The global transport modelling company Aimsun has explained a solution used to help traffic control room staff deal with different incidents on their network.

The Company’s Head of Professional Services, Alex Torday, told a joint ITS Australia – ITS (UK) webinar about the company’s extension of its traffic simulation techniques to integrate with a control room’s traffic management software so staff can be given an incident and practice how they will deal with it.

“There are always operators behind the smart motorways that are taking decisions,” he explained. “Basically we have a virtual world… the simulation [we] have [involves] the operators using their usual [software] environment to take decisions and take action. Instead of doing it against the real world, they do it against a simulated world.

“[We} have the operators ask the question about what “if I was doing this or doing that what if I was asking the people to exit the motorway – what if I was decreasing the speed [limit] at at this point”. So basically, it helps the operators to compare different options… before taking these actions.”

The Aimsun solution was outlined for smart motorways but can be used for any traffic management operation. Torday was speaking on the first of a series of ITS2 webinars between ITS Australia and ITS (UK) which looked at smart motorways.

You can watch the whole event here and Torday’s presentation from here.

(Graphic – Aimsun presentation in ITS 2 webinar)