Aimsun Next allows you to carry out traffic operations assessments of any scale and complexity. The applications are endless but some of the most common are:

• Assessment and optimisation of Transit Signal Priority (TSP) and Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) schemes
• Feasibility studies for High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) and High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes
• Impact analysis of infrastructure design such as highway corridor improvement/construction
• Environmental impact analysis
• Toll and road pricing
• Evaluation of travel demand management (TDM) strategies
• Signal control plan optimisation (Aimsun Next-TRANSYT link) and adaptive control evaluation
• Safety analysis
• Evaluation of Variable Speed policies and other Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS)
• Highway Capacity Manual (HCM) analysis
• Workzone management

The Aimsun Next hybrid simulator gives you simultaneous microscopic and mesoscopic simulation, allowing you to model large areas while zooming in on all areas that require a finer level of detail.

Combining an event-based mesoscopic model with a more detailed time-sliced microsimulator offers a best-of-both-worlds scenario, blending superior computational efficiency with precise representation of traffic dynamics.

The hybrid simulator features the following:

• Definition of areas for microscopic simulation within a mesoscopically simulated network
• Legion for Aimsun available inside the microscopic areas
• Demand definition using OD matrices or traffic states
• Unified statistics collection
• Look-ahead propagation between microscopic and mesoscopic areas
• Dynamic traffic assignment based on stochastic route choice
• Hybrid simulator applicable to sub-networks
• Dynamic traffic assignment based on dynamic user equilibrium
• Traffic management

The addition of four-step demand modeling in 2015 was yet another step towards true integration: you can start a transportation modeling project from scratch, entering raw geographical and socio-economic data and follow the process all the way through to simulation without having to use a separate package.

No more interfacing with external traffic demand models for importing data as a starting point or as a means of redistributing demand from one mode to another or to estimate the impact that capacity changes have on overall demand levels.

Benefits of a single multi-purpose, multi-layer simulation package

• Choose the right tool for the right project rather fitting projects around the tools.
• Build extensible simulation models on a larger and larger scale using a single all-in-one package.
• Eliminate cumbersome and error-prone manual interfacing between different macroscopic, mesoscopic and microscopic software packages.
• Reduce administrative and maintenance costs and expertise turnove

Designed by traffic engineers for traffic engineers, the Aimsun Next user interface ticks as many boxes as possible on your wish list:

• Modeling, simulation and output analysis in a single environment
• Intuitive, highly visual and mouse-driven user interface
• Simultaneous 2D and 3D (micro only) views
• Easy-to-visualize graphical outputs
• Undo-Redo
• Copy and paste
• Table views for quick object searches
• Multiple project previsions
• Comparison of different scenarios
• External datasets (field measurements or other scenarios)
• Python scripting for automating repetitive tasks

One of Aimsun Next’s most outstanding features is its speed: our microscopic simulator is the fastest on the market by far and the finest microsimulation tool available in the world for large-scale projects.

Multithreaded software architecture speeds up the simulation process to such an extent that it completely redefines what can be included in a dynamic model, be that a major city or a large and complex highway network.

Even on a laptop, the Aimsun Next microsimulator can run a model of the whole of Singapore with 10,580 intersections and 4,483 km of lanes 2-3 times faster than real time.

Benefits of high speed simulation

• Simulate larger areas without leaving out problem zones
• Test a greater number of scenarios in the time available allowing for broader ‘what if’ analysis for a variety of traffic conditions
• Deal with time-critical situations

It’s not just our microsimulator that’s fast – the speed of the mesoscopic simulator has enabled our users to build some of the world’s largest dynamic models in Montreal, Toronto and New York City.

Dynamic user equilibrium (DUE) techniques and stochastic/discrete route choice models are both available in Aimsun Next in combination with either mesoscopic or microscopic modeling. This framework gives you the unrivalled flexibility of modeling recurring and non-recurring conditions at the appropriate level of accuracy. But it doesn’t stop there: by reusing previously obtained static or dynamic equilibrium assignment routes in a new simulation and combining them with discrete route choice, Aimsun Next users are able to reproduce the blend of habitual driving and on-the-fly congestion avoidance that occurs in reality. The result? The tools for reproducing the most realistic representation possible of route choice behavior under any conditions.

In addition, Aimsun Next’s rich traffic management framework allows you to model network operations that may have an impact on route choice:

• Parking schedules
• Cleaning schedules
• Turning closures during peak
• Reversible lanes
• Dynamically reserved lanes

Aimsun Next fits right in with your existing software and can exchange data with the most popular CAD, GIS, transport modeling, signal optimization and adaptive control software tools.

Aimsun Next works with most other planning, signal optimization and adaptive control software. Aimsun Next can import data from CONTRAM, EMME, VISUM, CUBE, TransCAD, SATURN, PARAMICS, VISSIM, GIS and CAD, which eliminates a lot of unnecessary editing of network and demand data. Aimsun Next has interfaces to SCOOT (by SIEMENS), TRANSYT 15 (by TRL), SCATS, UTOPIA and VS-PLUS, which enable accurate emulation of adaptive control in Aimsun Next simulations.

Multiplatform

Aimsun Next works on Mac OSX, Linux Ubuntu, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, 8 and 10.

Multithreaded

For unbeatable speed. 64-bit: capable of handling very large models that can be built upon and added to.

Customizable & Extensible

When it comes to expandability, Aimsun Next is second to none. Make Aimsun Next your own using familiar industry standards such as Python and C++ in four different ways:

• Python scripting allows you to automate operations such as modifying model parameters; importing and exporting data; performing additional calculations on simulation outputs and launching multiple simulations or assignments.
• The Application Programming Interface or API is a collection of functions, in Python or C++, that allow you to include intelligent transportation systems (ITS) in the simulation. These include non-standard adaptive traffic control, advanced traffic management, vehicle guidance and many more.
• The Aimsun Microscopic Simulator Software Development Kit or microSDK enables you to override Aimsun’s behavioral models (car-following, lane-changing, etc.) and apply your own behavioral models, programmed in C++.
• Finally, the Aimsun Platform Software Development Kit or platformSDK gives you the power to create entirely new applications (plug-ins) with their own menus and dialogs; add new classes of objects to the database or extend the current ones; and access all information inside an Aimsun Next model file to perform any computation imaginable – all using industry-standard C++.

Network Revisions is part of a new set of Scenario Management features that has revolutionized the process of comparing and revising base and future scenarios.

Network Revisions allows you to make a change in the base network model and apply the edit automatically to all related future scenarios. With network revisions you can also simultaneously store different edits in individual future scenarios without affecting the base model and keep all the scenarios in the same file for easy reference.

Our new Geometry Configurations feature allows you to keep multiple geometries in a single Aimsun file.

Comparing future alternatives is easier than ever: you can add as many configurations as you like and activate them in different scenarios with a single mouse click. Coupled with Network Revisions, this feature provides a powerful and flexible framework for version control – with Aimsun you’ll eliminate errors and duplication, menial copy-and-paste tasks and unmanageable file libraries.

Network Revisions and Geometry Configurations are part of the move away from throw-away, one-use models to the maintainance of a base model that you can use again and again for operations analyses: create the current state, make revisions for different projects and then whatever you have built is consolidated in the base model, which therefore remains up-to-date.

Tight integration between planning and operations