Skip to main content

Introducing rubber-banding for transport planning

Software and consulting group PTV has launched a new version of its transport planning software, Visum 14, with major new functionality, including what the company calls ‘rubber-banding’, which enables users to realistically model spontaneous detours. "With rubber-banding, starting point and main activity as well as intermediate stops are connected with, metaphorically speaking, a rubber band," explains Dr.-Ing. Johannes Schlaich, director of PTV Visum Product Management and Services. "The stronger the r
August 19, 2014 Read time: 2 mins

Software and consulting group 3264 PTV has launched a new version of its transport planning software, Visum 14, with major new functionality, including what the company calls ‘rubber-banding’, which enables users to realistically model spontaneous detours.

"With rubber-banding, starting point and main activity as well as intermediate stops are connected with, metaphorically speaking, a rubber band," explains Dr.-Ing. Johannes Schlaich, director of PTV Visum Product Management and Services. "The stronger the rubber band, the more likely it is for example, that the shops in the activity chain Home-Work-Shopping-Home are situated on the route between home and work."

Other features include distributed computing which allows users to distribute scenarios across multiple computers in order to calculate them in parallel with one another. PTV Visum 14 makes it possible to use distributed computing outside the scenario management. Selected procedures such as private and public transport assignments and Visum calculations of different demand strata can now be calculated on different computers in parallel. Once completed, the results from the different computation nodes are automatically merged.

PTV Visum 14's public transport (PuT) timetable editor has been completely updated and now includes several requested functions, such as the ability to freely edit the stop sequence using a graphical editor. In addition, the new incremental PuT-importer ensures rapid importing and updating of PuT supply from one file version to another.

"The new PuT-importer does not only allow the transfer of PuT supply completely into a street and rail network, but also replaces or supplements existing elements of an existing PuT network," explains Schlaich. "This represents a huge reduction in the modeller's workload, particularly when it comes to regular timetable updates."

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Taking virtual control of the control room
    June 9, 2020
    When you can’t meet customers face to face, it creates problems for all businesses. But Adam Hill finds that the control room tech sector has been adapting
  • Telvent relocates and takes a global stance on ITS
    March 12, 2012
    Telvent's Manuel Sanchez Ortega, on relocating the company's headquarters to the US and how that fits in the international scheme of things. The change-of-address cards are in the post; Manuel Sanchez Ortega has just moved homes. The domestic upheaval of Telvent's Chairman and Chief Executive comes as a result of the decision to relocate many of the company's headquarter functions from Madrid to Rockville, Maryland in the US. Viewed in the context of its significant recent acquisitions in North America - am
  • Can GNSS solve the tolling world’s woes?
    December 5, 2013
    Kapsch’s Arno Klamminger and Wolfgang Fleischer consider the need for an agnostic approach to technology for charging and tolling. Periodically, given the march of technology, it is worth pausing and taking stock of where we have got to and where we go next. Such reflections are necessary if we are to take full advantage of what we have at our disposal and, potentially, avoid decisions which push us down technological culs de sac. A look at the use of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS)-based technol
  • Upgrading Koblenz's traffic information system
    March 1, 2013
    David Crawford reviews an award-winning scheme that delivered a 30% increase in website usage – below budget The German Federal Agricul­tural Show (Bundesgarten­schau, BUGA) runs between mid-April and mid-October every other year in a differ­ent city. The most recent, 2011, edition took place in Koblenz, a medium-sized community with a population of just over 105,000 in the Rheinland-Pfalz region, and was expected to draw an additional 40,000 visitors a day to its central area. Traffic access from the moto