4.4.3 Level of Effort
Level of effort refers to the duration necessary for model development and application. Level of effort is critical to understand for all projects and particularly for projects with set letting schedules. If constrained by time limits, PS&E projects may select Planning-stage or Preliminary Schematics-stage analysis tools. FHWA’s
Guidance on the Stage of Effort Required to Conduct Traffic Analysis Using Microsimulation
presents estimates of typical microsimulation (microscopic) traffic analysis projects based on the project size. shows estimated level of effort in terms of a range of percentages by task for microsimulation (microscopic) projects based on the FHWA guidance. For small- and medium-sized projects, level of effort is similar across different tasks, as the modeling complexity is still comparable. For large models, calibration efforts need extensive data collection. Although it could seem that effort is lower for developing and calibrating the base model and performing alternatives analysis, the small difference in percentages could represent hundreds of hours of effort. For example, a small project that has a duration of six months will need approximately 15 days of data collection efforts.
Task | Project Size | ||
|---|---|---|---|
Small | Medium | Large | |
Data Collection | 5-10% | 5-10% | 15-20% |
Base Model Development and Calibration | 25-30% | 30-35% | 25-30% |
Alternatives Analysis | 50-55% | 45-50% | 25-30% |
Documentation/Presentations | 5-10% | 5-10% | 15-20% |
Project Management | 5-10% | 5-10% | 10-15% |