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Current
Projects
CityMotion
SCUSSE
SOTUR
Modeling Cooperative Driving Behavior in Freeway Merges
BTRC
NYSDOT
SMART
Capturing Well-Being in Activity Patterns
Recent Projects
TfL
Measuring and modeling travel well-being
Campania
CMI
DynaMIT-LA
Lancaster
MUST
MUST
NGSIM
NSF Behavioral
NSF Spatial
NSF/USDOT
RHYTHM
SDI
Stockholm
Sverdrup
UVA
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Current Research Project Descriptions:
Title: CityMotion: Data Fusion for Mobility Consumers, Providers, and Planners
Sponsor: MIT-Portugal Program
Project Dates: December, 2007 - December, 2010
Research: This project focuses on the development of a knowledge
infrastructure, computational models, and user applications that allow
access to real-time information about the state of transportation-related
resources as well as predictions regarding their future state. A pilot
service that exemplifies the usage potential of available data will be
provided to citizens for making public transportation more efficient and
pleasant to use and to policy-makers as a decision-support tool.
The ITS lab is involved in developing a model-based data fusion engine (with
simulation capabilities) that models a particular transportation network
along with the behavior of travelers within it. MIT Portugal Program
Title: SCUSSE: Smart Combination of Passenger Transport Modes and Services in Urban Areas for Maximum System Sustainability and Efficiency
Sponsor: MIT-Portugal Program
Project Dates: November, 2007 - June, 2010
Research: The project aims to conceive, organize and simulate the
implementation of new smart transport modes and services to optimize
integration with lifestyles, and also with already existing individual and
collective transport. For this, three levels of decision (strategic, tactic
and operational) will be approached covering the institutional design
required for the regulatory environment, network planning focusing on
productive efficiency as well as efficiency in consumption, and enforcement
and performance monitoring at the operational level. Performance assessment
at the strategic level will also be developed.
The ITS lab is involved in the modeling and simulation of these innovative
modes and services. A stated preferences survey has been designed and will
be used to collect data on users' preferences for these modes and services.
DynaMIT and MITSIMLab are also being modified to add congestion pricing
simulation capabilities.MIT Portugal Program
Title: SOTUR: Strategic Options for Integrating Transportation Innovations with Urban Revitalization
Sponsor: MIT-Portugal Program
Project Dates: October, 2007 - July, 2010
Research: The project aims to define innovative solutions with sufficient
economic power of attraction for private investment that may simultaneously
contribute to urban development patterns that leverage innovative
transportation solutions and contribute, overall, to more sustainable urban
development patterns. A particular focus of the work will be on the
revitalization of urban districts in areas with low availability of street
space.MIT Portugal Program
Title: Investigation of Traffic Congestion and Speed Reduction in London
Sponsor: Transport for London
Project Dates: June 1, 2008 - January 1, 2010
Research: In order to address the needs of TfL, MIT will conduct a two-phase research plan to investigate the causes of traffic speed reductions and delays in London. The first phase will involve assembling data from multiple sources, processing the available data, performing initial econometric and traffic behavior analysis using the integrated data and indentifying future data requirements and research directions. The second phase will include: extension of the econometric analysis, development of detailed driving behavior models and microscopic traffic simulation studies for selected sub-networks.
Title: Modeling Cooperative Driving Behavior in Freeway Merges
Sponsor: New England University Transportation Center
Project Dates: September 1, 2008 - August 31, 2009
Research: Merging locations are major sources of freeway bottlenecks. Microscopic simulation tools are receiving increased popularity in analyzing these bottlenecks and designing optimum geometric configurations and control strategies. In congested situations, acceptable gaps for merging are often not available and freeway mainline drivers often cooperate with the on-ramp drivers and create gaps for the merge. This is usually done either by decelerating or by changing to an inner freeway lane. Existing approaches do not capture these phenomena and as a result often over-predict congestion.
MIT will develop a new system of driving behavior models, with specific focus on freeway merging behavior.
The developed model will be an integrated driving behavior model for lane-changing and acceleration decisions of freeway mainline drivers approaching a merging on-ramp that explicitly captures courtesy and cooperative actions of the driver. Parameters of the model will be estimated with vehicle trajectory data collected by NGSIM at Interstate-80, California during congested periods. The models will be implemented in microscopic traffic simulator MITSIMLab to improve its performance in congested merge locations. The enhanced MITSIMLab will be open-sourced and can serve as an excellent tool for transport professionals to test different congestion management mechanisms
Title: Collaborative development of dynamic traffic simulation models for Beijing
Sponsor: Beijing Transportation Research Center
Project Dates: April 16, 2008 - January 15, 2010
Research: Beijing's rapidly increasing traffic congestion has led the BTRC to undertake a project to develop dynamic traffic simulation models to analyze and predict traffic congestion. MIT will assist BTRC by providing its DynaMIT and MITSIMLab software, and modify these traffic simulators to better represent the traffic behavior in Beijing. MIT will also work collaboratively with BTRC to design new data collection, develop new behavioral models, perform calibration, and apply the models to study traffic congestion in Beijing.
Title: DynaMIT - ITS Study: Phase IV
Sponsor: New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT)
Project Dates: Sept. 1, 2005 - Aug. 31, 2008
Research: MIT’s DynaMIT software package is currently being utilized as part of the Lower Westchester County ITS Integration Program. DynaMIT is used to analyze equipment placement options and to generate real-time guidance for dissemination by VMS and HAR. Real-time feedback from DynaMIT is used for both for routine guidance, as well as to assist with Maintenance and Protection of Traffic (MPT) activities during the Cross Westchester Expressway (CWE) reconstruction.
Title: SMART - Future Urban Mobility
Sponsor: Singapore National Science Foundation
Project Dates: July. 1, 2010 - June 30, 2014
Title:Capturing Well-Being in Activity Patterns
Sponsor: New England University Transportation Centers
Project Dates: Sept. 1, 2009 - Aug. 31, 2011
Recently Completed Research Project Descriptions:
Title: Investigation of Traffic Congestion and Speed Reduction in London
Sponsor: Transport for London
Project Dates: June 1, 2008 - January 1, 2010
Research: In order to address the needs of TfL, MIT will conduct a two-phase research plan to investigate the causes of traffic speed reductions and delays in London. The first phase will involve assembling data from multiple sources, processing the available data, performing initial econometric and traffic behavior analysis using the integrated data and indentifying future data requirements and research directions. The second phase will include: extension of the econometric analysis, development of detailed driving behavior models and microscopic traffic simulation studies for selected sub-networks.
Title: Measuring and modeling travel well-being
Sponsor: New England University Transportation Center
Project Dates: September 1st, 2006 - August 31, 2009
Research: Understanding travel well-being is important for a better representation of travel behavior and for the design and evaluation of policies. This project aims at measuring travel well-being and modeling its causes and its relationship to travel behavior. This will be accomplished through two data collection efforts. The first one is a cross-sectional travel and activity well-being survey that was conducted with a sample of commuters starting in the summer of 2007. This survey was used to model commute well-being and to model the relationship between activity happiness and the propensity to participate in activities. The second data collection effort, starting in the summer of 2008, will measure travel well-being and mode choice decisions after an intervention requiring car commuters to switch temporarily to public transportation. The findings from these surveys and experiments will be used to develop a framework for transportation planning that includes travel well-being.
References
1) Abou-Zeid, M. and Ben-Akiva, M. (2007) The effect of social comparisons on commute well-being, Paper presented at the Frontiers in Transportation Workshop, the Netherlands.
2)Abou-Zeid, M., Ben-Akiva, M. and Bierlaire, M. (2008) Happiness and travel behavior modification, Paper presented at the European Transport Conference, the Netherlands.
Title: NGSIM - Next Generation Simulation Models
Sponsor: Federal Highway Administration (FHWA)
Project Dates: September 1, 2002 - June 30, 2009
Research: The objective of the NGSIM program is to develop a core of open behavioral algorithms in support
of traffic simulation, with a primary focus on microscopic modeling, including supporting documentation
and validation data sets that describe the interactions of multi-modal travelers, vehicles and highway
systems, and interactions presented to them from traffic control devices, delineation, congestion and
other features of the environment.
More information can be found on the NGSIM website: http://ngsim.camsys.com
Title:Evacuation Plan for the Boston Metropolitan Area - Traffic Simulation
Sponsor: Massachusetts Highway Department
Project Dates: October 1, 2005 - May 31, 2006
Research:DynaMIT was calibrated to be used as a tool during emergency evacuations. Forecast traffic and travel time information provided by DynaMIT were implemented as a key component in the MassTERS’ Emergency Evacuation Support project, testing DynaMIT’s ability to accurately estimate prevailing conditions and predict future conditions.
Title:Evaluation of DynaMIT – Phase I
Sponsor: University of Virginia / Federal Highway Administration
Project Dates: January 1, 2003 - May 31, 2005
Research: On-line testing of DynaMIT – a dynamic
transportation management system – in the Commonwealth of Virginia. MIT will assist the University
of Virginia in identifying the necessary input parameters, and perform calibrations for the network
test in order to accelerate the integration process between DynaMIT and real-time traffic data.
Title:DynaMIT-LA
Sponsor: Volpe National Transportation Systems Research Center / US Department of Transportation
Project Dates: January 1, 2003 - June 30, 2005
Research: The Los Angeles Department Of Transportation (LADOT) is currently in the process of developing
an Advanced Incident Detection Algorithm (AIDA), which would automatically detect incidents occurring on
surface streets by constantly analyzing detector data received from the traffic surveillance system. More
than 10,000 loop detectors in the field will transmit traffic volume and occupancy data every second to
central computers through fiber-optic communications system. These real-time data will be combined with
ArcView GIS database for incident detection.
To address complex traffic control and management issues in the information-based, ITS environment,
MIT has developed DynaMIT – a dynamic transportation management system. This research project will
test the application and viability of DynaMIT in the Los Angeles area. The intent is to integrate
DynaMIT with the LADOT’s Adaptive Traffic Control System (ATCS). DynaMIT will interface with the AIDA
program currently under development by LADOT. A field operations test will also be performed in a very
dense urban arterial environment.
Title:NSF/USDOT Collaborative Proposal: Methodology for Calibration and Validation of Traffic Simulation Models
Sponsor: National Science Foundation (NSF)
Project Dates: September 15, 2003 - February 28, 2005
Research: The objectives are to provide a better understanding of the main issues related to calibration
and validation of traffic simulation models in light of data commonly available and the nature of
applications. We seek to develop a rigorous calibration and validation methodology that addresses the
various issues, explore algorithmic and computational aspects of the proposed calibration and validation
methodology, develop case studies to demonstrate the application of the proposed methods, and identify
research directions that will eventually lead to practical tools for calibration and validation.
MIT ITS is working in collaboration with Northeastern University.
Title: DynaMIT - ITS Study: Development of ITS Analysis Tools for Lower Westchester County
Sponsor: New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT)
Project Dates: Sept. 1, 2001 - Aug. 31, 2003
Research: NYSDOT seeks to develop a state-of-the-art ITS installation on the Lower Hudson
Valley (LHV) road network. Existing traffic surveillance and monitoring devices such as
loop detectors and CCTV will be substantially augmented by the deployment of 24 TRANSMIT detectors on LHV highways and bridges, many of which have high fractions of EZ-PASS users. The extent and quality of the real-time traffic data that will be available from this equipment may well prove to be unique in the world. With proper processing, the data should make it possible to obtain reliable real-time estimates of traffic flows and travel times by link, path and origin-destination (OD) pair over much of the LHV network.
DynaMIT (Dynamic Network Assignment for the Management of Information to Travelers) will
be used to analyze equipment placement options and to generate real-time guidance for dissemination
by Variable Message Signs (VMS) and Highway Advisory Radio (HAR) networks.
The combination of NYSDOT's ITS infrastructure with DynaMIT's guidance generation capabilities
would lead to a very powerful system for improving traffic conditions in the Lower Westchester
County area.
Title: Collaboration between MIT and the Transport Department of the Regione Campania.
Sponsor: Transport Department, Regione Campania, Italy
Project Dates: Dec. 21, 2001 - Dec. 21, 2002
Research: A collaborative forum has been established between MIT and the Transport Department of the
"Regione Campania" to support the Regione in the following five areas:
- New institutional arrangements to implement the law of reform of the Public Transport System.
- Innovative strategies to Manage three Campania Airports in order to optimize benefits to Campania in the emerging European System of hub airports within a context of a small number of international carriers.
- Transport strategies for regional sustainable development.
- Innovative technologies for the management of interrelated transport systems.
- Development of a stable on-going international university research program involving MIT Center for Transportation Studies (CTS), the Transport Department and the University of Naples.
Title: Enhancement of MITSIMLab for Freeway Reconstruction Projects
Sponsor: Sverdrup Civil Inc.
Project Dates: Sept. 1, 2000 - May 31, 2003
Research: Application of the microscopic traffic simulator MITSIMLab to the I-235 freeway and
interchange reconstruction project in Des Moines, Iowa. The project examines alternatives such
as lane additions and Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) applications such as the use of
VMS for route diversion during construction.
Title: NSF-0042 Behavioral Models for Microscopic Traffic Simulation
Sponsor: National Science Foundation
Project Dates: Sept. 15, 2000 - May 31, 2003
Research: This project seeks to create a new generation of microscopic traffic simulation with
driving behavior models that capture strategic behaviors of drivers. The research focuses
on development and calibration of innovative driving behavior models capturing dependencies
between different behaviors. Calibrated models are being implemented in MITSIMLab.
Title: Individuals' Spatial Abilities and Behavior in Transportation Networks
Sponsor: National Science Foundation
Project Dates: May 15, 2000 - Apr. 30, 2003
Research: Geographic research provides descriptive evidence of how people solve spatial problems
such as wayfinding -- that is, determining the path to a destination. Urban and transportation
researchers use mathematical models of travel behavior based on utility maximization. There has
been much recent interest in improving these models by incorporating better representations of
traveler behavior. This research considers how models of travel behavior can be refined by
considering the variation of spatial ability among individual travelers. The resulting models
promise to expand the scientific understanding of spatial ability, and to provide more reliable
predictions of travel and spatial behavior, particularly of travelers' responses to greater
availability of travel information.
Title: Advances in Real-Time Data and Traffic Control: U.S. Participation in the European Union RHYTHM Project
Sponsor: National Science Foundation
Project Dates: (a supplement to Behavioral Models for Microscopic Traffic Simulation)
Research: The RHYTHM project stands for Real-Time data Helps Yielding Traffic Handling Models.
The project is being undertaken by a five-member European consortium in order to integrate
the use of visual sensors to complement inductive loops for specific tasks of
motorway traffic surveillance and control. Algorithms will be developed to
extract data (such as traffic density in a road segment) directly from captured video images.
Existing traffic control algorithms will also be extended and enhanced to incorporate the new
video sensor technology and combine it with traditional loop technology.
Title: Support of MITSIMLab and DynaMIT-P Applications in Seoul
Sponsor: Seoul Development Institute
Project Dates: Mar. 1, 2000 - Jun. 30, 2000; Sept. 1, 2002 - Jun.20, 2003
Research: MIT ITS will support the use of MITSIMLab, and DynaMIT-P -- a Dynamic Traffic
Assignment system for traffic operations planning applications -- to evaluate the traffic
patterns, impacts of various geometric changes, and design and evaluate new control strategies
to efficiently manage the road network in Seoul.
Title: Coordination of Ramp Metering Sites
Sponsor: UK Highway Agency
Project Dates: Sept. 1, 2001 - Feb. 28, 2003
Research: MITSIMLab is used to test and evaluate isolated and coordinated ramp metering algorithms
for the M3/M27 motorway test site in the UK. The study is part of a pilot scheme designed to test
the justification for introduction of ramp metering to English highways. MITSIMLab has been enhanced
to represent ramp-metering algorithms, namely the linked ramp metering algorithm and the ALINEA
algorithm. These capabilities will allow the different algorithms to be evaluated under varying
traffic conditions. This research is done in collaboration with Lancaster University, UK.
Title: Support of MITSIMLab in Application in Malaysia
Sponsor: Malaysian University of Science and Technology (MUST)
Project Dates: Sept. 1, 2002 - August 31, 2003
Research: Application of the microscopic traffic simulator MITSIMLab to design and evaluate
new intelligent transportation systems (ITS) in order to efficiently manage road networks in
Malaysia. The study includes evaluation of the Kuala Lumpur ITS master plan and toll collection
systems in a "smart corridor" in Kuala Lumpur. This project is part of the collaboration
between MIT and the Malaysia University of Science and Technology (MUST). Funding for
the collaboration originally supplied by Motorola.
Title: MITSIMLab Applications for Stockholm
Sponsor: City of Stockholm, Sweden
Project Dates: Sept. 1, 1999 - Aug. 31, 2002
Research: MITSIMLab was used to analyze and improve traffic conditions in Stockholm.
Areas studied include evaluating existing traffic patterns, determining the impacts of
lane reconfigurations and other geometric changes, evaluating public transportation
strategies and behavior, and designing and evaluating new control strategies (
particularly bus priority systems) to efficiently utilize the available road network in Stockholm.
Title: The Sentient Vehicle: Mobility and the Environment
Sponsor: Cambridge University (CMI Initiative)
Project Dates: Aug. 1, 2001 - Jul. 31, 2002
Research: To develop the technical capability for real-time intelligent management of roadway
transportation systems for significant reductions in travel times, energy consumption, and
environmental emissions, through integration of traffic flow and vehicle emissions modeling,
real time onboard vehicle performance and ambient air quality measurements, and state-of-the-art
communications and information processing. This project will demonstrate how we can comprehensively
and continuously, in both a Lagrangian and an Eulerian sense, characterize the real usage of
vehicles-as-transport, characterize the real impact of vehicles-as-polluters, and establish
the concept of vehicles-as-sensors. |
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