UNSW Faculty of Science

Industry Research Forum – RTA presentation Presented 6 October 2010 By Christian Chong-White Traffic Algorithm Development Manager Traffic Management Roads and Traffic Authority of NSW Contributed content sourced from Fraser Johnson, RTA and David Shteinman, MASCOS.

Roads and Traffic Authority of New South Wales

The Roads and Traffic Authority of New South Wales (RTA) is here to present: • background on its traffic systems capability • an industry research project • some personal thoughts about collaborative research.

Traffic Systems

The RTA (and its former constituent organisations) has a long history of

traffic systems development

.

The

S

ydney

C

oordinated

A

daptive

T

raffic

S

ystem (

SCATS

) is an adaptive traffic control system that was first developed in the 1970’s.

The RTA’s Traffic Management Branch continues to develop

SCATS

.

Additional traffic systems products are available that complement

SCATS

.

SCATS worldwide

SCATS has been distributed to controlling almost

32,000 141

cities in

24

countries, intersections worldwide.

SCATS installations can be found in: •Australia •New Zealand •China •Singapore •Iran •Ireland •Poland •Columbia •Brazil •Mexico •USA •…

SCATS on the web

The SCATS web site can be found on the internet at:

www.scats.com.au

Network Performance Development Section Network Performance Development Traffic Management Branch

(NPD) is a section of

Fraser Johnson

Manager, Network Performance Development

Christian Chong-White

Traffic Algorithm Development Manager

Network Performance Development Section Network Performance Development

(NPD) specialises in: •

Traffic control policy

– rules for traffic control systems •

Traffic performance

– travel time/delay, capacity and queuing •

Traffic control system design

–traffic signal control, ramp metering, lane control, motorway management systems, bus priority •

Traffic behaviour

related to traffic control systems •

Traffic measurement

from and for traffic control systems •

Traffic analysis

of traffic control system results •

Traffic modelling

RTA project. Business need.

Traffic modelling

plays an important part in advising decision makers on the impacts of traffic performance.

As a result, a research topic in traffic modelling was identified…

RTA project.

Project title: “Development of a statistical framework to guide traffic micro simulation studies.” Project partners:

RTA

(funder/mgr) – business problem and domain expertise.

MASCOS

– statistics and cross-industry expertise.

Azalient

– modelling technique and practice expertise.

(MASCOS: Centre of Excellence for Mathematics and Statistics of Complex Systems)

RTA project. People.

Project People:

David Shteinman* Sandy Clarke Gary Millar

MASCOS / UNSW MASCOS / UMelb Azalient

Fraser Johnson Christian Chong-White**

RTA RTA (* key contact | ** project initiator / manager)

RTA project. High-level objective.

Project objective: The project aims to provide enhanced

statistical rigour

in the design, planning and evaluation of

traffic simulation

studies to provide

measured confidence

in results.

RTA project. Outcome.

Science-based guidelines for:

1. Statistically rigorous

& effective analysis of model results.

2. Quantify

confidence

in simulation outputs.

3. Quantify & correct

bias

due to model scope (boundary conditions).

4. Diagnose model

problems

before finalising results.

5. Predict

cost

precision.

of simulation as function of network features, This advice is not readily available to traffic modellers and stakeholders.

RTA project. Guidelines.

Part 1.

Design Stage

– Quantify precision required – Predict simulation costs as a function of precision and network complexity Part 2.

Output analysis

A statistical framework to – Automate/simplify analysis stage – Pair-wise comparison of model runs (Scenario A vs. B) – Diagnostic tests for simulation outliers – Method to identify critical interactions between variables (Source: David Shteinman 2010)

RTA project. Expected contributions.

• Quality example of productive investment in “

business intellectual infrastructure

”.

• Outcomes can make a valuable contribution to RTA

modelling practice

in line with project objectives.

•

National

advice through Austroads guidelines and standards.

• Expected to result in

design changes

applications.

to traffic simulation •

International

advice – academic paper and special session at Intelligent Transport Systems World Congress in Busan, Korea.

• Potentially more publications and specifications in the future.

RTA project. Debrief.

• Project has proved a particularly successful example of a

complex systems development

project.

• Initial

project management design

a key contribution: – crystallised vision of desired target deliverables.

– tight scope, defined objectives and focussed methodology.

•

Collaboration

between parties has worked very well: – parties formed

clear roles

and

contributions

.

• Potential to

re-apply

the successful strategy both within the transport modelling problem and beyond.

RTA project. Take away.

The project demonstrates the opportunity to

deploy

specialised knowledge (University) to specific industry problems (industry).

Industry often does

not

have the critical expertise.

This is particularly true where industry is

managing

and

outsourcing

.

This is particularly needed for the development of

new enhanced

: policies, products and services.

and

Concluding comments.

Industry has many, many problems that need to be solved.

The key challenges are: • identifying the

problems value

.

that have the potential to

maximise

• identifying

appropriate

collaborating

teams productive solutions

.

to develop • creating the

initiative

exercise.

and the ‘

matching

’ to facilitate the

The end.

Thankyou.