Our Senior Product Specialist, Dimitris Triantafyllos, brings you this new pro tip on how the Path Assignment Plan feature gives you unparalleled flexibility in reusing previously calculated paths.

When do I use the path assignment plan?

The Path Assignment Plan is designed to serve three purposes:

1. You are running multiple macro assignments, for different periods, and you want to use those paths for different periods within a single simulation;
2. You are running separate DUEs for different time periods, then you want to run a one-shot that spans multiple time periods without having to run and calibrate a single DUE that exactly matches that period;
3. You run a DUE for a long period, but then you want to run a one-shot for just a portion of that period without having to run and calibrate a single DUE that exactly matches that period.

The video above explains a new feature in Aimsun Next called the Path Assignment Plan, which improves how traffic simulation models manage and reuse previously calculated routes. The presenter demonstrates how this tool allows users to assign and organize sets of routes for vehicles in a simulation, making traffic modeling more flexible and efficient. Instead of recalculating routes every time a scenario is run, users can store and reuse paths that have already been generated. This saves computation time and helps maintain consistency across different simulation experiments.

The video walks through the interface step by step, showing how to create a new path assignment plan, link it to a traffic scenario, and select previously computed paths from earlier simulations. It also explains how these paths can be adjusted or filtered depending on the modeling needs, such as selecting certain origin–destination pairs or limiting which routes are included.

Another key point is that this system allows modelers to test different traffic management strategies without rebuilding the entire path calculation each time. By reusing existing paths, analysts can focus on evaluating policy changes, network adjustments, or demand scenarios more efficiently. Overall, the Path Assignment Plan feature helps streamline traffic simulation workflows and improves the flexibility and performance of traffic modeling in Aimsun Next.