Distributed, integrated and interactive traffic simulations

Mainstream discourse in urban planning is in transition, due to shifts from a technical to a communicative perspective, and increased scrutiny and criticism of models and simulations. The cognizance of complexity in urban systems is imposing limitations on modeling. The added benefits of today´s data and computational power make simulations harder to validate and understand. Reconciling the movements towards a communicative and exploratory approach as compared to a technical and predictive approach requires new methods for planning process and posits new requirements and functions for simulations. Based on distributed simulation and gaming simulation, the paper presents a framework to support the exploration of simulated and realistic virtual worlds in a participatory fashion, enabling new approaches to urban planning. The development and evaluation of the framework casts simulations in a new perspective and explores the context of use of simulations in planning and design.