Abstract
This chapter introduces a novel approach to model Virtual Urban Environments (VUE) by taking into account: (1) the multiscale issue, (2) activities’ locations, multi-modal transport networks and their relationships, and (3) the associated synthetic population. This new modeling approach is based on a scale-free design pattern, which introduces the notion of Service as a way of representing locations’ accesses as well as modal shift opportunities using the transportation network. An example of creating such a VUE is given for Quebec-city’s case study. Simulating daily travel activities of an entire population can be performed with our TransNetSim software at the meso-scale. In order to forecast the travel demand we use a weighted bipartite matching algorithm that assigns activities’ locations to agents representing people, according to their predicted travel times. Using a precompiled routing matrix, TransNetSim is able to simulate 1 million trips on the Quebec-city’s network (around 32,000 nodes and 81,000 links) in less than a minute. TransNetSim is also coupled with the commercial traffic microsimulator Vissim, which provides an environment that is compatible with our micro-VUE model. This work is a first step toward a long-term objective of modeling VUEs as a framework in which many multiscale urban phenomena might be integrated.
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Acknowledgments
This research was financed by GEOIDE, the Canadian Network of Centers of Excellence (MUSCAMAGS Project) and supported by various partners such as Centre de recherche en Aménagement et Développement (CRAD at Laval University), Ville de Québec, Ministry of Transportation Québec and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (CRSH).
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Chaker, W., Moulin, B., Thériault, M. (2010). Multiscale Modeling of Virtual Urban Environments and Associated Populations. In: Jiang, B., Yao, X. (eds) Geospatial Analysis and Modelling of Urban Structure and Dynamics. GeoJournal Library, vol 99. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8572-6_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8572-6_8
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