Development of MATDYMO (Multi-Agent for Traffic Simulation with Vehicle Dynamics Model) I: Development of traffic environment

For decades, simulation technique has been well validated in areas such as computer and communication systems. Recently, the technique has been much used in the area of transportation and traffic forecasting. Several methods have been proposed for investigating complex traffic flows. However, the dynamics of vehicles and diversities of driver characteristics have never been considered sufficiently in these methods, although they are considered important factors in traffic flow analysis. In this paper, we propose a traffic simulation tool called Multi-Agent for Traffic Simulation with Vehicle Dynamics Model (MATDYMO). Road transport consultants, traffic engineers and urban traffic control center managers are expected to use MATDYMO to efficiently simulate traffic flow. MATDYMO has four sub systems: the road management system, the vehicle motion control system, the driver management system, and the integration control system. The road management system simulates traffic flow for various traffic environments (e.g., multi-lane roads, nodes, virtual lanes, and signals); the vehicle motion control system constructs the vehicle agent by using various vehicle dynamic models; the driver management system constructs the driver agent capable of having different driving styles; and lastly, the integrated control system regulates the MATDYMO as a whole and observes the agents running in the system. The vehicle motion control system and driver management system are described in the companion paper. An interrupted and uninterrupted flow model were simulated, and the simulation results were verified by comparing them with the results from a commercial software, TRANSYT-7F. The simulation result of the uninterrupted flow model showed that the driver agent displayed human-like behavior ranging from slow and careful driving to fast and aggressive driving. The Simulation of the interrupted flow model was implemented as two cases. The first case analyzed traffic flow as the traffic signals changed at different intervals and as the turning traffic volume changed. Second case analyzed the traffic flow as the traffic signals changed at different intervals and as the road length changed. The simulation results of the interrupted flow model showed that the close relationship between traffic state change and traffic signal interval.