MULTITUDE

Simulation models have, over the last decade, become an important tool in transportation science and engineering, however there are still many issues which cause difficulties and confusion and are restricting their use and uptake. These issues were addressed by the MULTITUDE project (COST Action TU0903), funded by the European Union COST Programme over the period 2009 to 2013, which developed, tested and promoted the use of methods and procedures for the calibration and validation of traffic simulation models.

The project examined issues such as data availability and quality, as well as the relationship between data accuracy and calibration, as well as developing and testing methodologies suitable for calibration and validation of deterministic as well as stochastic models. Major accomplishments were the definition of a general framework for the management of uncertainty in traffic simulation, the development and application of Global Sensitivity Analysis techniques to traffic simulation, the building of a new simulation platform to benchmark dynamic origin-destination (OD) estimation and prediction algorithms, and the development of a new methodology to reconstruct trajectory data from noisy measurements, applied to NGSIM I80-1 dataset.

While the Action has now concluded, the project results will continue to be available here, and many of the Action participants will continue to work in this area under the MULTITUDE banner to further the topic, most notably in the organisation of conferences and summer schools.