• Containers

Containers can be used to simulate freight and goods. A container can represent, for example, an ISO container, a tank container, an arbitrary amount of bulk material, an arbitrary amount of animals etc.

Containers#

A container moves through the net by being transported by a vehicle or being transhipped between two stops. A container element has child elements defining stages of its plan. The stages are a connected sequence of transport, tranship and stop elements as described below. Each container must have at least one stage in its plan.

<container id="foo" depart="0">
    <tranship edges="a b"/>
    <transport ../>
    <transport ../>
    <tranship ../>
    <stop ../>
</container>

Visualization#

Containers are rendered in the GUI with the configured detail-level. When assigning a type with attribute imgFile, the container may be rendered with an image.

Simulation input#

Transports#

Transports define the start and end point of a movement with a single mode of transport (e.g. a truck, train or a ship). They are child elements of plan definitions.

The vehicle to use has to exist already and the route to take is defined by the vehicle. The vehicle needs to have capacity to transport additional containers (see vType attribute containerCapacity). The container is loaded into the vehicle if it stops on the 'from' edge and any of the following conditions are met

• the 'line' attribute of the vehicle or the 'id' of the vehicle is given in the list defined by the 'lines' attribute of the transport OR the lines attribute contains 'ANY' and the vehicle stops at the destination 'containerStop' of the transport (or at the destination edge if no destination containerStop is defined).
• the vehicle has a triggered stop and the container position is within the range of startpos,endPos of the stop.
• the vehicle has a timed stop and the container is waiting within 10m of the vehicle position

The position of the container is either its departPos or the arrival position of the preceding plan element

A given container stop (or any other stopping place) may serve as a replacement for a destination edge and arrival position. If an arrival position is given nevertheless it has to be inside the range of the stop.

A transport of a container works similar to a ride of a person.

Tranships#

Tranships define a direct transfer of containers between two points. Thereby, containers do not move along edges. They move in a straight line, no matter if the line is crossing buildings or anything else. They are child elements of plan definitions.

You can define either a list of "edges" to travel or a "from" and a "to" edge. In the former case, only the first and the last edge will be considered. Instead of a "to" edge a container stop can be defined. If there is a move entry before, the "from" edge can be left out. The container will move straight from the first edge to last edge. In the latter case, the container will from straight from the edge "from" to the edge "to" or the container stop "containerStop".

Stops#

Stops define a delay until the next element of a plan is started. They can be used to model containers being stored in a storage place, harbour or anything else. A container stop can be used to modal that storage place in the network (similar to a bus stop for public transport. Stops for containers follow the specification at Specification#Stops. However, only the attributes containerStop, lane, duration, until and startPos are evaluated. startPos defines the position on the lane where the container is supposed to stop. Using these attributes it is possible to model activities with a fixed duration as well as those with a fixed end time.

Simulation behavior#

A container is starting its life at its depart time on the source (resp. first) edge of the first tranship, transport or stop. It tries to start the next step of its plan.

Transport#

The container checks whether a vehicle with a line from the given list is stopping at the given edge. If such a vehicle exists and the container is positioned between the start and end position of the vehicle's stop, the container will be loaded onto the vehicle. If such a vehicle exists but the container is not positioned between the start and end position of the vehicle's stop, the container will still be loaded if the vehicle is triggered by the a container and the distance between container and vehicle is at most 10 metres. It will not be checked whether the vehicle has the aspired destination on the current route. The first time the vehicle stops (on a well defined stop) at the destination edge, the transport is finished and the container proceeds with the next step in the plan.

Tranship#

The container moves from the "departPos" of the "from" edge to the "arrivalPos" of the "to" edge. Thereby, the container is not following edges. Instead, it makes a straight movement between these two points. Any obstacles, like buildings, will be ignored.

Stopping#

The container stops for the maximum of currentTime+duration and until.

Example#

The following is an example for a container which gets transhiped to a train station, gets transported by a train, gets unloaded and transhiped to a place, where it's stored (stopped) for some time and finally gets transported again.

<routes>
    <container id="container0" depart="0">
        <tranship from="2/3to1/3" to="1/3to0/3" departPos="80" arrivalPos="55"/>
        <transport from="1/3to0/3" to="0/4to1/4" lines="train0"/>
        <tranship from="0/4to1/4" to="1/4to2/4" arrivalPos="30"/>
        <stop lane="1/4to2/4_0" duration="20" startPos="40"/>
        <transport from="1/4to2/4" to="3/4to4/4" lines="truck0"/>
    </container>

    <vehicle id="train0" depart="50">
        <route edges="1/4to1/3 1/3to0/3 0/3to0/4 0/4to1/4 1/4to1/3"/>
        <stop containerStop="containerStop0" until="120" duration="10"/>
        <stop containerStop="containerStop1" until="180" duration="10"/>
    </vehicle>

    <vehicle id="truck0" depart="containerTriggered">
        <route edges="1/4to2/4 2/4to3/4 3/4to4/4" departPos="30"/>
        <stop lane="1/4to2/4_0" duration="20" startPos="40" endPos="60"/>
    </vehicle>

</routes>

Repeated containers (containerFlows)#

To define multiple containers with the same plan, the element <containerFlow> can be used. It uses the same parameters and child elements as <container> except for the departure time. The ids of the created containers are "containerFlowId.runningNumber" and they are distributed either equally or randomly in the given interval. The following additional parameters are known:

*: Only one of these attributes is allowed.

See also personFlows

Examples#

   <containerFlow id="c" begin="0" end="10" period="2">
       <tranship from="beg" to="end"/>
   </containerFlow>

   <containerFlow id="container" begin="0" end="1" number="4" departPos="80">
       <tranship from="2/3to1/3" to="1/3to0/3" arrivalPos="55"/>
       <transport containerStop="cs_train0" lines="train0"/>
       <tranship to="1/4to2/4" arrivalPos="45"/>
       <stop lane="1/4to2/4_0" duration="20" startPos="40" actType="waiting"/>
       <transport to="3/4to4/4" lines="truck0"/>
   </containerFlow>

Starting the simulation in a Vehicle#

It is possible to start the container simulation simultaneously with the start of a vehicle simulation within that vehicle. I.e. the container starts with a transport within the vehicle, when the vehicle is inserted to the simulation. This is possible for a container definition and a containerFlow. It is the same as for person and personFlow.

Planned features#

The following features are not yet implemented.

Plan#

A containers plan has the same role as a vehicles route: A container may reference a plan or a distribution of plans using the attribute plan. Likewise, a container may include a plan or a distribution of plans as a child element. A plan is a sequence of stages (transports, tranships and stops).

Intermodal Routing#

The router input is still not completely defined. There has to be a possibility to define for the trips which vehicles / logistic lines may be used at all and for which vehicles the route can be defined / changed by the container.

Trips#

Trips define the start and end point of a movement with optional changes in mode.

In definition they are identical to vehicles except for the missing route information (no route attribute and no route child is allowed). Instead they have the following attributes