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| <h1 class="article-title"><?php echo $pageTitle; ?></h1> |
| <h2>Simulating Urban Traffic for Modeling and Analysis</h2> |
| <p> |
| <a href="https://projects.eclipse.org/user/8509">Robert Hilbrich</a> provides an overview of the<a |
| href="https://projects.eclipse.org/projects/technology.sumo" |
| > Eclipse Simulation of Urban Mobility (SUMO)</a> project, the different ways it can be used, and |
| its relationship to the openMobility Working Group. |
| </p> |
| <p><img src="images/3_1.jpg"></p> |
| <p> |
| <strong>Q. What should people know about the Eclipse SUMO project?</strong> |
| </p> |
| <p>A. They should know that this is a production-ready software toolset that allows them |
| to quickly and easily create a digital twin of a city or an urban area so they can simulate |
| real-world traffic — whether that’s motorized vehicle traffic, rail traffic, bicycle |
| traffic, pedestrian traffic, or even ship traffic. These simulations can be used to identify |
| traffic patterns, test traffic management ideas and algorithms, and determine how traffic flows |
| can be improved.</p> |
| <p> |
| <strong>Q. Where did the Eclipse SUMO project originate?</strong> |
| </p> |
| <p>A. The project started at the German Aerospace Center in Berlin, where I work and where |
| we do considerable research into transportation systems and transportation engineering.</p> |
| <p>Almost 20 years ago, we started working towards building a digital twin for a city, but |
| computers were still quite slow then. Today, computers can build really powerful digital models of |
| cities and we see a lot of happy customers that are using the SUMO tool suite.</p> |
| <p> |
| <strong>Q. Can you describe some of the ways people are using Eclipse SUMO? </strong> |
| </p> |
| <p>A. The SUMO tool suite is being used in many different ways, but here are just three |
| examples to give you an idea:</p> |
| <ul> |
| <li>The Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee is looking into running SUMO on their number |
| one super computer to simulate the entire area at the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. |
| Their goal is to understand the traffic patterns around the airport so they can suggest |
| improvements that will help people get to the airport quicker, ensure parking is not |
| overcrowded, and enable people to get to their planes on time.</li> |
| <li>The city of Konstanz in southern Germany is relying on a SUMO simulation to understand and |
| optimize parking in the city center. With the simulation, they can see the effects of different |
| types of parking spots — on-street parking, off-street parking, and parking garages |
| — on traffic congestion in the surrounding areas.</li> |
| <li>Several municipalities are looking into how traffic lights and autonomous vehicles can |
| communicate with one another to streamline traffic flows. So, the traffic light would tell your |
| car the ideal speed to drive at to avoid red lights. And your car would tell the next set of |
| traffic lights when it will be arriving so the traffic light can optimize its light control |
| schedule and maybe hold the green light a little longer if you’re nearly there. Car speed |
| and traffic light cycles can also be optimized to reduce fuel consumption and idling times at |
| lights, and to give preference to electric vehicles as an incentive for the public to buy them.</li> |
| </ul> |
| <p>On these types of projects, we typically see collaboration between municipalities, |
| traffic light developers, and autonomous vehicle manufacturers. </p> |
| <p><img src="images/3_2.jpg"></p> |
| <p> |
| <strong>Q. The SUMO tool suite sounds very sophisticated. Is it difficult to get started using it?</strong> |
| </p> |
| <p>A. Not at all. The project SUMO tool suite comes with a web wizard that lets you create |
| a digital twin of your city in just seven clicks. All you need to get started is data that |
| describes the road network in the city. This data is available for free through the OpenStreetMap |
| project, but can also be obtained from other external data sources. The software uses the road |
| network data to create a SUMO simulation that looks like your city in about 20 seconds.</p> |
| <p>At this point, the traffic in the simulation is random so you need to add traffic |
| demand data. Getting this data can be a bit trickier, but some larger cities already use traffic |
| demand models to plan public transportation and build road networks, and they’re often happy |
| to share that data. Other cities use induction loops in their road networks to count the number of |
| moving vehicles, and you can use these counts to build a traffic demand model.</p> |
| <p> |
| <strong>Q. Why is it important that Eclipse SUMO is open source? </strong> |
| </p> |
| <p>A. It is very important because it helps us reach a broad audience of researchers and |
| industries that can add cutting-edge research and new algorithms to our software so the traffic |
| simulations will perform even better in the future than they do today.</p> |
| <p>Also, the industry wants to avoid vendor lock-in so having a software platform |
| that’s not linked to a particular vendor, is of very high quality, and very rich in |
| functionality has been the cornerstone of the success for the SUMO in the past.</p> |
| <p> |
| <strong>Q. What is the relationship between Eclipse SUMO and the openMobility Working Group hosted |
| by the Eclipse Foundation?</strong> |
| </p> |
| <p>A. We had reached the point where there was a lot of industry interest in Eclipse SUMO. |
| A number of players were using SUMO to build projects and others were integrating SUMO into their |
| commercial offerings. As a result, we were getting a lot of questions about how SUMO can be used |
| to build business, whether it would still exist in five years, and what the roadmap looks like.</p> |
| <p> |
| We created the<a href="https://www.eclipse.org/org/workinggroups/openmobility_charter.php"> |
| openMobility Working Group</a> so we would have a roundtable where we can bring together key |
| customers and key users with a vested interest in the future of SUMO in a consortium that can |
| steer and influence its direction. |
| </p> |
| <p>So, the Eclipse SUMO project is where all the coding happens. And, everything that is |
| not code related — strategy, marketing, roadmaps, information dissemination — is |
| coordinated and steered by the openMobility Working Group.</p> |
| <p>Today, the openMobility Working Group consists of research partners and industry |
| partners, including Bosch and AVL, which is a big player in the car simulator world. The Working |
| Group is currently focused on the Eclipse SUMO project, but in the near future, we are expecting |
| to add the Eclipse MOSAIC project to our portfolio. MOSAIC will provide a framework for building a |
| “bridge” between SUMO and other simulators. SUMO is rarely used on its own, so |
| it’s very important that it can be easily coupled with other simulators to precisely model |
| autonomous vehicles or add 5G communications in the digital model.</p> |
| <p> |
| <strong>Q. How do you see SUMO advancing in the short term and the longer term?</strong> |
| </p> |
| <p>A. We are working on a number of areas right now.</p> |
| <p>In the short term, we’re really trying to integrate more precise models for |
| pedestrian dynamics. They’re called social force models and we’re working to add these |
| models into SUMO to make pedestrian movements much more realistic. </p> |
| <p>We’re also working to incorporate railroad traffic and having trains behave more |
| realistically.</p> |
| <p>And, we are working on fleet management. If you think about all of the new forms of |
| public transportation, such as Uber and Lyft, and the demand-response mechanisms behind them, you |
| can see that SUMO is the perfect tool suite to assist in optimizing the way these vehicles drive, |
| where they pick up passengers, and the routes they take.</p> |
| <p> |
| <strong>Q. How can people get involved and learn more?</strong> |
| </p> |
| <p> |
| A. I would like to invite everyone who is interested in the future of SUMO to<a |
| href="https://openmobility.eclipse.org/working-group/become-a-member/" |
| > join the openMobility Working Group</a> to ensure the features they need are delivered with the |
| right priority. |
| </p> |
| <p> |
| We also host a SUMO User Conference every year in Berlin. The next conference is in May 2020, and |
| people can learn more about it<a |
| href="https://www.dlr.de/ts/en/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-3930/20125_read-58718/" |
| > </a><a href="https://sumo.dlr.de/2020">here</a>. |
| </p> |
| <p><img src="images/3_3.jpg"></p> |
| <div class="bottomitem"> |
| <h3>About the Author</h3> |
| <div class="row"> |
| <div class="col-sm-16"> |
| <div class="row"> |
| <div class="col-sm-6"> |
| <img class="img-responsive" |
| src="/community/eclipse_newsletter/2019/december/images/robert.png" alt="Robert Hilbrich" |
| /> |
| </div> |
| <div class="col-sm-18"> |
| <p class="author-name">Robert Hilbrich</p> |
| <p>Group Manager<br>Deutsches Zentrum fuer Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. (DLR)</p> |
| </div> |
| </div> |
| </div> |
| </div> |
| </div> |