Freeway Analysis & Software in the HCM 6th Edition: The Role of Active Traffic Management Strategies

THIS IS THE FREE 6-HOUR FREEVAL SESSION

Overview

ITRE at NC State University in collaboration with Kittelson and Associates Inc. will offer a FREE 6-hour workshop in Oakland, CA on Feb 28, 2017. The workshop will cover freeway analysis methods and software in the new edition of the Highway Capacity Manual (HCM) 6th edition, released in fall 2016.

This workshop will provide an overview of the new material in the HCM6 as well as highlighting the changes compared to HCM 2010. In addition, the workshop will include a hands-on session on the use of FREEVAL, the official computational engine of the freeway analysis methodologies in the latest HCM. The main focus of the hands-on workshop will be on the use of a new dynamic version of the FREEVAL tool (FREEVAL-DSS for Dynamic Strategy selection), which is designed to evaluate the impacts of Active Traffic Management (ATM) strategies on the operations of a freeway facility. This tool was developed jointly by NC State and Florida International University with funding from the Southeast Regional Transportation Center at the University of Florida.

Participants in the workshop (optimally 10-15 persons) will be given free access to the software, and to the FREEVAL user manual material. They are also encouraged to provide feedback to the tool developers. Participants are also expected to bring their own laptops, and be generally familiar with the HCM freeway procedures. The software tool is coded in Java, and thus can run on any PC or Mac device.

Schedule

9:30 am – 9:45 am: Registration & Introductions
9:45 am – 10:30 am: Overview of the new changes in the HCM 6th edition
10:30 am to 10:45 am: Break
10:45 am – 12:00 pm: Uninterrupted Flow Concepts, New material in Freeway Chapters (e.g. Managed Lanes, Reliability, ATDM, WZ)
12:00 pm to 1:00 pm: Lunch Break & Software Installation
1:00 pm – 2:00 pm: FREEVAL Demo with Hands-on Example, Segmentation, Calibration & Reliability Analysis
2:00 pm -2:30 pm: FREEVAL-DSS Concepts and Demo
2:30 pm -2:45 pm: Break
2:45 pm to 3:45 pm: DSS Hands on
3:45 pm – 4:00pm: Questions, Feedback, Evaluation

Logistics

This will be held at the Oakland office of Kittelson & Associates. There is no cost to attend this workshop. Seats are limited for this hands on event. Please bring your laptop with you so you are able to work with the software.

If you have any questions regarding the workshop, please contact Dave Mills at (510) 433-8087 or by email at dmills@kittelson.com

We look forward to seeing you there!

ABOUT THE PRESENTERS:

Dr. Nagui Rouphail is a Professor in the Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering (CCEE) at NC State University. Dr. Rouphail is a recognized researcher in the area of highway capacity and operations, traffic simulation and intelligent transport systems, and the interface of traffic flow and air quality. He has published over one-hundred and sixty refereed journal articles, including winning ten best paper awards. Rouphail served as a member of the TRB Highway Capacity and Quality of Service (HCQS) and had leadership roles in both ITE and ASCE technical committees. He was a major research contributor to several chapters in the 2000, 2010 and the HCM major update of the US Highway Capacity Manuals. He also was the original developer of the FREEVAL model which deals with the freeway facilities analysis in the HCM.

Dr. Bastian Schroeder is a Principal Engineer with Kittelson & Associates, Inc. and manages the company’s Wilmington, NC office. He served as Principal Investigator (PI) or co-PI on over 25 funded projects, for sponsors including FHWA, NCHRP, SHRP2, ITE, NCDOT and others. Recently, he oversaw the development of all freeway chapters in the 6th Edition of Highway Capacity Manual (HCM) expected in 2016. Dr. Schroeder has authored or co-authored over 70 peer-reviewed journal articles and conference proceedings. He is a member of the TRB Committee on Highway Capacity and Quality of Service (current chair of the uninterrupted flow group), the TRB committee on roundabouts, the TRB Simulation Systems Manual Task Force, and he chairs the Simulation and Capacity Model users Group (SimCap) for NCSITE.

Dr. Behzad Aghdashi is a Research Associate at ITRE at N. C. State University with a background in Operations Research. Dr. Aghdashi’s areas of expertise include traffic operations on freeways and surface streets, simulation analysis, software development and mathematical optimization. Dr. Aghdashi has over six years of professional experience focusing on research in transportation engineering. Dr. Aghdashi has involved on several funded NCHRP, SHRP2, FHWA, NCDOT, STRIDE, UMD projects. Dr. Aghdashi serves as Chair for Active Traffic and Demand Management (ATDM) task force for “Highway Capacity and Quality of Service Committee”(AHB40) of TRB. Dr. Aghdashi has extensive experience in mathematical modeling and as a result he has centrally involved in many research projects to develop new mathematical models for different traffic and transportation analysis such as scenario generation for modeling the effects of non-recurring sources of congestion on travel time reliability. Dr. Aghdashi’s background in Industrial and Systems Engineering has led to his involvement in several computational engine development projects for Highway Capacity Manual such FREEVAL and STREETVAL. Dr. Aghdashi has authored or co-authored several peer-reviewed journal articles, conference proceedings, and has given numerous presentations at state, and national conferences.