Release 7 - Packed with New Developments

While this issue of EMME/2 NEWS is dedicated to the introduction of the new release, it is by no means meant to replace the detailed Release Notes, nor the (completely revised and beautifully reformatted!) User's Manual. The intent here is simply to summarize without too many technical details some of the more important new developments, in order to get you interested exploring these new features, dig into the technical documentation and -hopefully!- soon start using some of them in your own application.

As always, we shall start the presentation of the new release with a brief overview of the main new features and enhancements. For topics which are described in more detail in one of the following sections of this issue, note the corresponding hyperlinks.

From a data bank point of view, the new permanent turn table structure is the only change in Release 7 which implies changes in the internal structure of the data bank. As the data bank is converted automatically when Release 7 is used for the first time, no special action has to be taken by the user because of this change. The introduction of this new turn structure is a primordial prerequisite for the enhancement of the network calculator to support turn calculations.

Many enhancements were added in the assignment modules, both for transit and auto assignments, as shown by the following list:

• Generalized cost auto assignment is now supported for single and multiclass assignments.
• A new ``cutoff'' path operator is available in the additional options auto assignment. This operator can be used to solve problems in which only parts of the paths are of interest.
• The powerful concept of additional options, well known from the auto assignment, is now also available for transit assignment.
• The maximum transit segment time has been increased from 327 minutes to 3278 minutes.
• Extra attributes can now be used in the transit assignment for containing effective headways, wait time factors and boarding times.
• Some small idiosyncracies of the assignments have been corrected: In particular, the minimum turning penalty, which used to be 0.001 minutes, has been changed to 0 to avoid change in assignment results when redefining regular nodes as non-penalized intersections. Also, the rounding of the transit boarding times has been improved. Since these small corrections slightly change the assignment results, a new switch 24, ``retro-compatibility'', has been added. When switched on, these minor changes are disactivated, so that the assignment results produced with earlier releases can be reproduced. The extended scenario status information shows when an assignment has been done with the retro-compatibility switch on (or with a previous release).

A new module has been added to the system and many modules have been enhanced significantly. The following summary shows some of the more important module-related developments:

• Link mode displays in module 2.13 can now also be done by annotating the links with the corresponding mode letters.
• Extra link attributes are supported as distance measure for computing shortest paths in module 2.15.
• The matrix calculator, module 3.21, has been enhanced to allow the use of matrix names in expressions. Also, help commands of the form ?m[T][nn] can be used to display matrix directory informations during expression entry.
• A new module 3.23, ``Matrix Convolutions'', has been added to the system. It allows efficient implementation of computations involving the enumeration of intermediate zones.
• Module 6.15 has undergone a major rewrite. The following new features are now supported:
  • Paths can be generated from origins or to destinations.
  • The auto network can be superimposed on the path plot.
  • Paths can be drawn to or from a subset of zones.
  • Paths can be computed using a generalized cost function, and can be restricted to an auxiliary auto mode.
  • Isochronic path coloring is used instead of the previous simplistic coloring scheme, which was based only on the time or distance to the nearest zone. This implies that paths are now colored precisely according to the specified distance intervals.
  • An interactive query mode can be activated with the ``c'' graphic command. It allows e.g. querying distances or times, as well as changing the root zone.
• Option 6 of module 6.23 is fully implemented. It allows scenario comparisons of node activities, such as boardings, alightings and through passengers.

Release 7 also contains many enhancements which are not module specific, but which apply to all modules or module groups:

• Standard comment headers have been added to all batch output files. They contain details on what was punched when and by whom. Example:

  c EMME/2 Module: 2.01(v7.02)  Date: 93-09-24 06:44  User: E001/H.SPIESS...HS
  c Project:       EMME/2 STANDARD DEMONSTRATION AND TEST DATA BANK - WINNIPEG
  c Scenario 2000: Winnipeg Kildonan Corridor Stage 1

• The size of the link arrowheads used in network plots has been parametrized. It can be specified in module 1.23.
• Several enhancements have been made regarding function and expression evaluations:
  • A new intrinsic function nint() is available for rounding to the nearest integer.
  • The implementation of the get() intrinsic has been changed to allow recalling values from the last expression evaluation at all levels (previously, this was only possible for get(1)). This advanced feature can be used to compute and save up to 20 side result values, in parallel with the main computation.
  • If, during a module call, operand errors (such as division by zero) have been detected and reported to the errors file, a short summary is displayed on the screen before the module is left, so that the user is made aware of potential problems.
• The macro command language has been enhanced to allow nested macros. Also, a new single step debugging mode is available to allow more efficient macro development and maintenance.
• Annotation commands have been added which allow filling of regions with arbitrary hatch width, hatch direction and color.
• For MS-DOS systems, a new Control-C handler has been installed, so that hitting Control-C or Control-Break no longer aborts the entire EMME/2 run, but generates the same type of user interrupt as entering Control-Backspace.

Finally, the DOS version of EMTOOL has been enhanced for use with a wider range of graphic boards, in particular all VESA compliant 256-color SuperVGA modes are now supported.