Environmental-Sensitive Generation of Street Networks for Traffic Simulations

Traffic simulations aim to reveal the bottlenecks in street networks in order to find ways to improve the network structure in terms of traffic density or occupancy rates. Simulating traffic on real-world road networks is one possibility to expose weaknesses in existing network structures, however it´s not always the real-world road networks which are of interest to traffic planners. Virtual road networks have gained importance since they allow to create scenarios which are not easily re-adjustable in the real world. We provide a mechanism to generate such virtual road networks in order to investigate how e.g. different road patterns affect the development of traffic congestions or traffic behavior in general. We use an environmental-sensitive Linden Mayer System for the generation of virtual road networks which allows us to actively interfere the network generation process by changing the system´s environment. Our system automatically detects illegal areas within the environment such as forestal areas or river courses and adjusts the structure of the generated road network so that it fits into the environment.