Reducing Excess Traffic in Urban Areas with Microscopic Traffic Modeling in SUMO

Abstract

Increased vehicular traffic in dense urban areas is an issue of major concern. With more cars hitting the road, the inherent results are higher pollution levels and car accidents, shrinking of parking areas and severe traffic congestion. Attempts must be made to encourage the use of fewer cars. Switching to public transport and walking suggests an improvement. In this paper, we present a method to estimate the rate of daily vehicle usage in the city of Tirana. With the use of SUMO (Simulator of Urban Mobility) micro-traffic simulator we simulate the city traffic and evaluate the average traveling distances. Given a distance/time threshold, destinations within less-than-threshold range are considered of ease of reach. The existence of a direct bus line and by-foot traveling time are considered when setting the threshold value. Tracking data are used to provide average daily driving information. Statistic results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.