Traffic simulations facilitate the evaluation of infrastructure changes as well as policy changes before implementing them on the road. For example, the effectiveness of environmental zones or traffic light control algorithms can be tested and optimized in a simulation before being deployed in the real world.
SUMO is a free and open traffic simulation suite which is available since 2001. SUMO allows modelling of intermodal traffic systems including road vehicles, public transport and pedestrians. Included with SUMO is a wealth of supporting tools which handle tasks such as route finding, visualization, network import and emission calculation. SUMO can be enhanced with custom models and provides various APIs to remotely control the simulation.
For publications of studies which were performed with the aid of SUMO users are requested to include DLR in the acknowledgements and to refer to dlr.de/ts/sumo.
Features
The simulation platform SUMO offers many features:
Microscopic simulation - vehicles, pedestrians and public transport are modeled explicitly
Online interaction – control the simulation with TraCI
Simulation of multimodal traffic, e.g., vehicles, public transport and pedestrians
Time schedules of traffic lights can be imported or generated automatically by SUMO
No artificial limitations in network size and number of simulated vehicles
Supported import formats: OpenStreetMap, VISUM, VISSIM, NavTeq
SUMO is implemented in C++ and uses only portable libraries
Comments and Reviews
The best free and open source traffic simulator out there. Fantastic tool for learning about civil engineering. And, it's still being constantly updated with new features.