Who should consider using METS-R?

The METS-R simulator consists of a variety of features that may serve different types of tasks. In its standalone mode, it can simulate city-level mobility services (i.e., ride-hailing, bus) with electric vehicles. In the high-performance computing (HPC) mode, a cloud-based control can be integrated. This mode facilitates seamless integration with Kafka data streams, allowing for more refined control strategies (e.g., eco-routing, demand-adaptive transit scheduling). Additionally, the HPC mode transforms the METS-R SIM into a parallel environment, making it ideal for extensive data generation tasks. Currently, the METS-R SIM is under active development to enhance the aforementioned features, and to be able to be used together with CARLA as a co-simulator. From the design perspective, the relationship between the running modes and potential applications is as follows.

Running mode	Description	Applications	Target users
Standalone	This mode supports first-come-first-serve ridehailing and static transit. It requires only the simulation module.	Verifying infrastructure (i.e., charging stations, bus stops) and service fleet size design	Planners, policymakers
Synchronized (HPC)	The simulation waits until the HPC module https://github.com/umnilab/METS-R_HPC sends a tick, enabling co-simulation and rigorous tests of cloud-based operational algorithms.	Optimizing/verifying advanced operational algorithms	Researchers, service providers