Measurement-Driven Simulation of Complex Engineering Systems

The steadily increasing amount of traffic in the vicinity of their economical centers imposes great difficulties for most western countries. To reduce this steady increase, road pricing has proven to be an effective countermeasure. It has been introduced in different countries throughout the world, forcing people to consider alternative means of traveling. Since, for such measures to be effective, human behavior and social structures are deeply influenced, emotional political discussions have arisen. Considering the importance of such social changes as well as the complexity of techniques involved in a project like “Rekening Rijden”, the academic community, having public responsibility, should respond when asked for advice. So, the advice given was to initiate an evaluation study that would include modeling & simulation as well as extensive validation. Cooperating closely with our university, the Dutch government performed a study including all these components, resulting in a thorough overview of the reliability of the techniques, needed to build a system like “Rekening Rijden”. The university remained involved in the project until the end, developing the models & methods necessary to carry out the study. If in the future road pricing systems will be introduced, the results & analyses from this research, as well as the models & methods developed, will still be of full importance.