Cellular Automata Models for Transportation Applications - Cellular Automata - page 30

7 Summary

This paper has outlined the most important elements of CA use in transportation appli-
cations. Besides the standard CA rules of “traffic on a link”, the important aspects are,
that the dynamics unfolds on a graph instead of on flat space, and that the particles are
intelligent. Both aspects make simulation packages considerably more complicated, the
first since intersections need to be modeled; the second since the “intelligence” of the
travelers (route choice, destination choice, activity generation, etc.) needs to be mod-
eled. Finally, the limits of the CA technology were discussed. These limits exist in two
directions: (1) The driving logic of the CA rules may not be realistic enough, and mak-
ing it more realistic may be computationally as expensive as moving to coupled map
lattices (discrete time, contiuous state space). (2) The available real world data may not
be detailed enough to feed a realistic CA-based micro-simulation.

Acknowledgments. This paper and in particular the work on the simulation of “all of
Switzerland” would not have been possible without the help of Kay Axhausen, Nurhan
Cetin, Christian Gloor, Bryan Raney, Milenko Vrtic, Res Voellmy, and Marc Schmitt.

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