Selecting the Best Traffic Scheme for the Bicutan Roundabout: A Microsimulation Approach with Multiple Driver-Agents

TL;DR

This study uses a hybrid multi-agent microsimulation to evaluate and identify the most effective traffic scheme at Bicutan Roundabout, demonstrating that a specific scheme with controlled stops optimizes traffic flow under various conditions.

Contribution

The paper introduces a hybridized multi-agent system with car-following and lane-changing models to accurately simulate traffic scenarios and compare multiple traffic schemes at a roundabout.

Findings

Scheme t_3 with a 15-second stop performs best.

Simulation results align with observed traffic data.

t_3 remains effective under increased traffic volumes.

Abstract

We present the result of our microsimulation study on the effects of six traffic schemes $T=\{t_0, t_1, \dots, t_5\}$ on the mean total delay time ($\Delta$) and mean speed ($\Sigma$) of vehicles at the non-signalized Bicutan Roundabout (BR) in Upper Bicutan, Taguig City, Metro Manila, with $t_0$ as the current traffic scheme being enforced and $t_{i>0}$ as the proposed ones. We present first that our simulation approach, a hybridized multi-agent system (MAS) with the car-following and lane-changing models (CLM), can mimic the current observed traffic scenario $C$ at a statistical significance of $\alpha=0.05$. That is, the respective absolute differences of the $\Delta$ and $\Sigma$ between $C$ and $t_0$ are not statistically different from zero. Next, using our MAS-CLM, we simulated all proposed $t_{i>0}$ and compared their respective $\Delta$ and $\Sigma$. We found out using DMRT that the best traffic scheme is $t_3$ (i.e., when we converted the bi-directional 4-lane PNR-PNCC road into a bi-directional 1-lane PNR-to-PNCC and 3-lane PNCC-to-PNR routes during rush hours). Then, we experimented on converting BR into a signalized junction and re-implemented all $t_3$ with controlled stops of $S=\{15s, 45s\}$. We found out that $t_3$ with a 15-s stop has the best performance. Finally, we simulated the effect of increased in vehicular volume $V$ due to traffic improvement and we found out that $t_3$ with 15-s stop still outperforms the others for all increased in $V=\{10\%, 50\%, 100\%\}$.