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GIS and ITS Traffic Assignment: Issues in Dynamic User-Optimal Assignments

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Abstract

Dynamic traffic assignment (DTA) is at the heart of much ITS research. Assigning traffic, whether for planning purposes or for real time route guidance, is a difficult problem. Recent advances in user-optimal dynamic traffic assignment have built on the methods developed for static user-optimal assignments. Since assignment models are complex, they will not use many of the network analysis functions found in commercial GIS packages. Custom software will have to be developed. In this paper we explore the problems faced in solving static and dynamic assignments and relate those problems to information that is likely to be based in a traffic control center’s GIS database. Because of the size of the problem and the need for faster-than-real-time analysis, how and when data is transferred between a GIS to analysis modules is important. Further, many approaches for GIS software design and spatial data handling, such as OOP and dynamic segmentation, may impose too much overhead to be of much use in time-sensitive ITS applications.

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  1. Bruce A. Ralston, Department of Geography, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, 37996-1420

    Bruce A. Ralston

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  1. Bruce A. Ralston
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Ralston, B.A. GIS and ITS Traffic Assignment: Issues in Dynamic User-Optimal Assignments. GeoInformatica 4, 231–243 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1009884408801

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