Multi-agent model of route choice when vehicles are sensitive to road grade

Abstract: Literature agrees that road grade plays a significant role in the energy consumed and the emissions emitted by vehicles. This is even more true for medium and heavy duty vehicles. Unfortunately the vehicle-specific energy and emissions resulting from route choices are all but lost in macroscopic models. Multi-agent approaches have shown much potential in being able to represent large transport scenarios while still accounting for the richness of the individuals’ diversity and choice autonomy. This paper takes a necessary step in accounting for road grade in heavy vehicles’ route choice. A small scenario with road grades varying in the range [-8%,8%] is simulated to demonstrate that route choice can indeed be sensitive to a behavioural model that accounts for road grade. While the control group in the simulation favours all routes equally, the study group of individuals changes their route choice in favour of those that have longer downhill grade and short but steep uphills. This is significant as it opens opportunities to estimate and apply more complex route choice models in an effort to better support decision-making regarding large transport and land use interventions.