A micro simulation approach for a sustainable reduction traffic jam

Public transport represents an important traffic flow in many countries and urban traffic management has to face this situation. Chile is not an exception, particularly in the case of the most populated cities. To deal with this scenario, a simulation model has been built for a study case in a Chilean city to demonstrate how the problem can be approached. This case shows a serious conflict of public and private transport vehicles. These conflicts generate longer travel times between homes, work or study, higher vehicles operating costs and environmental impacts. The objective of the study is to propose a simulation model to produce and evaluate action plans to reduce traffic jam and the generated conflicts. The VISSIM^TM computational micro-simulation programme is used. The model simulates intersections where conflicts occur and it applies urban traffic management for an efficient use of roads. This computational micro-simulator uses a vehicle tracking model and lane change model plus other models that have been incorporated into this work. For the collection of information, field data were obtained such as vehicular flows, traffic light programming, speeds and measurement of queue lengths. Two models were simulated, where the best of them manages to mitigate the congestion problem and suggests changing the traffic, programming the traffic light from 120 s to 90 s and propose the use of a type short bus tracks for public transport. This result positively influence in speeds and queues, at 14% 18% respectively. Eventhough, the developed model solves a particular case, it can be tailored to other situations.