Test a road change on Cork before it’s built.

How the model works

From an OSM graph to a queue-by-queue forecast.

Three stages, each one inspectable. Nothing in the pipeline is a black box you have to take on faith.

1. 01

   Build the network

   Ingest the OpenStreetMap graph — links, lane counts, speed limits, turn restrictions and signal phases all become part of the road model.

2. 02

   Generate demand

   A synthetic population from census small-area statistics produces origin–destination trips across the day, so peaks emerge from demand rather than a dial.

3. 03

   Run and compare

   Queue a scenario, watch agents route through the city second by second, then A/B it against the baseline on journey time, vehicle-kilometres and link flow.

The simulation

Every vehicle is an agent. Every junction, a decision.

Urbanetric is mesoscopic — sitting between a broad-brush flow model and a car-by-car microsimulation. Each trip is an agent that chooses a route and moves link by link; queues build on links and discharge through signals, second by second.

• Link-level queuesCongestion forms where capacity runs out, not on an average.
• Signals & turn bansPhases, splits and banned turns shape how junctions discharge.
• Second-by-secondA live clock you can watch, scrub and record.
• Whole-city routingClose one street and trips re-route across the network.

Why mesoscopic

One step finer than flow. One step coarser than the steering wheel.

Macroscopic models speak in city-wide flows and tell you the average. Microsimulation speaks in individual cars, lane by lane, and takes a month to calibrate. Mesoscopic sits between them — and the trade-off is the whole point.

• Per agent, not per flowEvery trip is its own routing decision — not a smoothed-out demand curve.
• Per link, not per laneQueues build on links and discharge at signals; no steering, no lane-change turbulence.
• Whole city, fastRe-routes the whole network around your edit in minutes, not weeks.
• One base, many runsCalibrated against observed counts on a shared OSM base — not rebuilt per project.

Anatomy of a run

What the engine does each simulated second.

Click Run, and the simulator ticks forward one second at a time. Each tick, four things happen — in this order, every time, deterministically.

1. 01

   Route

   New departures pick their shortest-time path against the current network state — signals, queues, recent re-routes and all.

2. 02

   Move

   Each on-link agent advances by the link’s free-flow speed minus the back-pressure of the queue ahead.

3. 03

   Discharge

   Vehicles at signalised stop-lines release per the active phase; lane priorities and banned turns control who goes where.

4. 04

   Record

   Per-link counts and per-agent positions land in the run log. Replay, scrub or compare them later — same seed, same answer to the byte.

What you can model

Change one thing. Watch everything move.

The editor is the same map you see above. Draw an edit, queue a run, and the model re-routes every trip in the city around it — no rebuild, no waiting on a consultant.

• Close a street

  Pedestrianise a block or shut a link entirely.

• Add or remove a lane

  Widen, narrow or reverse a carriageway.

• Retime a junctionPlanned

  Change signal phases, splits and offsets. A per-junction timing model and editor are on the roadmap; today signals run a calibrated city-wide cycle.

• Bus & cycle lanesPlanned

  Reallocate road space to transit and bikes. Today this is expressed through lane-count edits; a dedicated bus/cycle primitive is on the roadmap.

• Build a new link

  Add a junction or a whole new road.

• Roadworks & weather

  Stress-test with closures, rain or events.

From edit to evidence

Five steps from a chalk-line edit to a planning submission.

The point isn’t the simulation; it’s the document you put in front of a committee. Here’s the path.

1. 01

   Draw

   Draw the edit straight onto the live map — close a street, add a lane, build a new link.

2. 02

   Queue

   Queue a scenario run against your saved do-nothing baseline. No model rebuild, no waiting.

3. 03

   Watch

   Watch agents thread the change in real time; the network re-routes around it and queues land where they will.

4. 04

   Compare

   Read journey time, link flow and queue length side by side against the do-nothing baseline.

5. 05

   Export

   Drop the figures and the chart panel straight into your report.

Validation

We check the model against the road — not against itself.

A simulation is only worth its forecast if it matches reality. Before a scenario is trusted, the baseline run is compared link-by-link against observed traffic counts — the same screenline and turning-count data a transport assessment already relies on.

• Ground-truth counts

  Modelled flows are scored against measured link counts, not eyeballed.

• Reproducible runs

  A fixed seed gives the same result every time, so a review can re-run it.

• Open network

  Built on OpenStreetMap, so the road model is inspectable by anyone.

• Side-by-side

  Every scenario is read against the do-nothing baseline, never in isolation.

What you take away

Numbers you can put in front of a committee.

Every run hands back the metrics a transport case turns on — journey time, total vehicle-kilometres and link-by-link flow — each read against the do-nothing baseline. Export the figures and the charts straight into a report.

• Journey timePeak and off-peak, per corridor and city-wide.
• Link & screenline flowVehicles past any point across the day.
• Queues & delayWhere it backs up, and by how long.
• Before / afterScheme against baseline, side by side.

Built to be trusted

Run it again. Get the same answer.

A forecast a review can’t reproduce isn’t evidence. Every Urbanetric run is deterministic — the same seed gives the same result, every time — and built on OpenStreetMap, so the network underneath is open and inspectable, not a proprietary black box.

• Fixed seedIdentical inputs, identical run — bit for bit.
• Auditable inputsEvery edit and assumption is recorded with the scenario.
• Open networkOSM underneath — checkable by anyone.
• Versioned scenariosCompare, share and re-run any saved scenario.

Who it’s for

Built for the people who change roads.

• Local authorities

  Make the case for a scheme to councillors and the public with evidence, not vibes.

• Transport consultants

  Run a transport assessment without commissioning a six-figure bespoke model build.

• Developers & planners

  Show a site’s traffic impact on the surrounding network before it goes to planning.