Analysis of the traffic behavior of emergency vehicles in a microscopic traffic simulation

Abstract

This paper presents how emergency vehicles can be modeled and simulated in the microscopic traffic simulation SUMO (Simulation of Urban MObility). The special rights of emergency vehicles are implemented in the SUMO framework and can be switched off and on in the simulation with a blue light device. The surrounding traffic reacts accordingly to the emergency vehicle and form an emergency lane. In addition real world data from emergency vehicles are used to evaluate the driving behavior of emergency vehicles and compare it to real world and simulated vehicle characteristics. The evaluation results show that the simulated vehicles pass an intersection generally faster than in real world. For emergency vehicle a time saving of in average one second at a single intersection could be measured for right turning vehicles.