Overview
Both the Dynamic Mobility Applications (DMA) and Active Transportation and Demand Management (ATDM) Programs have similar overarching goals to improve surface transportation system efficiency and individual traveler mobility. However, each program has a unique research approach seeking to meet these goals. The DMA Program focuses on exploiting new forms of data from wirelessly connected vehicles, travelers, and the infrastructure to enable transformative mobility applications. The ATDM Program focuses its research efforts on accelerating the pace of dynamic control within transportation systems management through operational practices that incorporate predictive and active responses to changing operational conditions. In order to explore potential transformations in transportation systems performance, both programs require an Analysis Modeling and Simulation (AMS) capability. AMS tools and methodologies offer a cost-effective approach to addressing complex questions on optimization of longer-range investments, shorter-term operational practices, and overall system performance. Both programs have invested significant resources in the development of advanced concepts and foundational research, but the potential impacts from deployment are uncertain and poorly quantified. The two programs must identify the technologies, applications, and operational approaches that work cost-effectively in concert with each other in order to justify large-scale demonstrations and pilot deployments.
A capable, reliable AMS Testbed provides a valuable mechanism to address this shared need by providing a laboratory for the refinement and integration of research concepts in a virtual computer-based AMS environment prior to field deployment. An AMS Testbed as envisioned here refers to a set of computer models that can replicate the effects of public agencies and private sector in a region implementing concepts, bundles, and strategies associated with the DMA and ATDM Programs. The purpose of this document is to provide a high-level framework for AMS Testbeds that recognizes both technical risk and the primary evaluation needs of the DMA and ATDM Programs. Four technical approaches that are consistent with the AMS framework are also presented.