Simulation of Traffic Flow on Rural Roads According to the German Highway Capacity Manual

Problem Statement

In Germany, the traffic engineering design of road traffic facilities is based on the German Highway Capacity Manual. Different conditions must be kept in order to use the analytical calculation method for the dimensioning of rural roads. In cases where these conditions are not met, the German Highway Capacity Manual refers to the evaluation of traffic flow using microscopic traffic flow simulations.

Results

In this project we investigated how the results of microscopic traffic simulations of rural roads can be used to evaluate the level of service according to the German Highway Capacity Manual. The results of this project are parameter combinations and modelling instructions for the simulation of rural roads using the microscopic simulation tools Aimsun, PTV Vissim and BABSIM.

Methods

The project is divided into empiricism and simulation. On the one hand, we modeled and calibrated fictitious laboratory examples of rural roads and analyzed the consistency between simulation and analytical calculation method. On the other hand, we collected data on real rural roads and modeled rural roads using microscopic traffic flow simulation.

The KIT is in charge of the simulations in Aimsun and PTV Vissim.