Integrated Modeling and Simulation Framework for Freight Transportation in Metropolitan Areas. Final Report. METRANS Project 08-04

摘要

The intent of the project is to develop an extensible unifying modeling and simulation framework into which more focused software tools can be integrated to address complex transportation problems. We adopted model-based integration as the core design principle and semantic web as the integration technology. A domain ontology model was developed as the common modeling language of simulation scenarios and as the shared data model for application integration. It provides a single logical space for simulation design while hiding the disparity of underlying simulation tools. The framework is designed to be modular and extensible. Researchers developing simulation models, control algorithms etc., can insert new modules into the overall environment with little effort and synergistically with other existing modules. We demonstrated our system by integrating existing models developed by METRANS researchers such as: (i) the terminal and traffic network models by Prof. Ioannou and Dr. Chassiakos, (ii) the highway ramp control model by Dr. Hwang and Prof. Ioannou. Especially, we interacted with other METRANS researchers as well as engineers in the field in an effort to establish our simulation environment as the core of a test bed for studying freight transportation in the Los Angeles metropolitan area.