A Dynamic Multi-modal Transport Simulation Model

This paper discusses the development of a dynamic multi-modal transport simulation model. Conventionally, multi-modal transportation system analysis is only carried out in a static framework and dynamic framework is limited to the single mode i.e. road traffic. The decision making process of an individual regarding use of transport system involves mainly three types of decisions namely, departure time choice, mode choice and route choice. This research models these three choice processes in a dynamic framework. Departure time choice along with mode choice provides the time dependent demand for each of the mode. This fact should also be appreciated that the transport supply also changes with time for example the supply of the public transport changes with change in frequency during different times of day and the road traffic which is a non-stationary phenomenon especially during the congested time periods due to evolution and dissipation of queue is also a dynamic process which changes over time. Static analysis ignores these time-dependent variations which prohibits the application of such models to analyze the policies which are time-dependent such as time-varying road pricing. This research extends the dynamic modeling from a uni-modal (i.e. road traffic) case to a multimodal case in addition to the departure time choice modeling. The paper is organized as following: Section 2 provides the background and literature review of the existing research in this area. Section 3 provides the framework of the overall proposed model and a brief introduction to different components of the model. Section 4 provides details about the case study using the proposed methodology in addition to the data requirements and data sources. Section 5 provides the conclusion and future research direction.