Overview
This document provides an overview of the methodology and tools that can be applied to existing microsimulation and mesoscopic modeling software to assess travel time reliability. The methodology is primarily based on research, and the tools have been developed only at the prototype stage. However, through rigorous testing at different levels of simulation resolution, the framework, the processes, and the tools have been shown to have practical applicability for use by transportation agencies and consultants for policy and project evaluation.
Moving beyond the potential applications, one measure of this project’s success would be the adoption of the framework by one or more simulation modeling vendors. Incorporating the principles of the framework and processes into future versions of their proprietary software would lead to wider use of travel time reliability; transportation professionals could easily apply these new metrics in their project and policy evaluation processes that employ particle-based traffic simulation models.