Why is the percentage of Total Stops sometimes reported as greater than 100%?

Random-plus-oversaturation stops represent partial stops following a phase failure, where there is not enough green time to serve the queue.  As such, individual vehicles could presumably stop multiple times (sometimes causing Total Stops% > 100%) before clearing the intersection, although these would not be considered "full stops" for the purposes of computing fuel consumption.  In order to be considered a full stop, a vehicle must transition between the cruise speed and zero speed.  TRANSYT-7F computes the fuel consumption due to random-plus-oversaturation stops differently than the fuel consumption due to uniform stops.  The model assumes that random-plus-oversaturation stops are made while vehicles are traveling at the queue speed (the one at which the queue dissipates), while uniform stops are assumed to be made from cruise speed.

What causes the following warning message: "The length of link 101 is not the same as the length of link 102".  This statement is true, but why is it a warning?

Link lengths affect the simulation of platoon dispersion.  Some users code short turn pocket storage lengths on the Edit > Traffic screen, but this could cause incorrect simulation of platoon dispersion, because platoons must travel all the way from the upstream signal to the downstream signal.  Therefore, even for turn pockets, link lengths on the Edit > Traffic screen should reflect the distance from upstream signal to downstream signal.  The best way to model turn pocket lengths (and queue spillover) is to code "Turn Bay Storage" values on the Edit > Lanes screen.

What causes “Processing Error 238”?

This error message was added to prevent cycle length optimization using the stand-alone engine (T7FWin2.exe).  A more robust methodology for cycle length optimization has been implemented externally (via T7F10.exe).  Therefore, running the engine (T7FWin2.exe) in the stand-alone mode could cause error message #238.  Another thing that has caused the fatal error message for some users are input data files that have not yet been converted into release 10 format.  To circumvent this problem, simply go to the Edit > Analysis screen within T7F10.exe, and request cycle length optimization on this screen.

After running hill-climb cycle length optimization, or genetic algorithm optimization, how can I view the detailed output statistics?

To get the full output report for the optimal timing plan, it is necessary to load and run the punch (*.pun) file that was generated by the previous optimization run.

Does the current release of TRANSYT-7F run under Windows XP?

The current release of TRANSYT-7F is a Windows-based application that functions properly under Windows 98, Windows Millennium, Windows 2000, and Windows XP.  In Windows 2000 and XP, if the user has "restricted" rights, they may not have write-access to any subdirectories under the Program Files folder.  As such, a restricted user would not be able to edit or run any sample data files directly from the Program Files > McTrans > T7F10 > Example folder.  In order to analyze and process these, restricted users would need to copy the sample data files to a folder where they have write-access, somewhere outside of the Program Files folder.

Does TRANSYT-7F report the average queue length in the output?

TRANSYT-7F reports the average or expected maximum back of queue length (including uniform queue, random queue, and residual queue).  Actual queue lengths in the field have a 50/50 chance of being higher or lower than the average queue length reported by the program.  Release 10.3 now provides 95th percentile maximum back of queues in the node summary reports.