NUMERICAL EXPERIMENTS WITH A DECISION SUPPORT METHODOLOGY FOR STRATEGIC TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT. IN: URBAN AND REGIONAL TRANSPORTATION MODELING. ESSAYS IN HONOR OF DAVID BOYCE

One of the essential aspects of strategic traffic management is to determine the modifications which need to be made in the traffic system in order to improve its long-term functionality. The functionality of a traffic network is typically expressed in terms of traffic flows and functions thereof. The traffic management process is often based on repeated scenario analyses. Using numerical examples, the authors of this chapter show how a proposed traffic management procedure can be applied to small- and medium-scale network scenarios. The authors highlight the order of the computations and illustrate the flexibility and shortcomings of the methodology. Examples show that the procedure can be guided such that approximate solutions to the management problem can be found in a reasonable computational time. The authors use management scenarios in the networks of Sioux Falls, South Dakota (United States), and Linkoping, Sweden. In a comparison between the two-stage procedure and the direct search procedure, the authors conclude that the direct search procedure has an advantage in finding feasible solutions for cases where the two-stage procedure, without guidance, does not find a solution. However, the two-stage procedure has the advantage that is can provide a rough solution to the traffic management problem much more quickly. This chapter is from a book of essays published in honor of David Boyce for his contributions to the fields of transportation modeling and regional science.