Microcomputers and interactive graphics: a new communications medium for transportation engineering

This paper describes the implementation of models of transportation systems on microcomputers and the concepts used in the design of computer models for microcomputers. The power and usefulness of interactive colour graphics displays for use with these models is demonstrated by the example of the mulatm package for traffic planning in dense networks. Mulatm is designed for the detailed yet quick analysis of traffic movements in dense networks, using interactive graphics and cad procedures for developing network descriptions and building traffic databases, for displaying the results of modelling studies, and viewing the contents of the data base. It permits the general appraisal of traffic management plans at the local level. The use of interactive colour graphics on microcomputers provides engineers with powerful, cheap and accessible tools for use in the design process. Pictorial displays demonstrate the performance of models and the transportation systems they represent far more convincingly than can numerical outputs. Communications between people and computers can be greatly enhanced, and there are consequent implications for both the productivity and quality of engineering design (a).