TSiNaHa, for “Traffic Simulator dedicated for NAtural HAzards”, is a Matlab-based© dynamic risk micro-simulator to assess natural hazards risk along roads.
Risk generated by natural hazards on roads is usually calculated with equations integrating various parameters related to hazard and traffic. These are static variables, like a rockfall hazard estimation for a road section or the average number of vehicles crossing this section every day. This methodology cannot take into account dynamic variations of traffic and interactions between vehicles such as speed modifications due to windy roads, slowdowns resulting from saturated traffic or vehicle tailbacks forming in front of traffic lights.
The TSiNaHa dynamic traffic simulator calculates the risk with a dynamic approach using dynamic traffic paramters. The simulator shows that the traffic variations may greatly influence the risk estimation over time. It demonstrates that risk significantly increases on sinuous sections because of the vehicles decreasing speed. Thus, a more realistic risk can be obtained from a dynamic approach especially on mountain roads. A dynamic traffic simulator, modelling interactions between vehicles is a helpful tool to support decision making to reduce risk on roads.
The developed software is written in the Matlab language and includes a graphic user interface (GUI) who allows the user to easily create a studied road section and to run the simulations. 60 parameters can be defined about various thematic such vehicles kinematic, speed and visibility, traffic data or natural hazards characteristics to calibrate the simulations.