Institute for Transport Studies (ITS)

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Research Facilities

University of Leeds Driving Simulator

The University of Leeds Driving Simulator (UoLDS) is one of most advanced worldwide in a research environment and allows research into driver behaviour to be performed in accurately controlled and repeatable laboratory conditions.

UoLDS is a major research facility and was established in 2006 at a cost of over £1m. It provides the scope to undertake a wide variety of research, including much that would not be safe, ethical or cost effective to do on real roads. It is supported and operated by an expert team, who can tailor virtual scenarios and experimental data collection to the exact requirements of a particular investigation. Research projects include:

  • Intelligent Speed Adaptation
  • Driver distraction by in-vehicle systems
  • Speed choice and road environment
  • Driver comprehension of traffic signs
  • Advanced Driver Assistance Systems
  • Vehicle design: active bonnet system
  • Driver behaviour in narrow lanes
  • Reduction of fatigue related accidents

For full details please visit the UoLDS website.

Vehicle Emission Measurement System

The ITS Vehicle Emission Measurement System (VEMS) senses the tailpipe emissions of vehicles as they drive-through a monitoring site. The instrument scans the exhaust plume trailing a vehicle. Installed at a good test-site, the remote sensing instrument is able to characterise the on-road emission characteristics for each vehicle type, fuel and Euro standard sub-category. More details are available on the VEMS webpage.

Software

ITS has a long record of creating and developing software from research.  This is often developed for use by transport practitioners in commercial settings, but also features in ITS’ own teaching and research. The software packages include:

  • SATURN - This suite of network modelling tools is used world-wide
  • DRACULA - A traffic microsimulation model
  • PLUTO - For strategic policy testing
  • WebCOMIS - A congestion management information system
  • KonSULT - To assess the performance of policy instruments
  • MARS - A dynamic Land Use and Transport Integrated model
  • Mixed Logit - For calculation of conditional parameter estimates
This free software (Mixed Logit), developed by Dr Stephane Hess, allows users to compute conditional distributions from Mixed Logit estimates independently of the software used during model estimation. Possible distributions include Normal, Uniform, Triangular, Lognormal and Johnson SB, and the user also has the possibility to generate draws from other distributions, including multivariate ones. There are two versions of the software, one for users with an existing Matlab installation and one for users without a Matlab installation (this large download includes the required libraries). The self extracting archive also includes a paper that gives some further details on the software.

Library

Researchers at ITS have access to the University of Leeds library, one of the UK's largest research libraries, with over 2.8 million items and access to the latest on-line journals and networked databases.  The library is one of the many University research facilities.

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