PTV Vissim

Simulate Safe and Sustainable Urban Mobility

PTV Vissim enables planners to analyze interactions between vehicles, cyclists, pedestrians and public transport through microscopic traffic simulation. This provides measurable evidence for safer, cleaner and more reliable mobility strategies.

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Cities must balance competing mobility priorities

Cities must balance safety, climate targets, public transport reliability and active mobility while managing limited urban space and political expectations. Understanding how different modes interact is essential for evidence-based mobility decisions:

Street Redesign for Active Mobility

Urban streets are increasingly redesigned to prioritize cycling, walking and public transport. Reallocating road space, such as introducing protected or new bike paths, bus lanes or car-free zones, directly affects traffic circulation, intersection performance and overall network stability.

With PTV Vissim, multimodal street redesign strategies can be evaluated within a microscopic traffic simulation before implementation. Alternative lane allocations and street layouts can be analyzed to understand how changes influence vehicle flow, public transport reliability and active mobility integration under consistent peak conditions.

The simulation makes interactions between cars, cyclists, pedestrians, and public transport measurable across each design scenario. Capacity constraints, queue development, spillback effects and potential conflict areas become visible at both intersection and corridor level. In addition, surrogate safety indicators such as time-to-collision and post-encroachment time can be derived from vehicle and pedestrian trajectories to identify high-risk areas proactively. Required signal timing adjustments can be implemented and tested directly to reflect modified geometries.

Through structured scenario comparison, cities gain a robust basis for selecting active mobility concepts that improve safety and accessibility while maintaining operational performance.

Public Transport Performance & Reliability

Public transport performance is often determined by how buses and trams operate within mixed traffic. Congestion, dwell time variability at stops and signal coordination along the corridor can quickly affect punctuality and service reliability, particularly under peak conditions.

Microscopic traffic simulation makes these operational effects measurable before changes are implemented in the field. PTV Vissim represents public transport vehicles within the surrounding traffic flow, capturing interactions with private vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians under realistic traffic scenarios.

Stop operations and passenger boarding behavior are reflected in the simulation, allowing assessment of how dwell time variability influences headway stability and travel time reliability. Signal priority measures, including conditional priority and coordinated progression, can be evaluated within the same simulation to understand their impact on corridor performance.

Performance indicators such as delay distribution, headway variance and corridor-level travel time reliability provide a structured basis for improving service reliability while maintaining overall network stability.

Traffic Emission Impact of Mobility Measures

Urban mobility measures do not only reshape traffic flow - they also alter emission patterns across the network. Lane reallocation, signal coordination, speed management or public transport priority can reduce congestion in some areas while increasing acceleration and stop-and-go behavior in others.

Microscopic traffic simulation makes these effects measurable before implementation. PTV Vissim calculates emission and fuel consumption impacts based on high-resolution vehicle trajectory data, reflecting realistic speed, acceleration and deceleration patterns under operational conditions.

Scenario comparison enables planners to quantify emission trade-offs at corridor and network level. By linking operational indicators such as delay and queue formation with emission metrics, cities gain a robust basis for validating decarbonization and air quality strategies before implementation.

Traffic Safety Analysis & Vision Zero

Road safety performance is influenced by vehicle interactions, speed distributions and traffic control conditions across the network. Understanding where conflicts occur is essential for improving safety before crashes happen.

Microscopic traffic simulation enables predictive traffic safety analysis based on detailed vehicle, cyclist and pedestrian trajectories under realistic operating conditions. PTV Vissim simulates multimodal interactions at intersections and along corridors, making potential conflict situations visible before incidents occur.

These trajectories allow surrogate safety indicators such as Time-to-Collision (TTC), Post-Encroachment Time (PET) and deceleration patterns to be derived to identify conflict-prone locations across the network.

Combined with operational metrics such as delay and queue formation, these safety indicators provide a structured basis for evaluating infrastructure redesign and signal strategies aligned with Vision Zero principles.

Why traffic planners use PTV Vissim

Realistic Traffic Behavior

Model realistic driving, cycling and walking behavior in detail.

True Multimodal Simulation

Simulate cars, bikes, pedestrians and transit interacting in one model.

Evidence for Better Decisions

Use measurable indicators to support safer, sustainable mobility plans.

Design Safer Streets

Test street redesigns and identify conflict risks before changes.

Evaluate Emission Impacts

Assess how mobility measures influence traffic emissions.

Advanced Signal Control

Test fixed, actuated and adaptive signal strategies in simulation.

PTV Vissim provides decision-makers with confidence

Customer webinars & best practices

Discover our library of customer webinars and explore how PTV Vissim users apply microsimulation in complex, real-world projects. In concise videos, they present their methodologies, challenges, and lessons learned from practice. Register once to gain access to the whole library.

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Success Stories: Learn how our customers use PTV Vissim

Success story

Transforming a busy bus line: A data-driven BRT simulation

Microscopic simulations by PTV Vissim and Viswalk in Stockholm reveal surprising insights into travel times, speeds and passenger flows.

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Success story

Pedestrian crossing planning: Benchmarking signalised junctions

Using PTV Vissim pedestrian crossing simulation, I benchmark seven global designs to reveal which upgrades improve flow, safety, and inclusivity.

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Success story

Microsimulation helps Liverpool cut vehicle emissions

PTV Vissim microsimulation helps Liverpool smooth traffic flow on a major street, cutting emissions without major infrastructure changes. This offers a scalable model for other cities.

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