Modelling force deployments from army installations using the Transportation System Capability (TRANSCAP) model: A standardized approach

Argonne National Laboratory (Argonne) developed the transportation system capability (TRANSCAP) model to simulate the deployment of forces from Army bases, in collaboration with and under the sponsorship of the Military Transportation Management Command Transportation Engineering Agency (MTMCTEA). TRANSCAPʹs design separates its pre- and post-processing modules (developed in Java) from its simulation module (developed in MODSIM III®). This paper describes TRANSCAPʹs modelling approach, emphasizing Argonneʹs highly detailed, object-oriented, multilanguage software design principles. Fundamental to these design principles is TRANSCAPʹs implementation of an improved method for standardizing the transmission of simulated data to output analysis tools and the implementation of three Army deployment/redeployment community standards, all of which are in the final phases of community acceptance. The first is the extensive hierarchy and object representation for transport simulations (EXHORT), which is a reusable, object-oriented deployment simulation source code framework of classes. The second and third are algorithms for rail deployment operations at a military base.