Week 7: Running into a Problem

This week, I finally heard back from Fairfax County DOT after submitting a more specific FOIA request. The good news is they have the Seven Corners files and are willing to share them. The bad news is they’re all in VISSIM format, not Synchro. I’ve been learning Synchro through my work on the BASIS intersection, so switching to completely different software at this point is a major setback. Not to mention, during my meetings with my advisors, they both agreed that VISSIM would be much more complicated and technical to learn in such a short time.

I’m planning to reach out to Dr. Du at HNTB to see if he has any suggestions or can help me figure out the best path forward. However, I don’t think learning an entirely new software is realistic, especially because I’d have to reach out and try to obtain a demo license again. I’m wondering if I should go back to focusing on the BASIS intersection analysis I’ve already started, or find some middle ground. I have a lot of other work coming up and limited time to figure this out, so I need to make a decision soon about what’s actually feasible to complete by May.