Table of Contents s370

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. PROTOTYPE 1

A. OBJECTIVES 1 B. DESCRIPTION 1 C. MODEL DEVELOPMENT 1 1. INPUT VARIABLES 1 2. OUTPUT DATA 1 3. FLOW OF DATA WITHIN THE MODEL 2 4. SELECT USER INTERFACE AND PRESENTATION FORMAT OF THE RESULT: 2

II. PROTOTYPE ACHIEVEMENT 2

i I. Prototype

A. Objectives The prototype demonstrates the feasibility of modeling traffic flow on the west bound of the High Occupancy Vehicles (HOV) lanes. 1) Produce an accurate representation of the current traffic flow. 2) Show the effect of short-term lane closure. 3) Show the effect of Weather, Rubber Necking or Speed Trap.

B. Description The model represents the HOV Lanes of I-64 with the westward direction. There are 3 entrants: Indian River Rd, Route 44, and near North Hampton Blvd. There are 2 exits: I-564 and I-64 west. The length of the studied system is 8 miles. It is divided into 8 one-mile segments. The 4 different colors are used to represent the percentage of the segment capacity.

C. Model Development Using Arena simulation programming language to utilize this macroscopic simulation model. The graphical statistic is generated by the built-in Visual Basic for application of Arena.

1. Input Variables a) Speed b) The frequency of vehicles entering at each entrance. c) The time traveling through each segment based on speed.

2. Output Data a) The average-travel time through the system (Speed / Delay). b) Number of vehicles that have traveled through the system (Volume). c) The statistic on each segment (Percent Capacity). d) The visual color-coded segment.

1 3. Flow of data within the model a) Input of the first segment by appropriate distribution for each entrance ramp. b) Each succeeding segment after the first segment would get its input from the previous segment’s output. c) Last segment output to exit ramp by appropriate distribution.

4. Select user interface and Presentation format of the result: a) Color code segment of highway according to the percentage capacity. GRAY: Zero percent of capacity (empty). GREEN: Less than 50 percent of capacity. YELLOW: From 50 percent to 75 percent of capacity. RED: Greater than 75 percent of capacity. b) Use Excel graphs to show the output data of the travel time, volume, and percentage capacity over a specific period of time.

II. Prototype Achievement Although we are not provided the actual data of the HOV lanes, this prototype model has been successfully passed the laboratory testing. The test data has been set up to show the slowing of the traffic due to rubber necking or speed trap.