Comparing performance and quality of traffic assignment techniques for microscopic road traffic simulations

Abstract

Focusing on the tradeoff between accuracy of the assignment and computation time this paper proposes different traffic assignment methods targeting at microscopic traffic simulation. The corresponding network-wide performance indices, the generated route sets and the respective significance tests are analyzed and compared. The results indicate that the saving on computa-tion time is significant with use of macroscopic assignments. However, the deficiency of ne-glecting turning behaviors in macroscopic assignments results in worse assignment results. Moreover, the used computation time of some microscopic methods (e.g. the one-shot method) is competitive with that of the macroscopic assignments. While the exact parameteri-zation as well as the sensitivity of the methods to the size of the scenarios still need further investigation, it seems favorable to employ microscopic assignment techniques or hybrid methods for producing a good traffic assignment for a microscopic simulation.