A large scale combined private car and commercial vehicle-based traffic simulation

The number of independent and interdependent freight actors (firms), the complex supply chain structures among them, and the sensitivity of shipment data are but a few reasons why modeling freight traffic is lagging its public and private transit counterparts. In this paper we used an agent-based approach to reconstruct commercial activity chains, and simulated them—along with private vehicles— for a large-scale scenario in Gauteng, South Africa. The simulated activities are compared to the actual observed activities of 5196 vehicles that were inferred from GPS logs covering approximately six months. The results show that the activity chains reconstructed are both spatially and temporally accurate, especially in areas of high activity density. With freight vehicles being a major contributor to traffic congestion and emissions, our contribution is significant in bridging the gap between the person and commercial transport modeling state-of-the-art.