Open source offers the transportation research community a window to examine those rules to avoid misuse of the software in their research projects. Most significantly, the transportation research community can share the software enhancements with other researchers, and commercial model developers can more readily adapt the algorithms. Researchers not only need to modify and add new rules to make the software work better but also to accommodate new technologies and new traffic operations, such as Global Positioning System (GPS)-based vehicles and high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes. Practicing traffic engineers will wish to avoid many of the new technologies that do not fit into their practice and thus are not the target audience for this research.

Goals:

The key project objective is to create a traffic modeling tool that is optimized for transportation research rather than transportation operations. This model will be programmed from scratch using the algorithms developed during the CORridor SIMulation (CORSIM), Traffic EXperimental Analytical Simulation (TEXAS), and Next Generation Simulation (NGSim) research. The model will be known as etFOMM (enhanced traffic Flow Open-source Microscopic Model).

• Small Business Innovation Research

• FY 2002-2022 / Operations / Transportation Systems Management and Operations

Phase I demonstrated that it is possible to create a traffic modeling tool optimized for research in Fortran 2000 that can be interfaced with object-oriented programming tools. In Phase I, the feasibility of creating an open-source flow microscopic model was explored. The model and its corresponding software are based on the same code base as the corridor simulation (CORSIM) base: (1) A vehicle component server is programmed. An open-source flow microscopic model probe vehicle on the surface street accepts the keyboard control of its location from the client side through the component-based application programmer interface. In the second case, the lanes on which vehicles are traveling on the freeway are controlled by a client through the keyboard input via the component-based application programmer interface as well. (2) Critical gaps with regard to running an open-source flow microscopic model with intelligent transportation systems hardware and communications and with the Traffic EXperimental Analytical Simulation (TEXAS) intersection collision model were explored. (3) Detailed discussions of laboratory tests were presented to Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) staff.