Econolite and its resale partner PTV America, Inc., a multi-disciplinary transportation software and consulting firm, have joined creative forces to design a product package of faster-than-real-time mobility simulation software.
PTV America supplies one element of the package, called VISSIM, a microscopic simulation model and component of the PTV Vision® suite. VISSIM is a powerful tool for simulating multi-modal traffic flows, including cars, trucks, buses, heavy rail, trams, LRT, bicyclists, and pedestrians.

The key element of this package, developed by Econolite, is the ASC/3 SIL (Software-In-the-Loop), a version of the ASC/3 software that can become a virtual controller as part of VISSIM. In the past, users of PTV simulation software were only able to run an ASC/3 controller during traffic simulation by having the simulation software drive an actual hardware controller through a process called HIL (Hardware-in-the-Loop). The ASC/3 SIL feature allows a VISSIM user to circumvent the issue of configuring a physical ASC/3 controller to run during the simulation. Econolite’s advanced technology permits the ASC/3 SIL to simulate multiple virtual controllers under VISSIM without the cost and complexity of physical controllers and controller-interface devices. In addition, the ASC/3 SIL can also run in a mode that is faster than real-time, something not previously feasible with HIL simulation, facilitating simpler and less time-consuming simulation runs.

“For the first time, traffic engineers, transportation planners, and signal engineers can all work with the same toolset,” said Thomas Bauer, P.E., PTOE, president of PTV America of the ASC/3 SIL Controller. “This integration of multi-modal simulation analysis with actual signal-control bridges the wide gap between analysis and field implementation that is unfortunately still the current state of practice. While this new technology was first adopted in the academic world, I have no doubt that it will spread quickly into the daily workflow of traffic engineering."

Gary Duncan, senior vice president and chief technology officer at Econolite, expresses his excitement "about the opportunity that the ASC/3 SIL represents for both the transportation research community and practicing professionals. [Now], microscopic simulation users will be able to easily and cost-effectively observe how individual or multiple intersections actually respond to the conditions being simulated."