A microsimulation-based analysis for driving behaviour modelling on a congested expressway

Recently, simulation models have been widely used around the world to evaluate the performance of different traffic facilities and management strategies for efficient and sustainable transportation systems. One of the keys factors for ensuring the reliability of the models in reflecting local conditions is the calibration and validation of microsimulation models. The majority of the existing calibration efforts focus is on the experimental designs of driver behaviour and lane-changing parameters. Towards this end, this paper describes the necessary procedure for the calibration and validation of a microscopic model using the VISSIM software, during peak hours. The procedure is applied on Muscat Expressway in the Sultanate of Oman. The calibration parameters and the measure-of-effectiveness are identified by using multi-parameter sensitivity analysis. The optimum values for these parameters are obtained by minimising errors between simulated data and field data. In our proposed model, we used traffic volume and travel speed for model calibration, as well as average travel time for validation of the calibrated model. The achieved results showed that driving characteristics significantly impacted the merging/diverging traffic flow ratio in the merging area, the link length and the distance between on-ramps and off-ramps, as well as the percentage of heavy vehicles. The results also showed that having both the advanced merging and cooperative lane-change settings active, along with safety distance reduction factor, necessary lane change, minimum headway (front/rear), and emergency stop, had a significant influence on simulation precision, especially at on-ramps and off-ramps. Finally, our proposed model can be utilized as a base for future traffic strategy analysis and intelligent transportation systems evaluation to help decision makers with long-term and sustainable development decisions.