Public transport distinguishes itself through its large potential for planning. The optimum planning process creates a balance between needs (transport demand) and technological capabilities (transport offer). VISUM takes all public transport systems on roads, railways and other individual types of traffic into consideration. It is the only integrated software package worldwide, that integrates comprehensive traffic demand, traffic planning and the simulation of passenger behaviour. It thus enables sustainable quality management in public transport. VISUM is equipped with an interactive editor for public transport routes. Public transport routes are consistently integrated with the rest of the transport network. The network model distinguishes abstract stops in the timetable and numerous locations of physical stops in the network. Description of public transport services can be as detailed as in the timetable, including variations of routes, time periods, or changing frequency of connections. VISUM is also able to estimate capacity of the public transport system based on types of vehicles and to provide sophisticated estimation of operating costs and revenues.
For calculation of traffic load in the public transport model, VISUM offers two different types of calculation:
Calculations create multiple alternative routes for each source-destination relationship. All public transport routes may be multimodal, thus enabling transfers not only within the public transport system, but also with the automobile transport (e.g. P&R-bus-train-walk). Calculations are dynamic, taking into account changing quality of services (variable length of intervals during the day), changing quality of routes (congestion) and demand variations during the day. Data from a passenger survey can be easily integrated from electronic devices of operators into the program, they are automatically tested for accuracy and then converted.