Traffic micro-simulation calibration and validation

How to use VISSIM via a python script

As found in the VISSIM manual, an external program can communicate to VISSIM via the COM interface, which is basically a Window's built-in interface designed to have programs interacting with each other in a suh a way that the user only need to know how the action he wants to use in the other program is called. The rest is taken care of by each program's COM interface. For more information: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ff485850(v=vs.85).aspx.

So far as using COM with python, you will need to run the win32com package, which is part of the PyWin32 Extension. It can be found here: http://starship.python.net/~skippy/win32/Downloads.html.

Resources

• Microscopic Simulation Model Calibration and Validation http://cts.virginia.edu/SimCalVal.htm
• European project Methods and tools for supporting the Use caLibration and validaTIon of Traffic simUlation moDEls http://www.multitude-project.eu/, in particular all the guidelines on the topic http://dl.dropbox.com/u/21489630/Guidelines/Guidelines.rar
• Section 3.3 in Mohamed El Esawey's PhD thesis Travel time estimation in urban areas using neighbour links data