Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!UOTTAWA.BITNET!451061
From: 451061@UOTTAWA.BITNET (Valentin Pepelea)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Freeway design?
Message-ID: <8908111828.AA22295@jade.berkeley.edu>
Date: 11 Aug 89 18:15:03 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Lines: 35

Chuck McManis  writes in <120811@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>

> I have an interesting problem. At one point someone wondered if there
> were any traffic simulators around. It sounded like an interesting
  ...
> that make them all look about the same. Things like maximum degree
> of arc, width, accelleration/decelleration lane lengths (although that
> is one of the things I'll be varying in my simulation). The goal being
> that I should be able to set up an "intersection" of some type and
> put car "feeders" and "meters" on it at the entrances to and exits
> from the screen respectively.
  ...
> Then by varying things like meter lights, traffic
> signals, ramp design I'd like to see how that effects my throughput.
> Of course I'd also like to simulate some nearby intersection to see
> how closely my model matches reality etc.

Gee, this sounds awfully like queue length simulation. Basically all you have
a bunch of nodes across the highway, with entry and exit ramps as vectors that
have different arrival (exit) rates and different probabilities. You may
change the arrival rate of new cars as you like. Usually using a formula
involving exponential probabilities.

There already is a simulation package around, called QNAPLS. Just last term
(Winter) I had to use it to simulate average queue lengths of tasks waiting
for a processor in a multiprocessor system. I didn't though, this was one of
those things engineering students team around for, to get rid of quickly.  :-)

Valentin
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