Design and Benefit Analysis of Distributed Parallel Simulation of Microscopic Traffic System

Abstract

The design of distributed parallel simulation structure and algorithm according to parallel characteristics of traffic network simulation are presented. PVM (Parallel Virtual Machine) serves as parallel computing platform. It puts forwards network-partition algorithm based on number of vehicles and communication means of synchronization to realize load balancing. Parallel benefits of simulation algorithm are assessed by four measures including program run time, speedup, parallel efficiency and expandability. With parallel algorithm, traffic network that is made of 24 intersections is modeled based on different numbers of processors. The results from the simulation demonstrate that simulation speed increases by 3.5 times. Hence, parallel simulation algorithm improves speed and efficiency of traffic network simulation. It provides a foundation for larger scale traffic network simulation.