Simulation of Road Traffic Applying Model-Driven Engineering

Abstract

Road traffic is an important phenomenon in modern societies. The study of its different aspects in the multiple scenarios where it happens is relevant for a huge number of problems. At the same time, its scale and complexity make it hard to study. Traffic simulations can alleviate these difficulties, simplifying the scenarios to consider and controlling their variables. However, their development also presents difficulties. The main ones come from the need to integrate the way of working of researchers and developers from multiple fields. Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) addresses these problems using Modelling Languages (MLs) and semi-automatic transformations to organise and describe the development, from requirements to code. This paper presents a domain-specific MDE framework for simulations of road traffic. It comprises an extensible ML, support tools, and development guidelines. The ML adopts an agent-based approach, which is focused on the roles of individuals in road traffic and their decision-making. A case study shows the process to model a traffic theory with the ML, and how to specialise that specification for an existing target platform and its simulations. The results are the basis for comparison with related work.