School Surrounding Region Traffic Commuting Analysis Based on Simulation

Student commuting is an important part of urban travel demand and private car commuting plays an important role in urban traffic, especially in areas near schools. Since parents, especially the parents of elementary and junior high school students, prefer to drive rather than take public transport, there will be a negative effect on traffic management. To address the challenge, a simulation model is established based on schools’ surrounding regions to analyze traffic status. Specifically, the model focuses on urban construction and transportation near the entrance of schools and neighborhoods. In addition, four variable parameters consisting of the directional hourly volume, the parking demand of delivery vehicles, the distance between the school and intersection, and the average parking time for pick-up vehicles are set as influence factors, while traffic efficiency, energy consumption, and pollutant emissions are considered as the evaluation criteria of our model. Extensive simulated experiments show that comparing different scenarios, the traffic state of schools’ surrounding areas can achieve much better performance when the distance between entrances and intersections is 400 m under the 1000 pcu/h condition. This research can provide a scientific basis for school regional traffic management and organization optimization.