TraffSim - A traffic simulator for investigations of congestion minimization through dynamic vehicle rerouting

With our interest to reduce traffic congestion, simulations are necessary to investigate how to achieve this goal. Because of the difficulty of real-time experiments, traffic simulators are a good and widely used tool for analyzing specific situations of the traffic flow virtually. This paper introduces TraffSim, a new platform-independent framework, which is capable of simulating microscopic vehicular road traffic in a time-continuous manner. It is able to simulate scenarios close to reality by using OpenStreetMap but also artificial road networks. TraffSim is able to represent multilane motorways or dense city road networks including multiple types of intersections or one-way. Apart from comprehensive support for models for longitudinal movement, lane-changing and fuel-consumption, a supplementary component combines congestion detection, prediction and minimization of traffic jams through intelligent rerouting algorithms. We present the architectural and logical aspects of the simulator, as well as the user interface and statistical features.