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VISSIM calibration and validation of urban traffic: a case study Al-Madinah City

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Abstract

Simulation models have been widely used worldwide to evaluate the performance of different traffic facilities and new traffic modeling methods for efficient and sustainable transportation systems. Calibration and validation of microsimulation models are the keys to ensuring the models’ reliability to reflect the local condition. Most of the existing calibration efforts focus on experimental designs of driver behavior and lane changing parameters. This paper describes the detailed procedure for calibrating and validating a microscopic model during peak hours et al.-Madinah City, Saudi Arabia. This study includes the calibration and validation of parameters of the car-following models, Wiedemann74 and 99, and lane changing model used in PTV VISSIM. In our model, we used traffic volume and travel speed for model calibration and average travel time to validate the calibrated model. GEH statistics is used to develop the relationship between observed and simulated traffic flow. GEH statistics show a strong correlation between the experimental and simulated flow based on the calibration and validation results. The results indicated that safety reduction factor, standstill distance, headway time, and the emergency stop significantly influenced simulation precision. Finally, this model can be used to exploit other new traffic modeling methods that may help decision-makers in the long term and for sustainable management system development.

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Notes

  1. All roads of high importance, but not officially assigned as motorways.

  2. All roads used to travel between different neighboring regions of a country.

  3. All roads used to travel between different parts of the same region.

  4. All roads making all settlements accessible or making parts of a settlement accessible.

  5. All local roads that are the main connections in a settlement. These are the roads where important through traffic is possible.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Saudi Arabia, for their fruitful collabboration.. Furthermore, the authors acknowledge the research support provided by IMOB Hasselt University Belgium, Middle East Colleger, which made valiable contributions to this research.

Funding

This research is funded by the Islamic Uniersity of Madinah, Saudi Arabia, under theTamayoz-2 program, project number 580.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Islamic University of Madinah, Madinah, Saudi Arabia

    Mohammad A. R. Abdeen & Mohamed Benaida

  2. Middle-East College, Muscat, Oman

    Siham Farrag

  3. Kig Fahad University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia

    Tarek Sheltami

  4. Transportation Research Institute (IMOB), Hasselt University, Diepenbeek, Belgium

    Youssef El-Hansali

Authors
  1. Mohammad A. R. Abdeen
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  2. Siham Farrag
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  3. Mohamed Benaida
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  4. Tarek Sheltami
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  5. Youssef El-Hansali
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Correspondence to Mohammad A. R. Abdeen.

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Abdeen, M.A.R., Farrag, S., Benaida, M. et al. VISSIM calibration and validation of urban traffic: a case study Al-Madinah City. Pers Ubiquit Comput 27, 1747–1756 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-023-01738-9

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