A generalizable pipeline for agent-based transport models in France

Abstract

Agent-based simulation is increasingly used in transport modeling and planning as it allows to study in detail emerging new modes of mobility and individual-based policy impacts. An important component of such models are synthetic populations of travellers that represent the travel demand. While various agent-based transport simulation tools have evolved over the past decade, open tools for consistent, reproducible, adaptable and verifiable synthesis of synthetic populations are still scarce. Yet, evolving open data policies all over the world make it now possible to reach this goal. The following describes an open-source pipeline from raw data to final agent-based transport simulation that is based on publicly available data in France. While the discussion focuses on the use case of Île-de-France and Paris, an outline on how the process can be generalized to other French regions is provided. Finally, other use cases such as Sao Paulo, San Francisco and Los Angeles, to which the approach has been adopted, are presented.