PTV Innovation Day 2016 in Singapore

PTV, one of the market leader in software solutions for traffic and transportation planning, regularly organises the so-called Innovation Days. The aim of those events is to provide the users of their software products a forum to broaden and share their transportation knowledge and modelling expertise.

We took the opportunity to present our software pipeline to create Virtual Reality application using Vissim at the PTV Innovation Day in Singapore on the 22th of July 2016. The slide of our presentation titled Using Vissim for Virtual Reality Applications to Evaluate Active Mobility Solutions can be found here. It was great to see and hear that the presentation was well received as ‪Alastair Evanson, Solution Director at PTV Vissim & Vistro at PTV Group, noted:‪‪

“The use of PTV Vissim in their project Engaging Active Mobility, which models and visualises streetscape designs to understand people’s preferences to cycle infrastructure, is just the sort of innovative application that we at PTV like to see our software being used for. The audience at the event found it a very interesting subject and PTV look forward to further co-ordinating on the topic to enhance the application of PTV Vissim in allowing people to ‘experience’ proposed designs through interacting with micro-simulation models in virtual/ augmented reality.”

Click here to access the slides of the presentation.

With this blog post, we also would like to summarise the other interesting presentations at the event and share the respective slides.

Solutions for Real-Time Public Transport Prediction, Management and Control

by Nate Chanchareon, PTV Group

This presentation was dedicated to the introduction of PTV Optima and real time traffic management; one of the functionalities of this software is to forecast network state in the next 15 or 30 minutes by providing the real data obtained from various sources ranging from loop detectors to cell phone data. One of the advantages of this software is that it considers traffic flow models, compared to other applications which use pure statistical models to forecast future network state.

Click here to access the slides of the presentation.

Flexible Multi-Resolution in Transport Modelling

by David Ng, PTV Group

In this presentation, Visum Dynamic Traffic Assignment (DTA) engine was explained by comparing it to classic static traffic assignment and briefing a set of pros and cons; one of the most important advantages of DTA is that it addresses the dynamics of demand and supply in a transportation network. The position and application of multi-resolution transportation modelling was then illustrated in a work flow. Finally, it was revealed that Visum 16 is capable of modelling shared mobility.

Click here to access the slides of the presentation.

Public Transport Modelling using PTV VISUM and Smart Card Data in Singapore

by Yuan Zhou, TUM CREATE

It was a project of modelling Singapore public transportation system (bus and MRT) in Visum, performed by researchers of TUM CREATE. EZ-Link data and data mining approach were used to drive travel times of each route (as well as bus bunching phenomenon) and daily PuT peak hours to create a time-table based transit model. A model of transfer times of MRT lines in intersection stations was introduced.

Simulating Autonomous Vehicles in Our Urban Areas

by Alastair Evanson, PTV Group

Since there is a worldwide major interest in the application of Autonomous Vehicle (AV), It was shown how Visum and Vissim can be used for impact analysis and simulation of their behaviour. By adapting driver parameters for AVs, an intersection was modelled in Vissim clearing the fact how AVs decrease the discharge time of an intersection approach, leading to a higher throughput. By modelling of a section of a highway fully utilized by AVs and also platooning of AVs, it was confirmed that by keeping a less lateral and longitudinal distance, the throughput of a highway is also increased. At the end of the presentation, the driving simulator interface of PTV was also introduced.

Click here to access the slides of the presentation.

Simulating the Streets of Tomorrow: An Innovative Approach to Shared Space

by David Ng, PTV Group

This research project was inspired by commercial interest in shared space modelling, from clients which couldn’t be satisfied by applying current Vissim functionalities, and PTV plans to improve Vissim in this regard. This project was performed by CH2M company in collaboration with PTV. There is an inconsistency in modelling interaction of pedestrians whom follow an area-based social-force model with vehicles which obey link-based car-following models. The approach (or clever trick!) is to define vehicles in shared spaces as a bunch of pedestrians walking together. In this way, the interaction of different transportation modes is well explained.

Click here to access the slides of the presentation.

Benefits of Mesoscopic Simulation in PTV Vissim

by Alastair Evanson, PTV Group

PTV Vissim 8 mesoscopic functionality was introduced which can also be used for hybrid modelling. It uses simplified traffic flow models; simplified car-following model which does not have lane-changing manoeuvre within a link, which results in larger and faster simulations. Furthermore, signalized intersections are modelled in more details with fixed signal timings.

Click here to access the slides of the presentation.

A Consultant’s Insight into Vissim & Viswalk Applications in South East Asia

Chris Ayles, Systra MVA

Modeling of a taxi terminal and modeling of a 9-storey mall via Viswalk. Something interesting about that mall simulation was that an activity chain model was built to replicate people’s behavior in a shopping center, extracting the order of the shops customers visit consecutively. A three dimensional OD matrix of pedestrian trips was created in which the third dimension is related to the story level of the shops.