Strong Concepts InfoQueue
 
Volume 8, Number 1 February,1996

New Courses Feature TEAPAC

Next month Strong Concepts and the University of Central Florida will conduct a new professional development course entitled "Timing Traffic Signals Using TEAPAC, PASSER, TRANSYT and NETSIM." This course updates previous course offerings with a focus on specific solutions to signal timing and simulation problems from isolated intersections and arterials to diamond interchanges and grid systems. Hands-on work problems using the software mentioned will provide the user with real experience applying these solutions using the only software system that integrates all of these programs into a single system of software. The TEAPAC programs used will include SIGNAL94, NOSTOP, PREPASSR, PRETRANSYT and PRENETSIM. This three-day course will be followed immediately by the two-day course "Advanced TEAPAC Application Techniques" which provides hands-on exercises for multi-file, multi-scenario analyses, batch analyses and complex multi-program integration using TEAPAC and the above programs.

The new course will be held in Orlando, Florida the week of March 11, 1996. Call Strong Concepts at (847) 564-0386 for more course information, or the University of Central Florida at (407) 823-6110 for registration information. Call now, as this course fills up quickly and enrollment is limited.

Similar agendas are also addressed at the upcoming "Microcomputers Applications in Signal Timing" course offered at the Northwestern University Traffic Institute May 6-9. For details, call Strong Concepts, or call the Institute at (847) 491-5040 or (800) 323-4011.

Dennis Strong Chairs HCM Signalized Intersection Committee

At the January meeting of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) in Washington, D.C., Dennis Strong of Strong Concepts was appointed to lead the Signalized Intersection Subcommittee of TRB's Committee on Highway Capacity and Quality of Service (HCQS). The HCQS Committee is responsible for the preparation and publication of the Highway Capacity Manual (HCM). Dennis has been very active in the Committee's activities in recent years, and was a major contributor to the 1994 update of the HCM Chapter 9 on Signalized Intersections. Dennis takes over the chairman-ship from Ken Courage who will continue to serve the HCQS Committee as the coordinator for interrupted flow chapters.

Mr. Strong says, "It is a priviledge to serve HCQS in this capacity. The immediate agenda for the signalized subcommittee will be the preparation of materials for a 1997 update to Chapter 9 which will include improvements in the treatment of actuated signals as well as other enhancements. Then work will begin in earnest on the HCM2000 agenda." Congratulations to Dennis!

ITE Delegates Win Free TEAPAC Software

Three delegates at the Annual Meeting of ITE in Denver received an unexpected benefit from the conference - they won a free, fully-licensed copy of their pick of TEAPAC software at a drawing at the Strong Concepts exhibit booth. The winners were the Iowa Department of Transportation, HNTB Corporation and Transportation Management Solutions. One selected our NOSTOP program which produces arterial bandwidth progression with time-space diagrams using very simple inputs. Another selected PREPASSR to ease the burden of inputs to PASSER-II, and the last is expected to select SIGNAL94 to produce optimized capacity analyses following the methods of the 1994 HCM. SIGNAL94 optimizes both signal timings and phasings and can share its inputs and results with PREPASSR, as well as with PRETRANSYT and PRENETSIM.

It was good to see so many TEAPAC users at the meeting and great to see how many potential users were interested in TEAPAC. Hopefully everyone got to see the unique power and flexibility offered by TEAPAC. Sorry you couldn't all be winners, but look for the same kind of drawing in September at the next Annual Meeting in Minneapolis.

HCS Signals 2.4 Users Beware!

With the help of SIGNAL94, many bugs have been found in the initial release of the HCS 2.4 module for signalized intersectiions, and in some cases bugs that cause significantly wrong answers. Many of these problems have been fixed in a "patch" available from the McTrans bulletin board (McLink at 904/392-3225). This information has not been widely distributed, however, resulting in 9 out of 10 users still using the original version with all the bugs!

Users of this version of HCS are urged to get the latest update from McTrans so they get the best possible results from HCS. Patch 2.1a/2.4a is the only one which affects the Signals module, but other patches (2.1b and 2.1c) are also available to fix other modules of HCS. None of these problems exist in SIGNAL94.

If you have any questions about these problems or patches, call McTrans at (904) 392-0378 or call Strong Concepts. We'll provide a list of known errata in the original release of HCS Signals 2.4 upon request. As part of our commitment to the TRB HCQS Committee, we're also interested in other analytical problems users may have with the Signals module (2.4a) so HCQS can make HCS as accurate as possible.


Strong Concepts
15 Timber Lane
Northbrook, Illinois U.S.A. 60062-3715
(847) 564-0386


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this page last updated September 22, 1998