PetGyn 2.0: A Brazilian Urban Traffic Planning System

摘要

Urban traffic simulators are valuable tools for prior and low-cost evaluation of modification proposals for road networks, aimed at improving vehicular mobility. The system covered in this article, called PetGyn, falls into this category. It is powerful enough to represent scenarios of changes in the structure of road networks and/or in the behavior of their elements (pathways, traffic lights, possible conversions, etc.) and for predicting road usage levels (volume and traffic speed). In addition, PetGyn's flexibility allows the employment of different traffic allocation models (system optimization, user equilibrium, etc.), various types of cost functions (from the classic BPR - Bureau of Public Roads - arc cost functions to non-separable and asymmetric functions) and the simulation of different behaviors for the road network components (blocking routes according to schedules/days, reversing the direction of traffic flows, allowing/forbidden parking along the lanes, among others). Since its conception, it was built in a modular way so that it can be easily adapted to the urban traffic particularities of any country. Unlike commercial systems in this area, PetGyn was developed under a free software philosophy and as a web-based system in order to favor collaborative work. Its usage allows the study of intervention projects for medium-sized metropolitan regions, contributing to identify possible improvements in urban mobility.