Development of the Nowcast Traffic Simulation System for Road Traffic in Urban Areas

This paper describes the development of an on-line traffic simulation system called the “Nowcast Traffic Simulation System” for road traffic in urban areas. The system can reproduce the traffic situation based on various types of traffic data provided in real time such as floating car data and traffic sensor data. The output data is used for several traffic information services, including CO₂ monitoring. In this paper, the authors explain the concept of the Nowcast Traffic Simulation System and its theoretical framework followed by an example of a demonstration experiment in Kashiwa City in Japan.