Title:
Analyzing methods of mitigating initialization bias in transportation simulation models

dc.contributor.advisor Hunter, Michael P.
dc.contributor.author Taylor, Stephen Luke en_US
dc.contributor.committeeMember Laurie A. Garrow
dc.contributor.committeeMember Michael O. Rodgers
dc.contributor.department Civil and Environmental Engineering en_US
dc.date.accessioned 2011-03-04T20:51:28Z
dc.date.available 2011-03-04T20:51:28Z
dc.date.issued 2010-11-22 en_US
dc.description.abstract All computer simulation models require some form of initialization before their outputs can be considered meaningful. Simulation models are typically initialized in a particular, often "empty" state and therefore must be "warmed-up" for an unknown amount of simulation time before reaching a "quasi-steady-state" representative of the systems' performance. The portion of the output series that is influenced by the arbitrary initialization is referred to as the initial transient and is a widely recognized problem in simulation analysis. Although several methods exist for removing the initial transient, there are no methods that perform well in all applications. This research evaluates the effectiveness of several techniques for reducing initialization bias from simulations using the commercial transportation simulation model VISSIM®. The three methods ultimately selected for evaluation are Welch's Method, the Marginal Standard Error Rule (MSER) and the Volume Balancing Method currently being used by the CORSIM model. Three model instances - a single intersection, a corridor, and a large network - were created to analyze the length of the initial transient for varying scenarios, under high and low demand scenarios. After presenting the results of each initialization method, advantages and criticisms of each are discussed as well as issues that arose during the implementation. The results for estimation of the extent of the initial transient are compared across each method and across the varying model sizes and volume levels. Based on the results of this study, Welch's Method is recommended based on is consistency and ease of implementation. en_US
dc.description.degree M.S. en_US
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/1853/37208
dc.publisher Georgia Institute of Technology en_US
dc.subject Simulation en_US
dc.subject Warm-up en_US
dc.subject Steady-state en_US
dc.subject VISSIM en_US
dc.subject Transportation en_US
dc.subject Initialization bias en_US
dc.subject.lcsh Computer simulation
dc.title Analyzing methods of mitigating initialization bias in transportation simulation models en_US
dc.type Text
dc.type.genre Thesis
dspace.entity.type Publication
local.contributor.advisor Hunter, Michael P.
local.contributor.corporatename School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
local.contributor.corporatename College of Engineering
relation.isAdvisorOfPublication 9db01061-14c2-4451-8340-e8230033f407
relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication 88639fad-d3ae-4867-9e7a-7c9e6d2ecc7c
relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication 7c022d60-21d5-497c-b552-95e489a06569
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