9.7.4 Overlay tools You can also show cones highlighting the connections between links.
Use the Value Comparison Tool to show blue highlighting on each link or TS, where the depth of shading indicates the relative value of a chosen data field. By default, the data field is set to Total Flow, so the deepest blues show the heaviest flows. You can control the difference between the smallest and largest values via the NetCon options screen.
You can show visualisations of any other data item by switching on this mode and then clicking on any data field in the Data Editor or a Data Grid screen. As long as the data field is numerical, NetCon will attempt to colour the blue overlay boxes according to the relative value of this data field for each link or TS. In the example below, the value comparison tool is showing the relative values of Stop Weighting for each link, and it is immediately obvious that the user has entered a high (or non-zero) stop weighting for 4 links.
Select Flow Consistency to highlight any problems with flow consistency. Red or amber links/sources indicate that there may be an inconsistency with the flows at these locations. See section 11.2 for more details.
Select Errors and Warnings to highlight in red/amber/green/grey any warnings, errors or information tasks for each link, source and node. These correspond to the messages shown in the Task List screen. In the screenshot below, the user has accidentally deleted the controller stream; all the traffic streams which were controlled by this controller stream are then in an error state, as indicated by the red colouring. The Task List will then show full details of the problems.
NB
you can change the colours used from the default reds and greens via
the User Preferences screen.
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Select
Traffic Model Type to show the 'active' selected traffic model type
for each link and traffic stream. It is always the model type that is
going to be used by TRANSYT that is shown, irrespective of the
locally defined value, i.e. the 'active' model type. The 'active'
model type is not necessarily the same as that selected for a
specific link or traffic stream, since the network-wide options to
force TRANSYT to use a particular traffic model may have been
selected.
The colour coding used is as follows:
Aquamarine - Platoon dispersion model (PDM)
Pale Yellow - Congested PDM (CPDM)
Blue - Cell Transmission Model (CTM)
White - Quick PDM
9.7.5
Highlighting bus/tram/pedestrian links
Use
this tool to fade out all links in the network other than the
selected link type. In this way you can easily see where the
bus/tram/pedestrian links and traffic streams are, as in the
screenshot below, where Highlight Bus Links has been chosen. To
restore normal appearance, select Turn off Highlighting.
9.7.6 Showing link lengths> queues, flows and CTM data "
A variety of tools are available via this menu for the visualisation of link and traffic stream lengths, queues and CTM data. To show queues, you must have run the file at least once, and
PDM and/or CTM data must be available. Use the Summary Results screen to check the status of this run data. If no data is available, you can still select the options, but no queues/animation will be visible.
Note
that you can scale the relative width of all queue and animation bars
via the NetCon Options screen.
Link/Traffic Stream Length Display "
In this mode yellow bars are displayed on each link and traffic stream, the lengths corresponding to their actual lengths. The scaling is based on that of the scale ruler. Use this display mode if you wish to position the network to reflect real relative lengths of link and traffic stream.
In the screenshot below, all the links are 100m long. Link 10 has been stretched to be longer than its real length so the yellow bars stop short of the ends of the link, and finishes with a dotted extension line. Link x11 is too short, - indicated by the yellow bar showing a thicker section at one end. When the links are positioned correctly, the lengths of the yellow bars will exactly fit the links, as in the case of Link 11.
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Scale
Ruler (and changing the scale of your network)
The default scale is 5
When not using any background image the current scale is unimportant, but when an image IS used, it may be desirable or necessary to change the scale of the diagram to match that of the background image. In order to do this simply add your background image to NetCon, line the scale ruler up with an item on the background of a known length (e.g. image scale, building, etc.) and right-click on the ruler. This will bring up the only option "Adjust Scale". Click this and enter the length of the background item. This changes the NetCon scale to that of the background.
Once your network is adapted to fit your diagram, the Link Lengths view can be used to quickly check to see if you've forgotten to enter any of your link (or TS) lengths.
Mean
Max Queues (MMQ)
In this mode orange bars are overlaid on each link or TS to indicate the mean max queue. The queue is shown as a proportion of the link or TS length based on the maximum queue storage, e.g. half the length will be orange if the queue is 5 and the maximum queue storage is 10. If the user specifies their own maximum queue storage, this will be reflected in the proportion of the link or TS that is orange. Queues are never drawn longer than the maximum queue storage - instead, a black bar is drawn at the end of the queue to indicate that the queue is longer than drawn.
The
mean maximum queue is only an approximate average of the maximum back
of queue that is likely to be encountered, and it will therefore be
exceeded a significant amount of the time.
Uniform
Queues (PDM)
In this mode red and green bars are used to show the uniform component of the queue on each PDM link (or TS). The queues are shown at the moment in the cycle time as set in the Animation Controls screen, so you can animate the queues by starting animation via this screen. It may also be useful to show signal states at the same, as in the screenshot below.
The red bars on each link or TS represent stationary queues, which will tend to build up when the signal at the stop line is showing red. When the signal changes to green, the position of the stationary queue moves upstream as traffic at the stop line begins to leave the queue. The green part of the bar can therefore be thought of as representing moving traffic. In other words, the red bars show where the front and back of queue are located.
The PDM uniform queue animation exactly matches the data shown in PDM Queue Graphs.
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9.7.6.5
PDM Cell Flows
This mode (activated using the PDM/CTM Cell Flows option) shows the flow rate along every link (or TS) for the current point in the cycle time, as set via the Animation Controls screen.
The link or stream is split into a number sections - N.B. the PDM model does not have 'cells' as the CTM has. One obvious difference between this animation and that of CTM cells is that you are likely to spot traffic disappearing at the stop line rather than joining the back of a queue. This is a simply a reflection of how the PDM works - i.e. traffic queueing vertically at the stop line.
The width of each cyan block is proportional to the flow at that point along the link. (Control the width scaling of the blocks via the NetCon Options screen.) Larger blocks show where the highest flows occur at the current point in the cycle. They will be largest on links and traffic
streams with the highest flows, and at times where these are discharging the maximum amount of traffic, e.g. when a queue begins to dissipate.
Despite the rather 'unrealistic' nature of this output, it can assist in the interpretation of traffic flow through complex junctions and larger networks.
Uniform Queues (CTM) “J
For CTM links (or TS), this mode shows CTM average queues using yellow blocks which can be animated via the Animation Controls screen. These represent a summation of any queues that occur throughout the link or TS.
Note that the PDM queue bars show both the length and the front and back of queues for PDM links or TS, while the CTM queue bars represent only the length of queues (always shown at the stop line of each link or TS), not the location of the front and back of queues. You can see the information on position of queues by using the CTM Cell Queues option.