An Approach to Scenario Analysis, Generation and Evaluation

This article presents an operation-oriented approach for traffic management scenario generation, analysis and evaluation. We start taking a few most applied scenarios from a traffic control centre, analysing each component and structure of the whole, and evaluating the impact of each component and some typical combinations, based on available monitoring systems. Carrying on such initial research on best practices, we build a dynamic simulation model, including these typical scenarios and evaluate the impact on traffic for each component and their whole. Evaluation criteria consist of finding an influencing area, and sensible Key Performance Indicators (travel time, delay and environment carbon footprint). This leads to an initial and quantitative expression of the impact of a component. The finding is then applied to other un-tested sets of scenarios and evaluated in the dynamic model. Evaluation is done with both model-based approach and field monitoring. The modelling and monitoring lead to some improved understanding of scenario performance and its generalization towards the implementation in a dynamic model, which hopefully accelerates the real-time automation of scenario selection towards complex or unforeseen traffic situation.