Welcome to the UrbanSim Project

UrbanSim is a software-based simulation system for supporting planning and analysis of urban development, incorporating the interactions between land use, transportation, the economy, and the environment. It is intended for use by Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs), cities, counties, non-governmental organizations, researchers and students interested in exploring the effects of infrastructure and policy choices on community outcomes such as motorized and non-motorized accessibility, housing affordability, greenhouse gas emissions, and the protection of open space and environmentally sensitive habitats. The UrbanSim Overview and a Wikipedia Article summarize its design and features. Detailed descriptions are available in the Documentation and ResearchPapers on this site. If you have questions about this project, contact Paul Waddell.

News

2013
Apr 8	Check out the result of the first 6 months of development of UrbanCanvas
Apr 7	2013 UrbanSim User Meeting Announced for August 22-23 in Bay Area
2012
Dec 19	Synthicity has been launched to provide professional development and support for UrbanSim and UrbanCanvas
Mar 29	Major NSF grant awarded to Berkeley for Big Data applications, including UrbanSim, with media coverage in LA Times and in the NY Times
Feb 3	OPUS 4.4.0 Stable Release now available: Release Notes; Download WindowsInstaller or go to Download for other platforms
2011
Dec 15	TMIP Webinar 8: Scenario Planning and Visualization
Nov 6	TMIP Webinar 7: Modeling Real Estate Supply
Oct 7	TMIP Webinar 6: Modeling Real Estate Demand
Jul 4-6	European UrbanSim Workshop in Athens, Greece.
Jun 15	Research Papers updated with recent publications (please let us know if you have published a paper using UrbanSim and we will add it!)
Jun 15	Fourth and Fifth Travel Model Improvement Webinars now posted
Jun 10	OPUS 4.3.2 Stable Release Now Available: Go to Download to get it. See release notes for the changes.
Apr 14	Third Travel Model Improvement Webinar, on Scenario Planning and Visioning, now posted
Jan 23	OPUS 4.3.1 Stable Release Now Available: Go to Download to get it. See release notes for the changes.
2010
Nov 17	Metropolitan Transportation Commission Approves New Project to Develop UrbanSim Visualization for SustainableCommunitiesStrategies
Sep 29	OPUS 4.3.0 Stable Release Now Available: Use the new WindowsInstaller, or go to Download for other platforms
Sep 27	JTLU Special Issue: Land Use-Transportation Modeling with UrbanSim
Sep 12	The UrbanSim Classroom contains lectures and exercises for learning UrbanSim
Sep 11	New NSF award to support 3D modeling of urban development
Jun 1	2010 Urban Simulation Conferences Completed in Berkeley and Zurich
Apr 21	UrbanSim can now be run using on Windows 64bit, overcoming memory constraints on Windows
Jan 26	New survey shows UrbanSim is the most widely used land use model by MPOs in the US
Jan 14	UrbanSim Forums are now open for business. These provide threaded discussions, polls and other features.

Background

UrbanSim was initially designed by Paul Waddell in the mid-1990's, and implemented as a prototype in Oregon in 1998. It has been continuously refined and re-engineered since then with the cooperation of a Core Development Team, and a growing community of Research Collaborators contributes to the project. Its development has been made possible by generous support from the funders listed below. It is freely available on the Download Page as open source software using the GPL license. We do ask that users register on this website before downloading, so we can maintain some minimal information about the user community. Since its initial release in 1998, UrbanSim has increasingly been adopted for operational planning use in the U.S. and in Europe, Asia, and Africa, in planning agencies and in university research and educational settings. The user community and research collaborators directly and indirectly support the application and refinement of UrbanSim. This interactive web site provides a virtual meeting ground for users and developers of the system, with approximately half from the USA, and half from a rapidly growing list of countries:

Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Chile, China, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Korea, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Moldovia, Morocco, Namibia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovenia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, USA, Venezuela, Vietnam

In addition to these current funders, we wish to acknowledge numerous Previous Funders that have supported the UrbanSim project.