VISSIM calibration and validation of urban traffic: a case study Al-Madinah City

Simulation models have been widely used worldwide to evaluate the performance of different traffic facilities and new traffic modeling methods for efficient and sustainable transportation systems. Calibration and validation of microsimulation models are the keys to ensuring the models’ reliability to reflect the local condition. Most of the existing calibration efforts focus on experimental designs of driver behavior and lane changing parameters. This paper describes the detailed procedure for calibrating and validating a microscopic model during peak hours et al.-Madinah City, Saudi Arabia. This study includes the calibration and validation of parameters of the car-following models, Wiedemann74 and 99, and lane changing model used in PTV VISSIM. In our model, we used traffic volume and travel speed for model calibration and average travel time to validate the calibrated model. GEH statistics is used to develop the relationship between observed and simulated traffic flow. GEH statistics show a strong correlation between the experimental and simulated flow based on the calibration and validation results. The results indicated that safety reduction factor, standstill distance, headway time, and the emergency stop significantly influenced simulation precision. Finally, this model can be used to exploit other new traffic modeling methods that may help decision-makers in the long term and for sustainable management system development.