A Semantic Framework for Integrated Modeling and Simulation of Transportation Systems

A number of modeling and simulation tools exist for studying transportation systems. The value of these tools will be significantly increased if they can be used in an integrated manner to investigate scenarios involving domain aspects modeled by different tools. This paper describes the design of an integrated traffic modeling and simulation framework using Semantic Web technology. The core component of the system is a domain ontology model which captures domain concepts and forms the common vocabulary for data and application integration. The proposed framework is designed to be modular and extensible, and to accommodate advanced visualization and human interaction together with data access and management capabilities. It hides the disparity of data formats, models and tools from domain experts and provides a single logical space for simulation design. We describe the technologies to achieve these goals and discuss the methodologies through representative use cases in studying transportation systems and control algorithms.