Subsections

3 Short Tutorials

Go through these tutorials if you are using the simulator for the first time, they help you to quickly get a simulation designed and running. For professional studies the advanced topics in Sec. 4 are highly recommended.

Start up iTS MAITin GUI mode (GUI= Graphical user interface) by typing python its.py behind the terminal prompt or by double clicking on the its-snake in your file browser. Then you should see the empty main window as shown in Fig. 2. Now you can continue with one of the short tutorials below.

**Figure:** *iTS* **MAIT**Main window
$\begin{figure}\begin{center} \psfig{figure=fig_mainwin.ps} \end{center}\end{figure}$

3.1 Opening, starting and viewing simulation files

Choose from the main menu File / Open. You will always be asked whether you want to save the present simulation. Press ``NO'' if there is no simulation or if you have just saved it. Select the simulation file fiera_users.its and press the ``OK'' button. After the transportation network has appeared in the main window (similar to Fig. 3), choose from the main menu Simulation / Start. The vehicles and users should now start moving. Stop the simulation with menu Simulation / Stop. You can continue the simulation with Simulation / Continue. If you select again Simulation / Start the simulation will apparently continue, but time and all statistical data will be set to zero.

There is also a step-by-step simulation option: click somewhere in the canvas and press the return key. For each return-key hit, the simulator will advance 500ms. Before continuing the simulation in normal mode, you need to set the End of simulation time to a desired value by selecting Simulation / Parameters.

**Figure 3:** The simulation `fiera_users.its`. The brown dots beside the off-line stop are people (users) who will have a ride. The vehicles are the yellow rectangles.
$\begin{figure}\begin{center} \psfig{figure=fig_test.ps} \end{center}\end{figure}$

Use the scroll-bars or cursor-keys to scroll the viewing area of the canvas. Zoom in and out with the PgDown and PgUp buttons.Attention: for large maps, enlargements are computationally intensive and require a huge amount of memory!! More zoom options are available on the View Menu. Choose View / indicate ghosts to visualize how vehicles are merged and de-merged. Attention, this option will slow down the display.

Network evaluation methods are explained in Sec. 3.2, for Network creation and editing see Sec. 3.3.

3.2 Network evaluation

Open a complete simulation file (including vehicles and users as demonstrated in Sec. 3.1) and simulate it for at least 10 minutes (see status bar below canvas). There are currently the following methods available to evaluate the current state of the simulation:

The Control-panel

is an interactive graphical user interface which displays various information about a selected module (see Fig. 4 with an example of a track element).

**Figure 4:** The Performance page of the control-panel of a track element.
$\begin{figure}\begin{center} \psfig{figure=fig_control-panel.ps} \end{center}\end{figure}$

The information are ordered by subjects (for example performance, costs, etc.) and presented on different pages which can be chosen on the top border of the control-panel window. Many fields and buttons are interactive, values can be changed by:

clicking in the field,
modifying value with keyboard and
pressing the RETURN or ENTER button.

There are many possibilities to open control-panels:

Select Edit/ Module/ Control-panel and click on a module (user, track-element) within the canvas.
Select Edit / Browse.... This will open a window with a list of all simulation objects, also the ``hidden objects'' (for example managements), which are not visible on the canvas. Select an object and press the Control-panel button. Some objects contain a number of individual modules of the same type (for example the object base.user.test_driver contains all users of the type ``test-driver''). These modules are displayed on the right. In this case, select one of the modules and press the Control-panel button. A double click has the same effect as pressing the Control-panel button.
The control-panel can also be opened from within other control-panels if there is a list-box with module names. For example, there is a list of vehicles in the Section page of each track element which are currently on the selected section (select a section in the section list to show vehicles). Click directly on the vehicle ID to open the control-panel of the respective vehicle.

Export results

allows to write structured information about the state of the simulation into a file. Currently the data is written in table-form using a tab-separated text format. The resulting file can be directly imported into text processing documents or spread sheet applications.

**Figure 5:** Example of file with exported results, when imported in a spread sheet (here kspread from KDE e.V).
$\begin{figure}\begin{center} \psfig{figure=fig_spread.ps} \end{center}\end{figure}$

To export results, select Tools / Export results... from the main menu, insert a file name with extension (for example .txt) in the upcoming dialog-box and press OK. When imported with the spread-sheet application kspread (KDE e.V) the data looks as shown in Fig. 5.

Export canvas:

see Sec. 3.4.

3.3 Designing an automated transport network

These are step-by-step instructions on how to design a network from scratch. It is highly recommended to follow these instructions at least for the first time you create a network. Keep in mind that this is not a fully-developed commercial software with all the conveniences like undo, group, mark, copy, paste, etc. Furthermore, some parameters cannot be changed in later design steps and need to be set at the beginning. However, following the instructions below even larger networks can be rapidly and conveniently designed, see also design sequence in Fig. 6:

**Figure:** Example of a step-by-step network design.(a) Moving and placing background maps. (b) Placing stops and other track element. (c) Closing the gaps with ``flexible'' track elements. This design step is available in the its-0.51distribution, just open simulation file `fiera_track.its`. (d) Track is ``activated'' and carriers as well as users have been added to the stops. The simulation is now ready to run.
$\begin{figure}\begin{center} \begin{tabular}{cc} \psfig{figure=fig_test_map.ps... ...,width=0.7\textwidth} \\ (c) & (d) \end{tabular} \end{center} \end{figure}$

Create a new simulation with File / New from the main menu.
Optionally, change currency in Simulation / Parameters (default is EUR). Confusing results may occur when changing the currency later.
Optionally, put one or more scanned maps on the canvas: Select Edit/ Map/ Add... from the main menu, select the graphic file with the desired map in the browser-dialog window and press OK. You should see the map on the canvas, attached to the pointer. Move map to the correct position and place it with a click. The add-and-place operation can be repeated for any number of maps.
Note that iTS MAITis a micro-simulator, showing the movement of individual people and vehicles. This means the map's resolution must be high enough to show structures such as individual houses or cars, which requires considerable memory and processing time for map images. In order to obtain realistic results using maps, please read carefully the following instructions:
- Scale the map to one pixel-per-meter (for example if you want to include a 5km large map than it must have $5000\times5000$ pixels pixels). This scaling is not done by the simulator, it is required that you do this with a graphics program before including it in the simulator. Note that the width of vehicles, track and persons is slightly over-sized (roughly factor 1.3) in order to improve visibility at 100% viewing scale.
- Save the map in GIF-format into the same directory as the simulation file, default is its-0.51/projects.
- Multiple background maps are recommended if the target area is not rectangular. Try to avoid ``empty'' map space as maps occupy a lot of memory, disk-space and slow down zoom operations.
  Hint:If you are designing a bigger network it may be useful to delete all maps after designing the layout of the network and before running the simulation. This will reduce the memory occupation and increase simulation speed (in particular zoom operations). However, keep a copy of the the simulation with the maps in case you want to redesign/expand the network.
- The maps are not included into the simulation file (only their names are). This saves you a lot of disk space but if you want to copy the simulation for a friend, make sure to copy all map files as well and do not change their names or location once they are included.
- Best suited are aerial or satellite photographs of the target area. Road maps have the disadvantage that the streets are drawn wider than they are in reality. Aerial photographs give also a more realistic impression when presenting a demo-simulation.
For your convenience: Some menus have a dashed separator on the top (for example Edit / Module). This means they can be torn-off and placed permanently anywhere on the screen as permanent window. Just select this separator to transform the menu into a window.

Figure 7: The module browser. A selection panel for adding track-elements, vehicles and users. To see this panel go Edit/ Module/ Add...
$\begin{figure}\begin{center} \psfig{figure=fig_add_module.ps} \end{center} \end{figure}$
Add, adjust and connect track elements: Open first the Module browser with Edit/ Module/ Add.... The module browser, as shown in Fig. 7, has a group-pull down menu and module selection dialog box. Choose track-elements at the group pull down menu. Select a particular track element from the Modules selection box that you want to add to the simulation. An example of a selected type is shown in the preview window together with some additional text information. Note the little circles on each extremity of track elements. An empty circle indicates an input node (where vehicles enter), whereas a filled box marks an output node (where vehicles leave).
Press the Select of the module-browser bottom and move pointer over canvas (alternatively, double click on the module type). The selected track element should now be attached to the pointer. As long as the track element is attached to the pointer with one of its nodes, the following operations can be used:
- Press key ``a'' or shift-``a'' to change the angle of the track element with respect to its attachment point (currently in one degree steps).
- Press key ``n'' to cycle with the mouse pointer through the nodes. This becomes important later on when the track element must be connected to other track elements.
- Left click to place the track element on the canvas. When input node comes close to an output node, or vice versa, the two track elements connect and the circles disappear. Note that the newly attached element may change orientation in order to guarantee a continuation from the previous element. It is just like the assembly of a model railway.
  There is immediately another track element of the same type attached to the pointer which you can place again.
- Right click or press the ESC-key to get rid of the track element attached to the pointer. Alternatively, you can click on a module in the selection box to pick a different one. You can pick up again and manipulate the geometry of the track element by selecting Edit/ Module/ Move and by clicking on the desired element.
When creating the network, it is recommended to minimize the number of track elements. This will considerably improve simulation speed. This means: use few track elements and connect them by stretching their extremities. This step requires a bit of experience. However, with the following hints one can rapidly build up a network:
- Place first all stops. Maybe you have done some traffic demand analysis of the target region and you know the rough position and capacity of the stops. Make sure that the orientation (adjust with ``a'' and ``A'') is right and input nodes (open circles) and output nodes (filled circles) are at the desired extremities of the stop.
- Place diverge and merges elements with curves, circular curves, and line elements wherever possible.
- Change radius and length of existing elements in order to cover the maximum possible path:
  - Go in move-mode by right-click when placing or by selecting the Edit/ Module/ Move menu.
  - Click on the node you want to move or stretch.
  - Move the mouse to change shape of track element.
  - Left-click to complete operation.
  Stretching can also be used to make connections, when a filled and empty node are close enough together.
- WARNING: there is currently no design rule checker! You must make sure that the entry sections of all merges are sufficiently long, this means length greater than $T_B v+\frac{1}{2 a_c} v^2$ , where is maximum comfort deceleration, is the brake actuation time and the maximum line velocity.
  The nominal line velocity is a property of the section and can be changed on the control-panel's Section-page. However, nominal line velocity is not maximum line velocity. If the previous section has a higher nominal line velocity then you must leave the vehicles additional space to reduce their speed to adapt to the nominal line velocity of the merge section. Do never increase the line velocity of stops, otherwise they are no more safe.
  The accelerations are a property of carriers and can be changed on their control-panel.
- Place diverges and merges with flexible extremities.
- Use again the move-mode to stretch the track elements and to close as many gaps as possible by making connections. Pay again attention to the length of the entry sections of merges.
- Close remaining gaps by placing and stretching flexible lines.
- An alternative to adding track elements one can ``clone'' existing elements by selecting the Edit/ Modules/ Clone tool and by clicking on the track elements to be cloned. This is similar to the copy/paste operation of text editing applications. The Edit/ Modules/ Delete tool allows to delete track-elements.
Optionally, configure track-elements:
- Select Edit/ Modules/ Control-panel and click on a track-element of the canvas.
- Click on the Sections page, and select an individual sections of the track-element on the table of all sections. Change nominal line velocity for the selected section. Do not forget to hit the RETURN or ENTER key after editing a number in order to make the changes valid for the simulator.
  Attention, if you want to changes velocities then it is absolutely required to read the warnings of the previous design step, in particular concerning the merge elements. It may happen that you must extend the entry section of a merge when increasing the speed!!
  
  Figure 8: The costs page of the control-panel of a track element.
  $\begin{figure}\begin{center} \psfig{figure=fig_control-panel_costs.ps} \end{center}\end{figure}$
- Click on the Costs page of the control-panel, as shown in Fig. 8. You see a list of costs plus life-time and some other relevant quantities:
  - Estim. initial extra costs All initial investment costs which are not proportional to the track length (extra poles and structures, elevators, etc.). This cost item can be edited in a quantity/cost table by pressing the Edit... button, see Fig. 9. The quantity is here the number of this type of track element in the current network, which will be automatically determined when calculating the costs.
  - Estim. initial costs per meter All initial investment costs proportional to the track length (rails, beam-structure, poles, etc.). This cost item can be edited in a quantity/cost table by pressing the Edit... button. The quantity is here the length in meter of the total network.
  - Estim. extra costs per year All annual operating and maintenance costs which are not proportional to the track length (control, cleaning, painting, repair). This cost item can be edited in a quantity/cost table by pressing the Edit... button. The quantity is here the number of this type of track element in the network.
  - Estim. costs per meter per year All annual operating and maintenance costs proportional to the track length (cleaning, painting, repair). This cost item can be edited in a quantity/cost table by pressing the Edit... button. The quantity is here the length in meter of the total network.
  - Estim. initial costs Estim. initial extra costs Estim. initial costs per meter $\times$ length of track-element. This cost item is a function of other costs and cannot be edited.
  - Estim. costs per year Estim. extra costs per year Estim. costs per meter per year $\times$ length of track-element. This cost item is a function of other costs and cannot be edited.
  - The life time can be changed directly in the text box, but has currently no further use.
  Figure 9: Cost-table editor allows automatic economy of scale calculations for network.
  $\begin{figure}\begin{center} \psfig{figure=fig_cost-edit.ps} \end{center} \end{figure}$
  
  Press the Apply-button to apply costs to the present track-element or the ``Apply costs to all modules of this type''-button to copy the costs to all track-element of the same type that exist in the entire network.
- In case of stops, you can click on the Parameters page of the control-panel. The following parameters can be modified:
  - Name of the stop. By default the simulator gives unique numbers to the stops. If you want to give names to stop, try to avoid whitespace! These names may be compared later with the names in your origin-to-destination demand pattern table and a stop-name with two space-characters is different from a name with a single space-characters. You could use underscores instead, use kings_road for example instead of kings road
  - Zone: You can also assign the stop to a so called ``zone''. The concept of zones is later used to add vehicles and users. For example 50 users or vehicles can be distributed over all stops which are in the same zone. The default zone of all stops is maintenance.
  - Berths to be kept clear: This is the desired number of berth to be kept clear for newly arriving vehicles. This means an empty vehicle will not be diverted into the stop if the number of free berth is below the number specified in this field. Default is that half of the berth must be kept clear.
The above parameters can be changed at any design step, but it is recommended to do it before starting the simulation. Otherwise the obtained simulation results are produced with a changing set of system parameters.
Save track layout! You will definitely want to change your track later on. For this reason it is a good idea to save this intermediate result now because after the next steps it becomes increasingly difficult (and sometimes impossible) to remove vehicles and users from the simulation in order to get back to the plain track. Therefore, Select File / Save as... on the main menu and insert the name of the simulation. The suggested name is mycity_track.its, to indicate that this simulation file contains track information only.
Activation of track elements: The activation of track elements is somehow similar to switching on the real track after installation. To activate the track go to menu item Edit/ Module/ Activate. Then click on the track element that you want to switch on. Alternatively you can activate the entire network at once with Edit/ Module/ Activate all.
Note: Only track elements that are connected on all nodes can be activated. However, single section of a track element can be activated if both ends are connected. Furthermore, only inactive track elements can be moved, stretched or deleted. For inactivation go Edit/ Module/ Inactivate and click on the track elements to inactivate.
Add vehicles: click on module-browser and select Carriers (carrier is MAIT terminology). You could double-click on a carrier type (currently only experim is available), drag it over a stop on the canvas and click to place it into a berth. However, a more effective method is to select a carrier and press the Add multiple bottom. A dialog box will appear with the following options:
- Number of vehicles to be added
- The zone to where the vehicles are distributed. The default is everywhere.
- Maximum absolute comfort, emergency and failure acceleration rates.
  The emergency and failure deceleration define the minimum achievable headway dependent on velocity. The headway in turn will ultimately limit line capacity, see discussion in Sec. 5.3.
You can repeat this operation to place any amount of vehicles to stops in different zones.
Optionally, edit costs of carriers: Select Edit / Browse..., and test.car.experim in the simulation objects list. Click on any particular carrier in the Modules list and press the Show control-panel-button. Click on the Costs page of the control-panel. You will see a lists of costs plus life-time and some other relevant quantities:
- Estim. initial costs All initial investment costs This cost item can be edited in a quantity/cost table by pressing the Edit... button. The quantity is here the number of this carrier type in the current network.
- Estim. costs per year All annual operating and maintenance costs (control, cleaning, painting, repair).This cost item can be edited in a quantity/cost table by pressing the Edit... button. The quantity is here the number of this carrier type in the current network.
Press the Apply-button to apply costs to the present carrier or the ``Apply costs to all modules of this type''-button to copy the costs to all carriers of the same type that exist in the entire network.
It is recommended to save the state of the simulation file after adding vehicles with the name mycity_cars.its
Add users: click on module-browser window and select Users. For this exercise we will select the user `` test_driver''. Double-click on test_driver, drag him/her close to a stop on the canvas and click to place. However, a more effective method is to select the test_driver in the browser window with a single click and press the Add multiple bottom. A dialog box will appear with the following options:
- Number of users to be added
- The zone to where the users are distributed. The default is everywhere.
- The boarding time, including door opening entering the vehicle and door closing.
- The exit time. Same as boarding time, but passenger leaves the vehicle.
You can repeat this operation to place any amount of test drivers to stops in different zones.
Optionally, change End of simulation time in Simulation / Parameters (default is ).
It is recommended to save the state of the simulation file after adding users with the name mycity_users.its
Run simulation with Simulation / Start.

**Figure 7:** The module browser. A selection panel for adding track-elements, vehicles and users. To see this panel go *Edit/ Module/ Add...*
$\begin{figure}\begin{center} \psfig{figure=fig_add_module.ps} \end{center} \end{figure}$

**Figure 8:** The costs page of the control-panel of a track element.
$\begin{figure}\begin{center} \psfig{figure=fig_control-panel_costs.ps} \end{center}\end{figure}$

**Figure 9:** Cost-table editor allows automatic economy of scale calculations for network.
$\begin{figure}\begin{center} \psfig{figure=fig_cost-edit.ps} \end{center} \end{figure}$

3.4 Graphics export and printing of canvas

Unfortunately there is currently no platform-independent printing scheme for graphics implemented. However, there are two methods to export the transport-network in a printable graphics format: Postscript snapshot and screen-shots.

3.4.1 Postscript(R) Export

Postscript(R), is the Adobe(R) file-format for printers. You may be able to drag and drop a postscript file directly into a postscript compatible printer symbol, on almost all Unix systems you simply type at the prompt: lp postscriptfile.ps and the file will be printed directly to the postscript line printer or automatically converted to a proprietary format and then printed.

Postscript files can also be viewed and edited. There is commercial software, such as Adobe Acrobat Distiller/Reader and Photoshop. The most widespread free software is Ghostview and the Gimp. Windows users can download the free software at

$\begin{verb} http://www.cs.wisc.edu/ ghost/gsview/index.htm \end{verb}$

3.4.2 Postscript(R) snapshot

To make postscript snapshots, simple select Tools / Make PS snapshots. If you now run the simulation, a snapshot will be made every by default. The files will be saved in the current directory under the name(s): mysimfile_shot001.ps, mysimfile_shot002.ps, mysimfile_shot003.ps, $\ldots$

Note: the PS snapshots cover only the area of the canvas that you actually see in the window on the screen (but without window borders). If you want the whole network, you may want to zoom out first.

3.4.3 Screen-shots

Screen-shots are probably the quickest and simples way to export graphics:

MS windows:

Maximize window with canvas.
Press the ``Print Screen''-key
Open MS Paint or other MS text/graphics applications
Select Edit / Paste, or in MS word Edit / Paste Special....
Optionally, edit graphics (cut off windows frame and menu, resize, compress, etc.)

Linux:

Maximize window with canvas.
Take a snapshot using your favorite snap-shooter (for example ksnapshot that comes with the KDE desktop) and save window as graphics file.
Optionally, edit graphics with gimp (cut off windows frame and menu, resize, compress, etc.)

Joerg Schweizer 2007-07-17