IBM soln to simulate future traffic situation

Kyoto University and IBM’s Tokyo Research Laboratory have jointly developed a system that can simulate a broad range of urban transport situations to predict what will happen if a new city infrastructure is built in the Kyoto metropolitan area.

The city infrastructure may include office building, sports arena or other major facility. The system will help improve planning of roads and public transportation.

It will address the booming traffic congestion problem by driving transport measures, like changing mass-transit to provide more trains or buses, optimising traffic lights route planning to reduce jams and other long-term solutions for the metropolitan area.

The system simulates large-scale traffic situations involving millions of vehicles and shows the impact change will have, IBM said.

The system provides current status of traffic and the alignment of roads to drivers, including current speed and positions of vehicles, the distance between cars, the curvature and gradient of road on which the specific vehicle is running.

According to IBM, city planners can use this data to model how each driver will react. In addition, by adding a variety of attributes to the model, the system can simulate traffic conditions with an eye to reducing carbon dioxide and potential accidents.

IBM’s Tokyo Research Laboratory has developed the “IBM Zonal Agent-based Simulation Environment” platform as well as the “IBM Mega Traffic Simulator” which runs on top of the IBM Zonal Agent-based Simulation Environment platform.

In addition to traffic simulations, the system platform can also be used to perform evacuation guidance simulations, emissions trading market simulations, auction simulations and other simulations.

The City of Kyoto aims at making the city ‘a town happy on foot’ by shifting priority from automobiles to public transport systems and walkers to appreciate the charms of the city.