A Reality Based Model for Simulation-

Based Study of the Traffic Movement

of a City
Subrata Nandi Virupaksha Kanjilal Kushal Lakhotia
sn_nitdgp@yahoo.co.in v.kanjilal@gmail.com lakhotia.kushal@gmail.com

Department of Computer Science and Engineering, National Institute of Technology,

Durgapur (Deemed University)
PIN-713209, WB, INDIA

INTRODUCTION
There has been growing interest in urban mesh networks in recent times. A mobility
model dictates how the users move within a given service area. We propose a mobility
model that aims at finding out the optimal path from a source to a destination in a given
city map. In this paper we simulate a city’s map and study the movement of the users in
such a service area. The optimal path is found out with respect to the time taken to reach
from the source to destination and not the distance traversed in the path so taken.

THE SERVICE AREA

We have intuitively considered a city map which is a mesh of highways and streets.
We have taken ‘s’ sources and ‘d’ destinations (which are taken as input). Wherever a
street/highway criss-crosses another street/highway it results in a node. The map we have
taken in our simulation includes thirty-three nodes. A source or destination is nothing but a
node. Each path (street/highway) has a given length (the unit being km). We consider
nodes 11 and 30 as the sources and nodes 2 and 16 as the destinations in our simulations
(refer to Figure 1). The vehicles moving in the city have been considered as two-wheelers
and four-wheelers. Any vehicle has a greater peak speed while moving in a highway than
in a street. Again, a four-wheeler has a greater speed than a two-wheeler in both, highway
and street. Thus the speed
Fig 1. A Sample city map (service area) used to generate routes using the proposed mobility
model

varies according to both, the type of path taken and the vehicle. But it also depends on the
current traffic density of the path (street/highway). Any street/highway has a maximum
limit to the number of vehicles that can move through that street/highway, beyond which
any vehicle will not be able to move at its peak speed through that street/highway. The
speed of the vehicle decreases depending on the number of vehicles in excess of the
maximum limit, in the street/highway. The speed decreases according to the following
function:
THE MOBILITY MODEL

(a) TRIP GENERATION:

Various users start from their sources at various times of the day but the starting time of a
particular user is the same everyday. Any user has two attributes – knowledge and confidence.
Knowledge of a user is nothing but a route from her source to destination. A user following whose
route it takes lesser time to reach the destination from the source, has a better knowledge.
Confidence of a user is the reflection of the quality of knowledge she has. As and when her
knowledge gets better (in terms of time taken), her confidence increases. The increase of
confidence is not linear. It increases according to the following function:

Confidence = Confidence + (InteractionCount*InteractionCount)/(4*625)

InteractionCount = Number of successful interactions.

On the first day (i.e.,the first run) all users have zero knowledge and zero confidence,i.e.,
none of the users has any idea about which route to take to reach her destination. So all
users take a path randomly. As a user reaches a node she looks for the path she should take,
from her knowledge. If her knowledge is insufficient, she again takes a path randomly from
that node. When she encounters another user in her way, she checks whether that user has a
better knowledge than her. If yes, then she refreshes her knowledge and consequently her
confidence also increases according to the function given by (B). In this way by interacting
with other users, she reaches her destination following a route. It might also happen that
she does not reach her destination on the first day. A day is simulated by running a nested
loop consisting of three loops. The outer loop runs for 24 times, the loop within it runs for
60 times and the innermost loop also runs for 60 times. As the control comes out of the
outermost loop it marks the end of one day (i.e., end of one run). The next day she starts
her journey again following the route she knows. If she had not reached her destination on
the previous day she starts her journey afresh with zero knowledge and zero confidence.
Again she might encounter a user who has a better knowledge and thus her knowledge gets
bettered and confidence gets increased. In this way, all users find the best possible route (in
terms of time taken) from their respective sources to destinations. At the end of each day
(i.e., each run) we find out the following parameters:
1. Average Time Taken
2. The number of users that have reached their destination
3. The time at which the last person reaches her destination.
.(b) MODIFICATION OF THE SERVICE
AREA:
We have now obtained an environment where the users have sufficient knowledge.
They can move from their respective sources to destinations in a desirable time. Now, if we
remove a path (street or highway) between any two nodes, it will affect the movement of a
user that path forms a segment of the the route taken by her. She will now have to look for
an alternate path to reach her destination. Here, she again looks for a known path from her
knowledge, which can be taken. If she cannot find one, she randomly takes a path and
interacts with more knowledgeable users to refresh her knowledge so that a new and
effective route to her destination is obtained. Thus when the service area is disturbed, the
user can adapt to the change.

The trip is as follows:

Enter the total number of users as Max
Accept the Initial nodes and final nodes in two lists

If( time is between 8:00 and 20:00)

{
/* The ‘day’ time*/
for( each user having serial number 0 – Max)
{
if( the user has started)
{
/* different users have different time of starting the
time of staring are randomly allotted */

If( the user does not have a path in his knowledge)

{
If(User is at a node waiting to go to another
node)
{
Get C = CurrentNode()
Get D = DestinationNodeRandomly( C)
Move( the user from C to D)
}
else
{
If(user has reached destination)
{
/* Make the necessary record and stop the user */
HasReachedDestination()
}
 Else
{
Make the user interact with other users.
}
}
}
Else
{ /*THE SECOND CASE*/
/* If the user has a knowledge of the path */

If(User is at a node waiting to go to another node)

{
Get C = CurrentNode()
Get D = DestinationNodefrom knowledge(C)
Move( the user from C to D)
}
else
{
If(user has reached destination)
{
/* Make the necessary record and stop the user*/
HasReachedDestination()
}
else
{
Make the user interact with other users.
}
}
}

The user moves along the path by hopping from one node to another. The next node is
calculated randomly if the user does not possess enough knowledge to complete the trip on
his own, or the next node is looked up from the acquired knowledge.
In both the cases the user is moved according to the following algorithm

Move(D)
{
/* d -> The destination node */
Get C = CurrentNode
Get S = Speed(C, D)
Get distance = GetDistance (C,D);
Get capacity = GetCapacity(C,D);
Get P = GetPeopleActuallyOnRoad(C,D);

/* Update the Counter variable which stores the seconds required

to reach D from C */
Return D
}
On moving from one node to another the user cannot always go at his top speed. The user
will be slowed down because of traffic on the road. Each road stretch has a traffic capacity.
That maximum capacity (after which delay starts) depends on the type of road i.e.,
Highway has more capacity than streets. The delay as well as the total time is calculated as

GetTimeAndDelay(speed, distance, capacity, people_on_road)

{
Get counter = int (distance/speed * 60 * 60)
Get time = (float)speed/distance
get excess_car = people_on_road - capacity

if(excess_car <= 0)
return counter

/* if there are excess car on the road then the delay increases */

Get a = 250/time;
Get delay = (excess_car * excess_car)/ (4 * a );
counter = int (distance/speed * 60 * 60);
counter = counter + delay;
return counter;
}

Fig 2. The delay curve (delay with respect to traffic on road)

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS:

We observe that the simulation of the model yields results which are practically
feasible. We take the average time taken by the users at the end of each run and observe
that it decreases with each run. The number of users reaching the destination increases at
the end of each run. And, the time at which the last user reaches the destination also earlier.
Decreasing average time shows that with each successive day the users are able to follow
better routes which are more time-efficient. Increasing number of users reaching their
destination at the end of each day indicates that with each successive day more number of
users are able to find out a route to their destinations. Again the last user reaching earlier
 than the previous day shows that better routes (in terms of time) are being explored by the
users moving in the city.
After the termination of the simulation we obtain the following parameters for a
particular source-destination pair:
1. Average time taken in moving from a particular source to a particular destination
(time_avg)
2. The total number users moving from that source to destination and the number of users
who have reached that destination from that source
3. The optimal route for the source-destination pair
4. Total time taken in the optimal route (time_opt)
5. The number of users using the optimal route

We observe that for each pair of source-destination the number of users moving from that
source to destination and the number of users succeeding in reaching the destination is
same,i.e., 100% users find a route from their source to destination. If we compare the total
time taken in covering the optimal route and the average time for the users moving from
the given source to given destination, we find that time_opt < time_avg which should also
be the case from the practical point of view. The fraction of users taking the optimal path is
observed to be varying. In some cases it is quite high while in others it is low. Finally, we
observe the optimal route. If
Average time take for we see the distance traversed
1Source-1Destination Vs No. of persons in following this route, it
3560 might not be the shortest.
There might be a route
Average time taken in

3540 which is shorter in terms of

3520 distance but our focus is
3500 time. Thus a route which a
seconds

3480 larger distance might take

lesser time as other routes
3460 might be congested and the
3440 traffic movement in such
3420 routes is not smooth. As a
result the time taken in such
3400 routes becomes higher in
3380 spite of the fact that distance
3360 to be covered through such
routes is shorter than the
0 1000 2000 3000 optimal route we’ve found.
No. of persons
Fig 3: In one source and one destination, the source node was
node 11 and the destination was node 16.
 Average time take for
1Source-2Destination Vs No. of
persons
3550
Average time taken

3500
in seconds

3450
3400
3350
3300
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500
No. of persons

Fig 4: In case of 1 source and two destinations, the source node remains 11
while the destination nodes are 2 and 16
 Average time take for
2Source-2Destination Vs No. of persons

3850
3800
Average time taken in

3750
3700
seconds

3650
3600
3550
3500
3450
3400
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500
No. of persons

Fig 5. In case of two sources and two destinations, the source nodes are 30, 11 while
the destination nodes are 2 and 16

APPLICATION:

Traffic Monitering in a City: Any person in a given city can be guided to her
destination if she is not aware of the route. Again if any road in the city is closed, the
alternate routes can also be found out. The model can also be utilized for dynamic solutions
to any traffic problem in a city. Suppose a road is blocked during a particular time of the
day, then any user can be guided to an alternate path for that period of time till normalcy
resumes. Again if we consider a particular road of a city which is one-way during
particular times of the day, then any user who wishes to take such a road can be guided
according to the time of the day at which she wants to take the road. The traffic guidance to
the people of a city can thus be provided through an automated system. This will help save
time and provide an efficient traffic guidance system.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUDING REMARKS

We presented a mobility model with the details of trip generation and route generation,
which works for any arbitrary service area layout. The proposed mobility model generates
realistic trips and trip routes. The model can be useful for extracting the user movement
profiles, which are highly regular for majority of user as population increases
exponentially. Trip routes can be summarized and used for better prediction of user
location, which can reduce location management cost. This prediction can be useful in
allocating resource (ex. bandwidth) for certain users who access real-time data requiring
high QOS.
The approach can be extended for use in pico-cellular environment. In pico-cell
environment, details of street and highway layout are to be stored in the form of graphs i.e.
the entire service area is modeled in the form of two level graphs. The actual shortest path
within a cell can be obtained using the Djikstra algorithm.