A functional evaluation of the AIMSUN, PARAMICS and VISSIM microsimulation models

Microscopic traffic simulation models are becoming increasingly important tools in modelling complex transport networks and evaluating various traffic management alternatives in order to determine the optimum solution for traffic problems that cannot be studied by other analytical methods. Several traffic simulation tools are used in Australia, especially PARAMICS, AIMSUN and VISSIM. While these packages have many similarities, each has its own specific characteristics that make it more or less suitable for certain modelling purposes. This paper is based on a study of the available documentation of the three models, a literature review and other information collected from the model users and developers; it evaluates and compares the functional capabilities, specific strengths and weaknesses, limitations and user opinions as at the time of writing (2004), and offers conclusions and recommendations on the suitability of each package for various modelling tasks. (a)