Weaving is defined as the crossing of two or more traffic streams traveling in the same direction along a significant length of the highway without the aid of traffic control devices. The traditional methods used for the design and operational analysis of a highway is the Highway Capacity Manual (HCM). These traditional methods in the manual use road geometry and traffic volumes as input and provide an estimate of the speed as an output. TRANSIMS is a new computer simulation package in transportation that can be used as an analysis as well as a planning tool. The Microsimulator in TRANSIMS deals with the actual simulation of traffic on roadways. The intent of this research is to evaluate TRANSIMS Microsimulator and compare it with the traditional Highway Capacity Manual in modeling the weaving sections on a freeway and make recommendations. This research will also compare the modeling strategy and provide analysis of the output.

Master of Science