Skip to main content

Aimsun updates Next modelling software 

Aimsun continues to tweak models for bikes with new and reactive instructions
By Ben Spencer September 17, 2021 Read time: 2 mins
Aimsun Next 22 is expected to make it easier to work with traffic demand and transit assignments (image credit: Aimsun)

Aimsun has released new modelling software with features that enhance sustainable mobility with a focus on enabling multi-modal models for cities and highways. 

The modelling capabilities also cover new technologies such as electric vehicles, along with enhancements for simulating pedestrians, cyclists and users of public transportation.

Paolo Rinelli, global head of product management at Aimsun, says: “When the pandemic radically reduced our mobility, it gave everyone a taste of how urban public space might be better used for living rather than driving and parking private vehicles. Aimsun Next 22 is the ideal platform for studying the impact of projects aimed at sustainable mobility, from promoting the use of public transport to creating bike lanes or encouraging electric motors over combustion engines.”

The company has streamlined its models for vehicle engine types and sustainability awareness to work together across the emissions models: quartet, panis et al and a London emission model plus the fuel consumption and battery consumption models. 

Aimsun points out that transit systems and non-motorised vehicles are playing a more crucial role as a result of climate concerns and pandemic-related factors. 

In response to this, the firm has introduced new flexible traffic management strategies for transit-route detours, and continues to tweak its models for bikes and non-motorised vehicles with new 'keep to the left' or 'keep to the right' instructions, for more realistic behaviour.

Aimsun Next 22 is expected to make it easier to work with traffic demand, transit assignments, splitting and joining zones, creating more accurate ‘warm-up’ traffic states and presenting a wider range of customisable analytical outputs.

“Modelling at an appropriate scale, from a single junction to a regional road network, has always been at the heart of what Aimsun Next is able to do with integrated macro, meso, and micro models,” Rinelli continues. 

“The design of the latest version of Aimsun Next is just a part of the same philosophy: with its inherent flexibility, it has smoothly adapted to the need for cohesive, environmentally-conscious planning and operations at any scale.”
 

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • PTV and Bosch set out to improve air quality 
    March 24, 2021
    Precise emissions data from Bosch to be available in traffic simulation software PTV Vissim 
  • HDR predicts an adaptable and flexible future for roadways
    December 19, 2016
    HDR consultants, Brian Swindell and Bernie Arseanea, consider managed lanes’ untapped potential. It is no surprise that corridor planning continues to challenge agencies and owners as demand continues to surpass roadway capacity.
  • Time for a rethink on road user charging
    February 1, 2012
    There is no value in further US VMT charging trials, except to delay the inevitable. These trials should end after completion of the University of Iowa's National Evaluation of a Mileage-based Road User Charge. There is far greater promise in unleashing private operators to commence profitable, non-tolling services, then using these for toll assessment and collection as fuel distributors are currently used to collect fuel taxation. Bern Grush writes
  • Making cars safer for vulnerable road users
    June 2, 2016
    Richard Cuerden considers measures to improve the safety of vulnerable road users. The competitive nature of the car market has seen an increase in protection for those travelling inside the vehicle and this is reflected in the casualty statistics -but the same does not apply to those outside the vehicle. And with current societal trends such as ageing populations, an increasing number of pedestrians and cyclists encouraged by environmental policies, this is an area that authorities such as the European Uni