Using Micro-Simulation to Support Decisions on Transport Infrastructure Planning: A Case Study

Through a case study, this paper demonstrates the approach of using microsimulation tools in supporting urban infrastructure planning decisions. The study shows that the approach has great advantages over the current decision making support mechanism: it has large flexibility, it is technically sound, it can be done very quickly, and its powerful visualization capability can significantly reduce the communication gap between technical people and decision makers. While it lacks field observations during infrastructures’ planning stage, microsimulation is usually able to pick up the performance differences for various alternative plans by using some default or assumed parameters and input data based on engineering judgment or practice manual assumptions. In the case study, using the simulation result, the authorities were quickly convinced to adopt a better alternative. It turned out that the approach is quite effective and worth some attention.