Laura Bieker

Emergency vehicles need to reach their destination as fast as possible. They deserve the highest priority at intersections. Therefore, they are allowed to use bus lanes and pass red lights at traffic light systems. Nevertheless, for emergency vehicles it is still quicker and safer to get priority at the approaching intersection. This paper analyses how the travel time of emergency vehicles can be improved by using vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication. Emergency vehicles are sending messages with their route information and their current position. The traffic lights which have to be passed can switch to green for emergency vehicles and to red for all other streets. The traffic lights continue the normal operation after the emergency vehicle has passed the intersection. Simulation results show that emergency vehicles can reach their destination faster.

This paper describes the EmerT portal (Emergency mobility of rescue forces and regular Traffic), an extended version of the DELPHI web tool. EmerT is a web decision support application for real time traffic situation, prognosis and traffic simulation. One of the main features in this system is to provide traffic state estimation and forecasts with use of the mesoscopic traffic simulation. Traffic bottlenecks can be identified by the simulation which helps the decision maker to take appropriate traffic management actions. Another feature is the information exchange and cooperation between the Traffic Management Center, Emergency Rescue Services, Police and Emergency Call Center. This application supports three demonstration regions in Germany, Cologne, Bonn and Munich, and will be extended for the whole region of Germany. The main purpose is to handle major incidents and large events which affect changes in the traffic demand and current traffic situation. The EmerT system supports u...

This paper describes the EmerT portal (Emergency mobility of rescue forces and regular Traffic), an extended version of the DELPHI web tool. EmerT is a web-based decision support application for real time traffic situation, prognosis and traffic simulation appropriate for exceptional situation like disasters, major events, incidents or emergencies. One of the main features in this system is to provide traffic state estimation and forecasting with the use of the mesoscopic traffic simulation. Current traffic data are needed for accurate simulation results. Typical inputs data are from ground-based sensor like induction loops. One further possibility represents the use of traffic web cameras, in which images are most freely available. Web cameras have mostly a low resolution and a low frame rate. These underlying limitations as well as the integration in the simulation are the big challenges for an efficient use as data input for traffic simulation. This paper aims to present the proc...

This paper gives an overview of the development of a fast, approximating model of vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2X) communication. Large-scale traffic simulations need to be fast, and the lack of supporting this feature by common communication simulators makes the development of a new one necessary. In a vehicular system, packet error rate can be significant; hence models that consider error characteristics are desirable. Our work considers communication models that approximate the radio propagation characteristics in a realistic way without compromising simulation speed.

This contribution demonstrates how to perform calibration and validation for the open source tra�ffic flow micro-simulation SUMO [1]. Preliminary results for a real-world scenario are presented. This serves as an example how a black box model can be calibrated and validated without knowing and accessing the inner workings of the simulation model. Here, "black box" is from the view-point of an tra�ffic analyst, which is a valid view for many researchers despite SUMO being an open source program.

Within the iTETRIS project, the used SUMO traffic simulation was extended by models for computing the emissions of pollutants CO, CO2, HC, PMx, and NOx, as well as for computing the fuel consumption on a microscopic, per-vehicle, base. The emission model was based on the HBEFA (“Handbuch der Emissionsfaktoren”) database which covers a large variety of vehicle types, considering differences between passenger and heavy duty vehicles, the engine displacement, the fuel type, and the EURO emission norm of the vehicles. This database was reformulated into a microscopic model which uses the vehicle class, the vehicle‟s speed and the vehicle‟s acceleration for computing the amount of a certain pollutant‟s emission within one discrete time step. The kind of this model‟s embedding within SUMO allows to collect and to evaluate the ecological impacts of traffic management strategies on per-vehicle, per-lane, and per-road base. Using this information, two sub-topics of traffic management were ad...

ABSTRACT After a hundred years of developing combustion engines for cars, electric mobility is on the horizon of reaching a technological turning point in the history of the mobility sector. The gear’s electrification is a key element in sustainable mobility. The dependence on oil will be reduced and emissions will be minimized. Therefore, on May the 3rd 2013 the National Platform for Electric Mobility (NPE) was launched in Berlin, by the Federal Chancellor in order to boost electric mobility in Germany and accelerate the commercialization of innovative electric vehicles. By 2020, one million electric cars shall be driving in Germany. Demonstration activities, fleet trials and pilot operations are performed in various cities around the world. However, do sparsely populated, rural areas also have the potential for the use of electric vehicles? In applying the example of Germany, this study recorded the current situation of households and their needs concerning mobility in small towns and rural regions. These mobility requirements were compared with the capabilities of electric vehicles. Furthermore, the following questions were answered: How many people live in rural areas? How is the age structure? What is the modal split? Which patterns of commuting can be identified? Do the licensed driver’s quota, the level of motorization and the availability of private parking differ from the urban space? Finally, do these factors facilitate or impede the use of electric vehicles in small towns and rural areas? These considerations were followed by the development of possible sale scenarios, which are based on the cost structure and range of electric vehicles on the one hand, and conventional vehicles with combustion engine on the other hand. Finally, the potential use of electric vehicles in small towns and rural areas is assessed, as well as its contribution to the objective of the federal government to have one million electric vehicles on Germany’s streets by 2020.