Keywords
Dunkettle Interchange, SUMO

Technologies
SUMO, Python

Dunkettle Interchange in Cork City is one of the country's most busy road networks. It has recently had a large redesign which opened in February 2024 with the aim to reduce traffic congestion and improve safety. Despite an over €200 million investment in the redesign, delays and queuing still occur during peak hours. This project aims to analyse Dunkettle Interchange using SUMO traffic simulator and find the causes of the congestion.

A model of the interchange was developed based on real world road geometry and hourly traffic data from Transport Infrastructure Ireland. Python tools were created to distribute traffic demand and flows across the network. Dynamic routing techniques were used to allow vehicles to find the best path in changing traffic conditions.

So far, the model can visually suggest important areas that could cause the delays at Dunkettle, such as driver behaviour, road capacity and road merges. The next steps are to implement traffic measuring strategies to verify and prove using measured values and definitions, what is causing congestion, where the sources are and how busy the interchange must be for a traffic breakdown to occur.