Microscopic Modeling of Pedestrian Movement in a Shida Night Market Street Segment: Using Vision and Destination Attractiveness

Research has shown that night markets play a positive role in improving urban sustainability. In Taiwan, many people go to night markets for leisurely strolling and to eat out with family and friends. The variety of food choices is a major reason for visiting. This preference and the shops’ locations affect not only how pedestrians move around but also the business of the night market. Pedestrian vision has been considered in only a minority of studies regarding pedestrian movement in shopping environments. Although some studies have focused on the impulse stops of pedestrians, few have considered “destination attractiveness” and its influence on surrounding shops. This paper aims to improve the pedestrian movement model in night markets with the incorporation of the “destination attractiveness” factor. The proposed microscopy agent-based model, implemented in NetLogo, uses “field of vision” as the possible destinations of the pedestrian’s next movement. Inside the “field of vision”, each shop competes for the pedestrian’s attention based on its “destination attractiveness”. The model’s parameter values were calibrated and the simulation results were verified with real-world observed data with good agreement. The proposed pedestrian movement model can benefit the retail sector by improving customer satisfaction and profitability by enhancing the layout of the facilities.

Multilane Microscopic Modeling to Measure Mobility and Safety Consequences of Mixed Traffic in Freeway Weaving Sections

Weaving sections are components of highway networks that introduce a heightened likelihood for bottlenecks and collisions. Automated vehicle technology could address this as it holds considerable promise for transportation mobility and safety improvements. However, the implications of combining automated vehicles (AuVs) with traditional human-driven vehicles (HuVs) in weaving freeway sections have not been quantitatively measured. To address this gap, this paper objectively experimented with bidirectional (i.e., longitudinal and lateral) motion dynamics in a microscopic modeling framework to measure the mobility and safety implications for mixed traffic movement in a freeway weaving section. Our research begins by establishing a multilane microscopic model for studied vehicle types (i.e., AuV and HuV) from model predictive control with the provision to form a CACC platoon of AuV vehicles. The proposed modeling framework was tested first with HuV only on a two-lane weaving section and validated using standardized macroscopic parameters from the Highway Capacity Manual. This model was then applied to incrementally expand the AuV share for varying inflow rates of traffic. Simulation results showed that the maximum flow rate through the weaving section was attained at a 65% AuV share. At the same time, steadiness in the average speed of traffic was experienced with increasing AuV share. The results also revealed that a 95% AuV share could reduce potential conflicts by 94.28%. Finally, the results of simulated scenarios were consolidated and scaled to report expected mobility and safety outcomes from the prevailing traffic state and the optimal AuV share for the current inflow rate in weaving sections.

Impact of route vehicles` lane parameters on the delay time of individual and public transport

The article deals with the influence of the public transport infrastructure during the delay periods of private and public transport in the city conditions. The following methods were used in the study: simulation, mathematical modeling, on-site research. As a result of imitation microscopic modeling, there have been determined the parameters of mathematical models of the delay time of private and public transport for various parameters of the route vehicles` lane. Calculations determined the total delay time, taking into account the number of passengers in public and private transport on the section of the main street with regulated traffic. In determining the optimum parameters of the public transport infrastructure, it is necessary to take into account not only public transport passengers, but also drivers and passengers of private vehicles.