Project 'Rekeningrijden'

Project 'Rekeningrijden':

Modeling and simulation of complex engineering

Due to heavy road congestion in the Netherlands, especially in the western part around the major cities (Amsterdam. Rotterdam, Den Haag), the Dutch Goverment intends to implement a system of Electronic Toll Collection with the goal to reduce this congestion [@]. The first systems will be installed in the year 2002. The toll collection function should not interfere with normal traffic flow. Therefore, a free flow Automatic Debiting System (ADS) is required.

The University of Amsterdam is involved in a project to evaluate the technical feasibility of Automatic Debiting Systems, as proposed by the industry to be implemented on the Dutch Road Network. We have developed a modeling and simulation approach, and realised a software environment to perform these simulations. The environment, called ADS-SIM, is used both by the Ministry and industry for technical evaluation studies. On request we have analysed ourselves special case studies, to demonstrate how to model features specific for the Dutch situation.

We use the concept of High Performance Discrete Event Simulations to evaluate the performance of in Complex Engineering Projects. It is assumed that models of the components are known. We further demand that the interaction between the components is known and their state changes at pre-definable time intervals. As a result we can model the total complex system as a discrete event model.

Analysis of test data

As part of the project, the systems of several industrial consortia where tested along the Dutch road. The University of Amsterdam has participated in the analysis of this rich set of data. The task of the University was to find hypotheses about the sources of sporadic errors (in the order of 1 error at 10.000 passages for the prototypes).

The data collected along the road was read in an object oriented database based on Matisse [@], together with the meta-information already produced by the Ministry. An interface was written, to access transparently a MATISSE database from the MATLAB environment, with all the power of Matisse's Application Development Kit. Inside MATLAB we have analysed the data further, and could identify reasonable hypotheses about the sources of nearly all errors. Although the final conclusion was that all requirements are already met, with the help of this identified remaining error sources the 'Rekeningrijden' system can be even further improved.

As a result of this cooperation, we have now access to a large database with traffic measurements, with a level of detail that is unique. This database can also be used for research on other traffic applications, as for instance 'kilometerheffing' (another future system foreseen as instrument to reduce congestion). For this latter application, it is important that we also have a small set of measurements when GPS was used as additional reference system.

Partners:

@ Dutch Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management

@ CMG Public Sector, Advanced Technology, Den Haag

@ National Aerospace Laboratory NLR, The Netherlands

Contact person for UvA:

Prof. Dr. L.O. Hertzberger

email: bob@science.uva.nl

telephone: +31 20 5257464

References:

@ A. Visser, A.J. van der Wees, L.O. Hertzberger, "Discrete Event Modelling Methodology for Intelligent Transport Systems", paper 2016 in the proceedings of the World congress on Intelligent Transport Systems, Torino, Italy, November 2000.

@ A. Visser, H.H. Yakali, A.J. van der Wees, M. Oud, G.A. van der Spek, L.O. Hertzberger, "An hierarchical view on modelling the reliability of a DSRC-link for ETC applications", Technical Report CS-99-02, submitted to IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems,

@ L. Dorst, A. Hoekstra, J.M. van den Akker, J. Breeman, F.C.A. Groen, J. Lagerberg, A. Visser, H. Yakali, L.O. Hertzberger, "Evaluating Automatic Debiting Systems by modelling and simulation of virtual sensors", IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Magazine, June 1998, vol.1, no.2, pp. 18-25 .

@ A.G. Hoekstra, L. Dorst, M. Bergman, J. Lagerberg, A. Visser, H. Yakali, F. Groen and L.O. Hertzberger, "Modelling and simulation of automatic debiting systems for electronic collection on motor highways", proceedings IASTED International Conference Applied Modelling and Simulation, Ed M.H. Hamzam pp 104-108, 1997.