways, arterials …etc).
Samenvatting