The participation of PHOEBE at the Annual Meeting of the Transport Research Board (TRB) in Washington DC, USA, already became a tradition. This time, a poster was submitted that depicts the joint research efforts of TU Delft, AIMSUN, iRAP and FLOOW related to the incorporation of human factors into traffic microsimulation, which was presented during a dedicated session. We invite you to read the summary below and download the poster here.
Traffic flow models used in traffic microsimulation platforms do not commonly consider human factors, especially non-compliant behaviours. While the theoretical need for the incorporation of specific human factors into traffic microsimulation, especially for the purpose of safety assessment, has been shown in previous studies, there is no systematic methodology which can be empirically tested for a wide range of behaviours. The framework consists of four steps:
- collecting empirical telematics data on a certain behaviour of interest, and merging them with individual road user characteristics, road infrastructure and traffic conditions data.
- developing an analytical model for this behaviour with all of the collected data.
- encoding the behaviour in microsimulation.
- conducting the microsimulation experiments enhanced with the behaviour.
To demonstrate the feasibility of the methodology, a microsimulation model of our West Midlands pilot region, developed in Aimsun Next is employed to test drivers speeding behaviour. Results show statistically significant differences in speed and acceleration profiles following the incorporation of speeding behaviour, suggesting a potential impact on surrogate safety assessment. The findings provide valuable insights into the impact of integrating human factors in microsimulation on traffic-conflict based road safety assessments.