What's New in version 6.0
The following things have changed since version
5.0 of TS/PP-Draft.
Trip Log Analysis and Travel Time &
Delay Reports
- Create Speed vs. Distance or Time vs.
Distance plots from Trip Logs with the click of a button.
The speed plots can include the average link speed,
average instantaneous speed, and design speed. The time
plots can include the corresponding travel time averages.
- Trip Logs now have properties, including a
"type" (Before, After, or Neither) and a color.
This improves
- The Travel Time & Delay Reports,
which now summarize the average of all trip logs,
based on type, and include an average Before &
After difference.
- The arterial diagram, which now shows
trip log trajectories in a color based on the trip
log's type, but you may override a trip log's color.
- A filter of Trip Logs allows removing
"bad" points, according your criteria. Or you
may override the filter and manually delete a spurious
point from a Trip Log, after confirmation, by Alt+right-clicking
on a trajectory point on diagram, trip log plot, or
Network View.
- You may now zoom in the Network View. This
allows easier identification and deletion of "bad"
trip logs points.
- Extra numbers in the Travel Time &
Delay Report include time spent traveling below user-specified
speeds, and the corresponding "free-flow" times
(time spent traveling above the specified speeds).
- You may view the "extent" of the intersections on the Network View and observe whether a specified trip log really passes through an intersection. This makes it easier to diagnose problems in generating Travel Time & Delay Reports or trip log plots.
- Wherever a list of trip logs is presented
(for travel distance, travel time, average speed,
inclusion in plot or report),
- You may sort the list by clicking on
the various column headers, and
- You may use Shift or Ctrl to select a
range of trip logs and apply an action (checking or
unchecking) to the selected range.
GPS Data Collection
- Use voice command recognition to control
the GPS data collection while driving. This saves you
from needing a passenger while collecting geographic
coordinates of the intersections. (See Notes below).
- A new GPS receiver type supported: Garmin
Proprietary. This type allows
- Higher resolution -- collect trip logs
at a rate of 1 second between readings, instead 2
seconds, and
- Option to download pre-recorded trip
logs or waypoints from a Garmin GPS receiver.
- The intersection geographic coordinates
may be imported or exported (see Notes below). This
allows you to
- View them in mapping software to
verify their accuracy, or
- Specify them in mapping software then
import into TS/PP-Draft.
- If you've imported UTDF files and need the
intersection geographic coordinates, you may calculate
them by extrapolating from the x-y grid coordinates
Synchro exports.
- TS/PP-Draft now supports the serial-to-USB
adaptors, so RS-232 GPS receivers can be plugged into the
USB port.
Diagram Improvements
- For arteries with many intersections that
become crowded in the arterial diagrams and the trip log
plots, there is now easy zooming by left-dragging to
select a group of intersections. When zoomed in, think of
the diagram or plot as spanning multiple "pages."
Page Up & Page Down jump to the next page. The Print
dialog allows you to select more than one page.
- Integrates with TEAPAC via PRETSPPD, both
from Strong Concepts.
- A new diagram type, Time-Location, is now
available, in addition to the Time-Space or Platoon-Progression
diagrams. In these, distance is "compressed,"
and the signal offset of each ring is shifted by the
travel time in the corresponding direction of travel to
make the bands horizontal.
- Optimization and offset fine tuning tools
are now included. The optimization uses the "half-cycle
multiples" method. The familiar tools for quick and
easy "manual optimization" are still the main
focus of the program, as many users prefer to manually
fine tune the timings or perform the entire optimization
by hand.
- The signal timings reports may now be
saved as files -- .pdf, .html, .rtf, or .txt.
- Diagrams may be through networks with
turning arteries and triangular blocks by overriding the
arterial Forward Direction at any intersection.
- Diagram Annotations may now have a
transparent background.
- You may specify the downstream saturation
flow baseline for Platoon-Progression diagrams.
- You may overlay the "traditional,"
all-clipped band over any type of diagram.
- When you change the number of through
lanes or the green band action, TS/PP-Draft offers to
apply the change to all downstream intersections.
- You may show the various band widths
directly on diagram.
Miscellaneous
- Makes various minor improvements. For
example, the warnings about the splits not summing to the
cycle length are reduced. By default, TS/PP-Draft allows
one ring to be less than the cycle length. You may still
choose the stricter test of both rings summing to the
cycle length.
You may order online.
Notes on Compatibility:
Speech Recognition Engine: TS/PP-Draft
uses SAPI 5 (Speech Application Programming Interface version 5)
to interact with the speech recognition engine. Various
incarnations of MS Office XP include Speech Tools by default,
which has an SAPI 5 compatible speech recognition engine. Speech
Tools is accessible from the Control Panel. See the operating
system's online help for more details on installing and using the
Speech Tools. If you don't already have one, the TS/PP-Draft 6.0
installation CD also includes Microsoft's free SAPI 5 speech
recognition engine. This engine is a bit too large to include in
the downloadable version of TS/PP-Draft, but if you ask me, I'll email it to you.
Mapping Software: You can
import and, in some cases, export the geographic coordinates of
the intersection into mapping software. The coordinates appear on
the map as push pins or bubble labels. For exporting coordinates,
you create the pushpins in the mapping software and label them.
Although I'm sure there are other mapping programs out there,
I've tried only two:
- Microsoft
Streets & Trips -- This one
tends to have considerably more accurate maps than the
DeLorme product, but the 2002 version can only import the
intersection coordinates; it can't export. One user has
reported that other versions (2003, and 2000) are
similarly restricted, and the 2000 version could export,
but only in a proprietary file format. Also, connecting
the GPS receiver to perform live navigation is not
practical, as the software accepts a GPS reading only
once every 15 or 16 seconds.
- DeLorme
Street Atlas -- This one can
both import and export the intersection geographic
coordinates. When you create points for exporting
coordinates, be sure to include the intersection ID
Number in the label (if there's more than one number in
the label, let the ID Number be the first). This way, TS/PP-Draft
will be able to import the geographic coordinates. I
found the user interface for importing and exporting to
be pretty non-intuitive -- it was difficult to figure out
how to do it at first. The live navigation with a GPS
receiver works well, but the maps tend to be considerably
less accurate than the Microsoft product.
GPS Receiver: Compatible GPS
receivers include
- any receiver that complies with the NMEA (National Marine
Electronics Association) 0183
Standard, and
- the (serial cable version or the USB
version of the) Earthmate from DeLorme (available for around $125). DeLorme has a
USB version of the Earthmate. One can download "COM Port
Emulation Drivers for the USB Earthmate GPS Receiver" from the
DeLorme web site that should allow it to operate with TS/PP-Draft,
but I haven't verified this yet. If you don't have a USB port,
DeLorme also sells a serial interface cable, but I suspect that
any serial to USB adaptor will work just as well.
The majority of GPS receivers comply with the
NMEA 0183 Standard. TS/PP-Draft has been tested with GPS
receivers from Magellan,
Garmin, and
Pharos, and
they all work great for the most part. See my recommendations for
GPS receivers for more information.