Application 3

Building on Application 1, Application 3 extends the real time travel-time prediction framework at the sub-network level, accounting for multiple origins and destinations. This aims to identify route choice strategies when several paths between an origin and a destination are possible. This project explores existing route choice models to identify which approach is appropriate for the prediction of travel times over a sub-network. A tailored route choice model has been developed based on empirical observations and integrated within a network-level travel time prediction framework. The proposed methodology is expected to be able to produce information that can evaluate planning scenarios, aid travellers through information provision and assist in real-time management of traffic conditions (including incident management).

Travellers using the transport network will be the natural users of this research since the real-time travel time prediction software can be used to provide effective and robust estimations of travel time during trip planning and forecasting. The incorporation of road capacity reductions within the travel time forecasting process will further emphasize the importance of the research by providing travellers with adaptive real-time travel time information which is currently seldom available. In addition, this offers the possibility to anticipate congestion episodes caused by road occupancy projects and special events, which are very frequent in large metropolitan areas. Finally, the possibility to run what-if scenarios corresponding to multiple road capacity reductions will allow traffic management centres to better absorb network disruption and the forecasted increase in travel demand.