×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

Simulator recommendation

Simulator recommendation

Simulator recommendation

(OP)
My town is considering a signficant commerical expansion, and I'd like to understand the implications on the performance of a particular intersection. I have recent measurements of all movements through this intersection from the state highway authority, and projected traffic increases from the project's advocates. I'm aware of TransCAD Modeler and Synchro, but they're pricey for one-time use. I'd appreciate any recommendations for a lower-cost simulator still capable of producing accurate results for a single intersection with shared left/through lanes and detectors for actuation.

    Dave

RE: Simulator recommendation

I guess the cheapest thing would be to borrow a copy of the highway capacity manual and crank it out by hand.

HCS is $1000. Still pricy for a 1-time use.

Does your or county highway department have a traffic engineer? In NY State, we are required to provide technical assistance to towns. We can, however, charge for it.

     "...students of traffic are beginning to realize the false economy of mechanically controlled traffic, and hand work by trained officers will again prevail." - Wm. Phelps Eno, ca. 1928

"I'm searching for the questions, so my answers will make sense." - Stephen Brust

RE: Simulator recommendation

I agree with the previous post. For a single intersection simulation packages are overkill,unless you need the simulation display for presentation purposes.  

Doing the analysis by hand, is tedious and may require an entire morning, or longer to complete. However, it will give you a good understanding of what the critical issues are at the intersection.

The advantage of computerized analysis is suppossed to be the ability to evaluate a multiple options in a relatively short period of time. The problem with computerized analysis is the GarbageInGarbageOut factor. Many users simply aren't familiar enough with the methodology to determine if the results of their analyses are an accurate representation of intersection operation or just junk.

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources