Welcome to the UrbanSim Community Web Portal
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 page contains a summary of its design and features. Detailed descriptions are available in the
Documentation and
ResearchPapers on this site.
News
Background
UrbanSim was initially designed and implemented in the mid-1990's, and has been continuously refined and re-engineered since then. A
Core Development Team coordinates the development of the system, 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, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Cameroon, Canada, Chile, China, Czech Republic, Egypt, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, USA, Vietnam |
If you are interested in using UrbanSim or collaborating on its further development, please register on this web site and join the community. If you have questions regarding UrbanSim or this web site, email Paul Waddell at waddell (at) berkeley.edu or the
mailing list.
Current Financial Support
We gratefully acknowledge financial support from the following organizations, which currently support the ongoing development of UrbanSim:
| U.S. Federal Support |
National Science Foundation |
| |
Federal Highway Administration |
| U.S. Planning Agencies |
Alamo Area Council of Governments |
| |
Durham - Chapel Hill - Carrboro Metropolitan Planning Organization |
| |
Maricopa Association of Governments |
| |
Oahu Metropolitan Planning Organization |
| |
Puget Sound Regional Council |
| |
Southeast Michigan Council of Governments |
| International Support |
European Research Council |
| |
Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, South Africa |
In addition to these current funders, we wish to acknowledge numerous
Previous Funders that have supported the UrbanSim project.