C2M2 Distinguished Speaker – Dr. Laurence R. Rilett

The Center for Connected Multimodal Mobility (C2M2) would like to thank Dr. Laurence R. Rilett, Keith W. Klaasmeyer Chair in Engineering and Technology, University of Nebraska, for taking part in our Distinguished Speaker Series on February 12, 2021.

Seminar Title

Estimating and Forecasting Transportation Metrics:  Lessons Learned

Seminar Abstract

Transportation planners and engineers have recently begun to utilize traffic simulation models to estimate and forecast transportation operations and reliability metrics.   For example, the Highway Capacity Manual, Sixth Edition: A Guide for Multimodal Mobility Analysis (HCM-6) has recently defined capacity and passenger car equivalents based on output from the microsimulation model VISSIM.   In addition, the new HCM-6 urban arterial reliability estimation method is based on a Monte Carlos simulation technique.  The advantage to simulation methods is that the metrics, which may be based on measures of central tendency (e.g. mean, median), measures of dispersion (variance, percentile), or even a combination of other metrics (e.g. travel time index), may be easily calculated and/or estimated.  As one example, many researchers over the past decade have focused on developing and estimating metrics related to network reliability and resilience.  However, it is an open research question on (1) when and where these simulation approaches are appropriate to use and (2) how useful these new metrics are to the transportation profession. This talk will focus on a number of issues related to using simulation for estimating transportation metrics with a focus on model assumptions and model calibration.  Specific examples from real-world testbeds will be provided.  In addition, the success in using reliability metrics to quantify the effects of the COVID 19 pandemic will be discussed.  Lastly, the seminar will provide an overview of lessons learned and areas of future research.

Speaker Bio

Dr. Laurence R. Rilett, Distinguished Professor of Civil Engineering and the inaugural holder of the Keith W. Klaasmeyer Chair in Engineering and Technology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL), is Director of both the UNL Mid-America Transportation Center (MATC) and the Nebraska Transportation Center (NTC). Rilett’s research is in the fields of Intelligent Transportation Systems applications and large-scale transportation system modeling. Rilett has been a principal investigator or co-principal investigator on more than 40 research projects has authored over 90 refereed journal papers.  He is currently the Managing Editor of the ASCE Journal of Transportation Engineering – Part A and the Vice-President of the Council of University Transportation Centers for 2020-2021.