Calibration of a micro simulation program for a Chinese city

Micro simulation programs are often used to assess the quality of traffic conditions. They are especially suited to evaluate possible control scenarios in advance, so that the scenarios can be selected and optimized before implementation. Of course, the simulation programs should be valid for the traffic situation that has to be modeled with respect to the relevant traffic characteristics. Calibration is needed if there are traffic conditions or traffic behaviors that are different from the situation for which the programs have been calibrated before. In China the driver behavior is significantly different from Europe or USA. Calibration of microscopic simulation models that have been developed in Western countries is essential for a valid modeling study. This paper describes which traffic characteristics should be used for the calibration of parameters for VISSIM, e.g. saturation flow rates distributions, dependence of saturation flow rates on intersection characteristics, link speed distributions, and speed – acceleration patterns. Not all relevant output from simulations can be used for calibration, because simulation programs have limitations in the traffic characteristics they can reproduce.