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Transportation Systems Modeling

TRANSIMS Training Course
April 2008
TRACC

Dr. Hubert Ley
transims@anl.gov 		AnnouncementPDF
The Transportation Research and Analysis Computing Center at Argonne National Laboratory has held several training courses on TRANSIMS. The courses originated from the need to train several groups of students and collaborators that work on a major evacuation study for Chicago under a project for the Illinois Department of Transportation and other regional agencies.

The course is targeting primarily analysts new to the TRANSIMS methodology, and covers both the theoretical underpinnings as well as the practical application of the code. Participants will develop a full understanding of the general TRANSIMS principles, implementation details, data requirements, capabilities, and limitations of the software.
TRANSIMS (short for Transportation Analysis and Simulation System) is an integrated set of tools developed to conduct regional multimodal transportation system analyses. With the goal of establishing TRANSIMS as an ongoing public resource available to the transportation community, TRANSIMS is made available by the Federal Highway Administration under a NASA Open Source Agreement and is therefore readily available to the community.

The TRANSIMS software is compatible with regular Windows and Linux desktop or server systems, but can also make use of high performance computing systems such as the TRACC cluster, a 512 core Linux system with 180TB of disk space and extremely fast network connections across the United States. This cluster is generally available to researchers in the US transportation community and is currently being used for TRANSIMS traffic simulation, emergency evacuation modeling, computational fluid dynamics for bridge analysis, and structural mechanics codes to determine crashworthiness and structural integrity of highway components and vehicles.

Recordings of the April 2008 Training Course at TRACC

The individual sessions held at the April 2008 Training Course have been recorded using Acrobat Connect (the software used to hold the Intenet-based training sessions). The only software necessary to view these sessions is the Flash Player, which is typically already installed on nearly all standard Windows PCs.
The recordings have also been captured and turned into a set of four Video DVDs. These are available upon request if you prefer to use a regular Video DVD player instead of the Network-based sessions linked to below. Please direct your request to TRANSIMS@anl.gov
Table of Contents Adobe Connect Recording Links Accompanying Materials
Background
Subject: This presentation covers the application of TRANSIMS for an evacuation project in Chicago that is being conducted for the Illinois Department of Transportation. The lecture introduces TRANSIMS and its capabilities in a practical manner, especially for users that have little or no background in the application of TRANSIMS. 		URL for Viewing: http://anl.acrobat.com/p18049505/ PDF presentation
Introduction to TRANSIMS
Subject: This presentation covers TRANSIMS at an introductory level and explains the interaction between the major components, including some of the technical details. Many of the issues discussed in length in the other lectures are covered here at an introductory level. The focus is on understanding the main concepts in TRANSIMS in comparison to other traffic forecasting tools.		 URL for Viewing: http://anl.acrobat.com/p51048538/ PDF presentation
The TRANSIMS Road and Transit Network
Subject: This presentation covers the details of the TRANSIMS road and transit networks. The focus is on the level of detail that can be utilized by the modeler. It also contains an explicit description of most tables, their format, and their dependencies on other tables.		 URL for Viewing: http://anl.na3.acrobat.com/p71891623/ PDF presentation
The TRANSIMS Population Synthesizer
Subject: This presentation covers the population synthesizer in the TRANSIMS application. The population synthesizer creates a representative population in the simulation area based on Census data by extrapolating publicly available anonymous data. The viewgraphs have been added later to create a more complete course. Video is not available at this time.		 This presentation was skipped during the training course due to time constraints. PDF presentation
The TRANSIMS Activity Generator
This presentation covers the activity generator in the TRANSIMS application. The activity generator uses a location choice model and activity surveys to determine the demand on the transportation network. The viewgraphs have been added later to create a more complete course. Video is not available at this time. 		This presentation was skipped during the training course due to time constraints. PDF presentation
The TRANSIMS Router
This presentation covers all aspects of the TRANSIMS router, such as the underlying algorithms, its function within the TRANSIMS framework, capabilities, and limitations. Details such as the file formats utilized by the router application are covered as well.		 URL for Viewing: http://anl.acrobat.com/p60532817/ PDF presentation
The TRANSIMS Microsimulator
This presentation covers the TRANSIMS Microsimulator in detail. It covers details such as the microsimulation algorithms, the use of the Microsimlator in the larger TRANSIMS framework, input and output file formats, capabilities, options, and other details.		 URL for Viewing: http://anl.acrobat.com/p57077597/ PDF presentation
Feedback Between TRANSIMS Modules
This presentation covers the feedback processes between the different TRANSIMS modules. Feedback is the process to establish user or system equilibrium by iteratively running routing and microsimulator iterations until a system optimum is reached. Feedback is user-controlled and one of the more difficult issues to master as a TRANSIMS modeler.		 URL for Viewing: http://anl.acrobat.com/p75928943/ PDF presentation
The TRANSIMS Framework
This presentation describes the entire suite of TRANSIMS tools. Due to the number of tools availabl (>50), not every tool is covered in great depth. The tools are grouped together and described within their context of using TRANSIMS, including the use of alternatives, limitations, and much more.		 URL for Viewing: http://anl.acrobat.com/p22821769/ PDF presentation
Control Files
Subject: This presentation covers the TRANSIMS control files. Each of the TRANSIMS tools uses control files to define input and output files, to set parameters controlling its functionality, and to control the level and location of run information produces by the tool. This lector focuses on common settings, typical mistakes, best practices, and similar issues.		 URL for Viewing: http://anl.acrobat.com/p53062783/ PDF presentation
Trip Table Conversion
Subject: The design of TRANSIMS usually requires building a synthetic polulation and to generate appropriate activities for the synthetic individuals. As an alternative, existing four step models can be used to provide trip tables for use in TRANSIMS. The conversion of typical origin/destination or production/attraction trip tables to TRANSIMS format is the focus of this lecture.		 URL for Viewing: http://anl.na3.acrobat.com/p85513315/ PDF presentation
GIS Tools
Subject: TRANSIMS provides for a number of tools to create GIS files to visualize results. GIS files are also use to some degree for input, such as the specifications of areas by polygons, and nodes and link files that are being edited using GIS applications. This lecture focuses on the range of GIS tools and capabilities currently being available withion TRANSIMS.		 URL for Viewing: http://anl.acrobat.com/p62203697/ PDF presentation
Subarea Microsimulation
Subject: This presentation covers a special methodology to limit microsimulation to a smaller area within a large metropolitan area. While the router and the iterative feedback loop is used to create a simplified solution for the entire area, the microsimulation area delievers the same level of fidelity and detail as in full scale microsimulation.		 URL for Viewing: http://anl.acrobat.com/p91596636/ PDF presentation
Resources for TRANSIMS Users
Subject: This presentation covers the different resources available to TRANSIMS modelers, such as the TRANSIMS web site, Wiki, forum, documentation, training courses, and much more.		 URL for Viewing: http://anl.acrobat.com/p58777767/ PDF presentation
Partitioning for Multi-CPU Applications
Subject: This presentation covers the capabilities of some of the TRANSIMS tools to run in partitions, allowing to speed up large scale calcuations by using multiple computers and computer clusters.		 URL for Viewing: http://anl.acrobat.com/p23196393/ PDF presentation

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The manuscripts and recordings linked on this page have been created by UChicago Argonne, LLC, Operator of Argonne National Laboratory ("Argonne"). Argonne, a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science laboratory, is operated under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357. The U.S. Government retains for itself, and others acting on its behalf, a paid-up nonexclusive, irrevocable worldwide license in said article to reproduce, prepare derivative works, distribute copies to the public, and perform publicly and display publicly, by or on behalf of the Government.
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