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Strategic and real-time model development for City of York in PTV Visum and PTV Optima
RelativeGAP and their partners Wood Plc and PTV Group have been appointed by the City of York Council as a lead partner in delivering its Smarter Travel Evolution Programme (STEP), the first transport modelling and connected vehicle project of its kind in the UK which is supported by the Government's National Productivity Investment Fund. Authorities in the historic city of York are aiming to reduce congestion, emissions and journey times in the city, as well as improve reliability of the network, create better public spaces and enhance safety. The consortium supports the city’s mission by designing and deploying a live model of York’s traffic network, in a dynamic digital representation fed from a wide range of real-time data sources. As well as providing real-time digital traffic optimisation through the live model, a strategic model will inform long-term decision making including the local transport plan, development planning decisions and business case applications. Bence Verebelyi, Director of RelativeGAP has been the technical lead of the strategic model development and he has been responsible for multi-modal model development and calibration, including a variable demand model element.
STEP - Smart Transport Evolution Programme – City of York, UK (2020-2021)
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In this project a strategic transport model was created for town of Kutina (Croatia) and its wider region to determine the traffic impact of several planned highway bypass links. The main reason of the network revision was the permament and strong presence of HGV transit traffic in this small town which cause not only significant congestion but also worsens the quality of life of those living along the local main road network through air and noise pollution. It makes us proud to support the local community with by contributing to a development that provides a more sustainable environment for more than 20,000 people.
Kutina Spatial-Traffic-Construction Study - Croatian Motorways, Croatia (2020-2021)
Old Bracknell Lane is a housing development in the very centre of Bracknell Town. RelativeGAP undertook the strategic modelling element of the transport assessment work with the Bracknell Strategic Transport Model and we were responsible for providing modelling outputs for transport planning colleagues and for producing KPIs in order to understand whether this development can be implemented without breaking the fragile balance of the current highway network in central Bracknell.
Old Bracknell Lane Housing Development - Bracknell Forest Council, UK (2020)
The focus of this local plan assessment was on Syngenta research centre which may cause a significant shift in traffic in the area in the future. Modelling assessments for the potential site allocation at Jealott’s Hill have been undertaken using Bracknell Forest Council (BFC)’s Multi-Modal Transport Model (BFMTM) developed by WSP on behalf of BFC.
Detailed discussion regarding use of the model has been ongoing throughout the process, with modelling assessing the 2019 Base year, 2037 Baseline (including background traffic growth and other Local Plan sites), and a 2042 future year, developed in consultation with BFC and WSP for the full
build-out of Jealott’s Hill. Detailed assessments have been undertaken of the potential transport impact of development at Jealott’s Hill across the local road network between 2018 and 2020, and the latest modelling uses the most up-to-date version of the BFMTM at the time of writing (December 2020).
Bracknell Jealott’s Hill - Bracknell Forest Council (2020-2021)
RelativeGAP and their consortium partners have been appointed by Transport for the West Midlands (TfWM) to model and assess several policy approaches as part of the refresh and review of the West Midlands Combined Authority’s (WMCA) Local Transport Plan (LTP). This includes the emergence of the five motives for change which are climate emergency, transport inequality, supporting local communities and places, physical inactivity and sustaining economic success. Several broad policy approaches have been modelled using PRISM, including sustainable transport supply side measures, demand management measures and a combined approach.
WMLTP Policy Levers PRISM Modelling - Transport for West Midlands, UK (2020)
The traffic impact assessment to the feasibility study of a new intermodal public transport intersection in a major city in Hungary. The main focus of the strategic transport modelling exercise was on public transportation, however the assessment of further land use and highway network development elements of the project have also been undertaken with PTV Visum. The local and regional public transport network include 588 stops served by 79 different lines with a total of over 2,500 departures per day. Since base year and future year timetables were provided as well, we could undertake a benchmark public transport assignment with both timetable- and headway-based approaches.
Impact Assessment of an Urban Intermodal Junction - City of Szekeshehervar, Hungary (2020-2021)
This project assesses a significant regional development called Knowledge Park as a part of a local plan, including housing units, educational institutions, sport and recreation facilities. The development area is located in the agglomeration of the capital, Budapest. Therefore, the framework of the study was provided by the Budapest Transport Model maintained by the local transport authority, BKK. The model, especially the highway network and zoning system needed to be deeply refined according to the study objectives. The transport modelling through six scenarios were undertaken for peak periods determined from household survey data and based on land use changes.
Local Plan Assessment - Town of Biatorbagy, Hungary (2021)
RelativeGAP have entered the PRSIM Framework scoring the highest quality score with their consortium partners.
PRISM was built for West Midlands as a large strategic model intended to gain insight into strategic issues to inform policy and planning, but which has primarily been used to support business case development for large public transport schemes and the less frequent refreshes of local planning policy. The client group were seeking to appoint consultants for transport modelling services in the West Midlands. The appointed suppliers will apply, maintain, and enhance PRISM 5 on behalf of the client group. RelativeGAP are taking the public transport modelling lead role in their framework consortium of Sweco, Arcadis, RelativeGAP and Steer.
PRISM Continuation Framework – West Midlands Combined Authority, UK (2020-2024)
Feasibility study and strategic transport modelling for a major motorway extension in Southern Croatia.
This study is about the assessment of the possibility of connecting the City of Dubrovnik to the Croatian motorway network. The motorway network currently ends at the town of Ploče and the area of Dubrovnik is only accessible by land through Bosnia and Herzegovina. We study the construction of 50 kilometres of planned motorway connection including a new bridge from mainland Croatia to the Pelješac peninsula bypassing Bosnia and Herzegovina. The magnitude of this development justifies the creation of an interregional strategic transport model that - in addition to Croatia - also includes Bosnia and Herzegovina. The specific location characteristics require that we also consider special network elements such as border crossing points and ferry lines. RelativeGAP has been fully responsible for the building of a new regional strategic transport model, the scheme assessment as well as contributing to the business case which will form the basis of a feasibility study to apply for European Union development funds.
Dubrovnik-Metkovic Motorway Extension - Croatian Motorways, Croatia (2020-2021)
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Following a conversation between London Borough of Southwark, Transport for London, and Steer, it was agreed that strategic modelling using TfL’s ONE model would be undertaken to support the assessment of the proposed scheme.
Steer with the support of RelativeGAP were ideally placed to assist with this modelling as the team had extensive experience using the ONE model, including on the Victoria Business Improvement District Inner Ring Road Scheme and the West Ealing Liveable Neighbourhood proposals. Steer and RelativeGAP also regularly contribute to TfL’s Strategic Modelling Users Forum. The ONE model team will be led by Bence Verebelyi, Director of RelativeGAP Ltd, accredited ONE model user and certified PTV Visum trainer with over ten years’ experience developing the utilising strategic transport models including project experience with the ONE model itself.
Dulwich Healthy Streets - London Borough of Southwark, UK (2020)
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Note: The project has been postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
RelativeGAP is dedicated to develop new transport modelling methodologies and techniques, especially focusing on more sustainable, non-motorised modes of traffic such as walking and cycle. We have always felt that these means of traffic are highly underrepresented in strategic modelling but as the industry is moving towards a more dynamic and more mesoscopic approach we would like to take the initiative to focus on undiscovered territories.
More details are coming soon!
Application Development to the Mesoscopic Assignment of Various Slow Modes in PTV Visum (2019-2021)
The project was a local plan development assessment where the strategic transport modelling and related scenarios assessment were undertaken by RelativeGAP with help of the local SEWTM model developed in PTV Visum. This work involved the local model refinement and validation, origin-destination matrix update with development and TEMPro data or assessment of multiple scenarios. Many of the graphical analysis tools provided by Visum were used during the evaluation exercise and several VBA and Python scripts have been developed to nearly eliminate the time required for scenario analysis and tabular and graphical data extraction.
Model Farm - A Local Plan Assessment with South East Wales Transport Mode - Legal & General (Strategic Land) Ltd, UK (2019)
The first task for modelling new mobility solutions was to describe the operation processes and the efficiency of an assumed autonomous urban transportation system – especially from a methodological point of view - it was a key step to define the most significant vehicle-related parameters that directly influence the effect of autonomous vehicles on the operation efficiency of the urban transportation system. To define the most relevant factors and their model values, it was necessary to consider the autonomous vehicle characteristic from microsimulation models. The major indicator considered was the capacity increase caused by the reduction of following distance. The other important analysed factor was the time saving of supplementary trip components related to individual vehicle transportation (walking, parking). In this case an additive parameter was applied, of which values constantly reduce the time necessity of supplementary trip components in the model depending on the penetration of the automated vehicles. In the next stage of the study he used the derived connected and autonomous vehicle characteristics to be able to calculate skim and generalised cost data for demand modelling calculations. For calculating the expected demand for mobility solutions such as mobility as a service with CAVs we used a conservative logit formula to calculate mode shift from highway and public transport traffic.
Modelling Cyber Security of Connected and Autonomous Vehicles - University Research Programme (2018-2019)
In this project, Croatian Roads were looking to increase the accessibility of both Split airport and ferry port from the A1 motorway. RelativeGAP led the development of a multi-model strategic transport model to support the feasibility study and the application process for regional development EU funds. The model has a significant focus on modelling multi-modal trips, especially in the context of touristic and international traffic. It uses a whole range of surveys to support the modelling of non-conventional modes and demand segments. This is a fully calibrated multi-modal model that has been validated against legacy models, land use data and observed traffic data from multiple sources. It is also intended to provide the most robust and accurate data for the economical and cost-benefit analysis as model outputs such as journey time savings are the ultimate basis of the project feasibility.
Feasibility study of A1 Kozjak Tunnel and Split Ferry Port - Croatian Road, Croatia (2019-2020)
In November 2015, Camden Council introduced a trial of temporary traffic changes on the east/west route that includes the streets Torrington Place, Byng Place, Gordon Square, Tavistock Square and Tavistock Place. The changes were introduced using an experimental traffic order. Using Transport for London’s ONE model, Bence led the scenario development and assessment where two proposed scenarios have been tested in ONE as part of this study. The introduction of the westbound only scheme and a second proposed scenario which examines the impact on the corridor if two-way operation for general traffic is reconverted on the corridor. LinSig modelling was used for providing new signalling data input for the mesoscopic-level ONE model. Iterations were carried out between the LinSig and ONE modelling to refine the traffic flows and signal timings between the models and then a final iteration between the LinSig, PTV Vissim models and ONE modelling was done.
Tavistock Place Corridor, London Borough of Camden, UK (2018-2020)
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In 2019, RelativeGAP Director, Bence Verebelyi was selected to a member of the Modelling Advisory Panel of the above framework. The key target of the panel to act as an architect and support shaping the future of strategic transport modelling in the West Midlands with innovative ideas and state-of-the-art solutions in order to be able to tackle the challenges posed by the emerging mobility.
Strategic & Tactical Transport Modelling Services: Modelling Advisory Service - Transport for West Midlands (2019–2023)
VBID, working with TfL, WCC and other key stakeholders, was looking to conduct a study of ways in which the Inner Ring Road might be rerouted in Victoria. The study stemmed from the desire of VBID to remove the one-way system which imposes severance on the area around Victoria Station, and to reroute the Inner Ring Road away from the station. The ONE model team was led by RelativeGAP, accredited ONE model firm and team. The project included the full assessment of four options to re-design the VBID section of the Inner Ring Road. Steer and RelativeGAP have also developed an innovative methodology to test reduced demand scenarios in an efficient way by significantly reducing model run times.
Victoria Business Improvement District - VBID, London, UK (2019–2020)
RelativeGAP have been involved in a series of various research and development projects with the main objective of developing new modelling techniques, assessing emerging new mobility, and increasing software enhancements of PTV Visum.
Electric Vehicle Charging Optimisation - Research & Development (2019)
In this project RelativeGAP supported a local consultant in Doha, Qatar over a nearly two-year period with post-processing traffic count and survey data to provide valuable input data and parameters for the bespoke strategic transport model and agent-based demand model. The work included the creation of seasonal traffic factors, parking analysis, demand model parameters, volume-delay function, saturation flow analysis and for example the derivation various PCU values or trip generation factors. A key element of the work was the full analysis and processing of the complete household survey data set. A vast amount of spreadsheet analysis with macro tools have also been generated and we have also been instrumental in the documentation of the results.
Qatar Strategic Transport Masterplan - Ministry of Transport and Communication, Qatar (2018-2020)
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The town of Sveti Ivana Zelina is located about 40 km north of the capital of Croatia, right next to the A4 motorway with heavy traffic. The toll section of the motorway starts next to the town, therefore the main roads crossing the small town see a lot of traffic from those who would like to avoid paying the toll. In order to reduce through traffic, the international consortium of Trafficon, ProUrbe and RelativeGAP have assessed the feasibility of multiple bypass routes. In the framework of this project RelativeGAP were responsible for building the traffic model and also for undertaking the transport assessment of various options.
Feasibility Study of Sveti Ivana Zelina Bypass Road, Croatian Road, Croatia (2019-2020)
Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP) - City of Szekszárd, Hungary (2018-2019)
The sustainable urban mobility plan of the town was created by the consortium of transport planning companies in 2018-2019. Such studies require long-term thinking, where the main focus is sustainability, the costs of indirect social impact is identified - “internalisation of external costs and benefits” - and they put an emphasis on evaluation. As a partner of Innoqualea Ltd., RelativeGAP were responsible for carrying out transport assessments and for creating the traffic model. In the framework of this project we created a classic four-step multi-modal model and examined the impact of the planned network and area development changes.
Pécs is the major city in south-west Hungary. ProUrbe Ltd is in charge of reviewing the local plan and the traffic regulation plans of the city. As a lead partner, RelativeGAP supported the transport modeling of the planning work by preparing a highway assignment model for the area.
New Local Plan - City of Pécs, Hungary (2018-2019)
The Unified Traffic Model (UTM) of Budapest maintained by the Budapest Transport Centre (BTC) serves as a solid and reliable basis for the traffic impact assessment of planned developments in Budapest and its surroundings. Besides the network, zoning system and demand model of the area, the UTM also includes an enormous data model. The data model is a compilation of continuously and purposefully collected data set that includes household survey as well as automated and manual traffic counts covering all traffic layers. This piece of work was won and carried out as a main contractor to BTC, bringing new challenges for RelativeGAP. In the framework of this project we adapted the basis of the traffic survey systems and examined the usability of data collected with the most advanced techniques. We are proud that our work has contributed to UTM fulfilling its unique role in transport planning in this area.
Review of the Budapest Transport Model traffic Survey Strategy - The Centre for Budapest Transport, Hungary (2019)
Highway model assignments to the project called ‘Update of short- and medium-term transport development plans of Town of Godollo’. This small town is a major transport hub where several motorways and main roads meet, and the road network in the area is heavily congested. In the framework of the project, traffic assessment of nearly 25 road network development elements was carried out over three time periods (morning peak, afternoon peak, interpeak) and four future horizon years. As part of the project, we made a major model update and presented the results to city decision makers. This project in 2018 marks our first ever project in the Central European region.
Update of Short- and Medium-Term Transport Development Plans - Town of Godollo Hungary (2018)
RelativeGAP undertakes model audits and peer reviews on a regular basis. We have a mission to contribute to the overall reputation of multi-modal strategic transport modelling and to the development and maintenance of the general trust in transport modellers and in our best practice methodology. Quality should never be a compromise across any transport planning business when it comes to the future of our mobility.