Comparison and calibration of FRESIM and INTEGRATION steady-state car-following behavior

The paper compares the FREeway SIMulation (FRESIM, the freeway model within the CORSIM software) and INTEGRATION steady-state car-following behavior. The study concludes that the additional degree-of-freedom that is incorporated in the INTEGRATION steady-state car-following model overcomes the shortcomings of the current state-of-practice car-following and traffic stream models by capturing the wide spectrum of macroscopic and microscopic steady-state behavior over various roadway facilities. In addition, the paper develops a procedure for calibrating the FRESIM Driver Sensitivity Factor (DSF) using macroscopic loop detector data. This calibration procedure does not overcome the inherent shortcomings of the FRESIM steady-state car-following model; however, it does provide an opportunity to calibrate FRESIM car-following behavior to existing roadway conditions more efficiently. Finally, the calibration procedure is implemented within FRESIM using network-wide and link-specific DSFs. The results demonstrate the validity of the proposed calibration procedure and inconsistencies between FRESIM network-wide and link-specific modeling of car-following behavior. Link-specific Driver Sensitivity Correction Factors are developed in order to ensure consistency between network-wide and link-specific car-following behavior.