There are many details to consider to ensure a smooth and well-planned transportation plan: traffic light times, traffic density, road types, and features. Traffic simulator software is the best solution for optimizing the traffic flow of your transport. In addition, it will allow you to choose the most profitable solutions for successful logistics. In this article, we will highlight the top best free traffic simulation software.
PTV Vissim – the best traffic simulator for today
PTV Vissim is the leading modal traffic simulation software. It is trusted by thousands of engineers and traffic planners around the world. But why should you try its offerings? PTV Vissim offers the following benefits:
- Modeling traffic emissions
The program will help your company comply with environmental regulations. PTV provides accurate measures of vehicle emissions during road traffic, and you can modify your strategy and plans to reduce your carbon footprint due to your activities. Evaluate all your options, such as vehicle replacement, intelligent traffic management solutions, or signal timing control.
- Different types of modeling
PTV offers micro- meso- and hybrid modeling. Using micro-simulation you can, the program provides a high level of detail of road traffic, down to pedestrians and individual vehicles. Mesoscopic modeling reduces the level of detail but, on the other hand, allows you to plan traffic in larger areas faster. Finally, hybrid modeling combines the above two types of modeling and can be invoked on demand.
- Intelligent Traffic Management
This capability allows you to know the outcome of events in advance, one way or another. Thus, with Intelligent Traffic Management, you can go through all possible traffic options before choosing the one that is more advantageous for you. This mode creates a digital model of your city’s roads and allows you to add simulations of all road users’ specific behaviors. Intelligent traffic management avoids congestion and other unpleasant surprises on the road.
Intersection Simulator – Overview
A special feature of the Intersection Simulator is that it offers histogram and statistical traffic simulation data. This free traffic simulation software allows you to simulate traffic on the road by making changes to the statistical data. This data contains Outputs and variables related to traffic. Below we’ll take a closer look at these variables and which ones you can change:
- Light – when you change the value of the traffic light, the duration of the traffic light color switching changes. The default traffic light value is 5
- Directional probability – you can change the directional possibility and thus shift the traffic density
- Density per minute – function to control the number of entering and exiting cars per minute
- Exit and entry lanes – you can set one or two routes, which will mean one row or two parallel rows
TSignals – Overview
Before you start working with TSignals, you can take a tutorial on how to use the program. When you go directly to traffic modulation, you have six options with which you can control traffic on the road:
- you need to input the time in seconds for the traffic light signal
- requires you to enter the density of traffic
- enter the time of day you want the simulation to start
- you can change the traffic density over a certain time in the database
- set a timer for each traffic light, and change the weather conditions. You can set normal, rainy, or foggy weather
- option switches off all traffic lights and the simulation stops until you are ready to start it again