USING ANALYTICAL MODELS TO CALIBRATE A DUAL-ROUNDABOUT INTERSECTION IN MICROSIMULATION

Abstract

Calibration of roundabout microsimulation models is a challenging task that often relies on various field-related data that might not be always available. The calibration process of dual roundabouts might be even more demanding due to their rare presence in the field and literature. This paper proposes a straightforward but novel approach toward the calibration of dual roundabouts. The proposed method heavily relies on suggestions provided in the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) report 572 and easily-available information from the field (such as geometry and volume data). NCHRP is utilized to assess the key calibration parameters and corresponding capacity of a dual-roundabout model. The model validation is based on matching the capacity produced by the simulation model with the estimated capacity as it is proposed in NCHRP report. The numerical results of a single lane dual roundabout case study reveal the close match between capacities obtained from microsimulation tool (VISSIM) and NCHPR report. Moreover, the proposed approach can benefit traffic practitioners and planners dealing with the microsimulation models of roundabouts and limited data sets.