Pedestrian Simulation

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Vissim is a traffic simulation tool developed by the Germany software firm PTV. It is capable of modeling complex real-world situations that occur every day on our roadways and transit systems. Real-time manipulation of this this model allows traffic engineers to see the effects of road development or signaling changes on traffic & pedestrian movement.

We are collaborating with the folks at PTV America (conveniently headquartered in Portland) on a demo of VisWalk– the pedestrian modeling engine of Vissim. Our case study is Sunset Transit Center, a busy bus and light rail station located a few miles West of downtown Portland. The simulation was created using ridership data from TriMet and the scheduled departure times of every bus and train during the AM peak rush. Here are some stills and a brief animated clip showing the results. Take a look!

In addition to examining the boarding process, we are interested in ticket machine queueing, and how that might change with riders using a new "touch&go" ticketing system currently under development.

Sebastian Marticorena was an illustrator at Fat Pencil Studio from 2014-2016.