Introducing EMME/2 Release 9

The presentation of Release 9 in this newsletter is only meant to provide a first summary of the most important new developments. For in-depth detailed technical descriptions and complete reference information, please refer to the Release Notes and the User's Manual which will be part of the Release 9 distribution.

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, the corresponding page number is indicated in brackets.

Let's start with the enhancements added in Release 9 with regard to editing and display of networks:

• The base network batch input in module 2.11 now supports two-way link operations.
• Errors in the graphic base network editor in module 2.12 are no longer just indicated by cryptic error numbers, but are now accompanied by easily understandable plain text messages on the left hand margin. Once the messages have filled the left margin, it will be erased automatically and no longer overflow into the network plot area.
• An new attribute table editing mode has been added to the base network editor in module 2.12. It allows direct editing of node and link attributes, including the values of extra attributes.
• A new option for displaying multi-layer link plots has been added to module 2.13.
• Module 2.21 has been enhanced to allow modify operations on transit line header data using batch entry. In addition, wild-cards (``_'')can now be used for deleting and modifying several transit lines in a single operation.
• Copying extra attributes of other scenarios into the current scenario is now supported in module 2.41.

Regarding matrix operations and computations, the following new features have been added:

• Module 3.14 now supports the listing of several matrices using zone group aggregation.
• The minimum/maximum value summary displayed in the report of the matrix calculator module 3.21 now also contains the origin and or destination for which the min./max. values were found.
• Several enhancements have been made to the 2- and 3-dimensional balancing in module 3.22: Non-matching constraint totals can be corrected by automatic constraint scaling. The third dimension coefficients can optionally be saved into macro g-registers. If the balancing report is sent to the print file, a progress report on the balancing iterations is displayed on the screen.

Release 9 also includes important developments regarding the auto assignment and the display of the corresponding results:

• In the additional options auto assignment, the specification of an optional additional turn attribute is now possible. This allows the path attribute, and with it the path selection mechanism, to use turn information as well as link information in the computations.
• New extra function parameters have been added to volume-delay and turn penalty functions. During the assignment preparation these can be associated with any of the available user data or extra attributes for links and turns, respectively.
• Module 6.11 has been overhauled to follow the developments made in module 6.12 in Release 8: The additional volumes are no longer presumed to always be added to the auto volumes, but can now also be considered to be a part of the latter or completely independent. In addition, new report options allow the listing of class specific link and turn volumes.
• The multi-layer volume plots in module 6.12 have been enhanced to allow combining of several classes into a single layer, using sums and differences. Furthermore, auto and additional volumes can now also be accessed to define the contents of a layer.
• The results of interactive shortest path computations in module 6.15 can now optionally be saved in the form of a transcript file.

The following main developments have been made regarding the transit assignment:

• Link specific auxiliary transit times are now supported.
• Segment specific effective headways can now be used in the transit assignment.
• The computation of the first waiting times has been added to module 5.35.
• The new Deterministic Transit Assignment was already described in detail in the last issue of EMME/2 News.

Finally, the new release contains many improvements which are not module specific, but concern the EMME/2 system as a whole:

• The name of the batch input file appears in the page header of all batch input reports.
• The cryptic error numbers in batch input reports have been replaced by plain text error messages in all applicable modules.
• A new windowing command ``0'' is now available. It allows a user to return directly to the initial window, regardless of the number of times the window has been changed.
• For all questions asking the user to enter a scenario number, a help feature has been added. This can be used to list all available scenarios or display details of one specific scenario.
• In order to convince even the most sceptical user that EMME/2 is year 2000 compliant, a new alternate date format has been added which explicitly displays the 4-digit year number.
• The computation of invalid operation results (NaN) during expressions and function evaluations is now detected in a systematic manner.
• Cost and energy unit text can now be up to 4 characters long.
• Finally, once again the EMME/2 macro command language has been enhanced and improved and new macro commands have been added.