Scenario Modeling

Connect Internal Data or Leverage Ours

The block-level UrbanSim template comes ready to go with employment, household, and socioeconomic data for almost 400 Metropolitan Planning Organizations across the United States and street networks from OpenStreetMap to compute accessibility metrics.

Alternatively, upload your own data and we will make sure it’s ready for the model though comprehensive diagnostic reports. We provide our cloud-based tools for automated model specification and calibration, and generate model validation reports to prepare the model for operational use.

Add Real Estate, Zoning, and Policy Levers

Rapidly create new policy and investment scenarios and run UrbanSim simulations to explore their impacts on the real-estate market. Insert development project information such as quantities of residential units, timing, location, and characteristics like unit affordability.

Easily test different alternative land use policies by creating new zoning designations or development constraints at the parcel, census block, or zonal level. Specify detailed zoning designation information including: floor-area-ratios, setbacks, building types, unit density, lot coverage, and max heights.

Alter the development feasibility calculus for specific time periods and locations in order to, for example, upzone blocks surrounding a new transit station in the year 2025.

Run Multiple Simulations on the Cloud

Quickly compose multiple scenarios representing a suite of land use and transportation policies. Specify which inputs to incorporate into a scenario such as: model base data and transportation network, travel model skims, household and employment control totals, and vacancy rates. Include specific development projects, development constraints, and model adjustments.

After composing different scenarios, run an unlimited amount of UrbanSim simulations on the cloud simultaneously. For most metropolitan areas, simulations run in well under a minute per simulation year. Create an interactive environment for rapid exploration, productivity, and quality of the results with thorough testing.

Visualize Indicators

Compute indicators and interrogate simulation results. When simulation runs have finished, indicators give you the ability to summarize and compare results between runs and the base-year at a variety of spatial aggregations ranging from the parcel to the census block to the county and even your own zonal geographies. These calculated indicators can be downloaded for use elsewhere or can be visualized as a 2D or 3D map for a specific year or for a time-series. Indicators that can be calculated include: densities, transportation network accessibility queries, and summary statistics.

Engage Stakeholders and Incorporate Feedback

Sometimes, to improve accuracy and incorporate local input, simulation results may need to be adjusted based on local expertise and policy input from stakeholders in the planning process. The 'refinement' feature, allows you to assert values of specific prediction outcomes for a location. Perhaps you need to assert a target number of households for a specific year. These model adjustments can be assigned to specific time periods and geographies in your region and associated with a scenario.

Integrate with Your Travel Model

Additionally, we offer consulting services to connect your travel model to UrbanSim to facilitate two-way feedback between changes in land use and accessibility over time, in order to capture the complex interrelationships between transportation and land use.