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Comment by digdugdirk | Hacker News Reader

Are there any examples of sim games like this being used by real cities? I could imagine it'd be a useful visualization for where tax revenues are generated/utilized at the very least.

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Not really a game, but:

> After the success of SimCity, Maxis received numerous requests from various companies to develop simulations for their industries. After rejecting many requests from other companies, the team eventually agreed to make a prototype of SimRefinery for Chevron:

[SimRefinery was] a simulation of their refinery operation, for orienting people in the company as to how a refinery works. It wasn't so much for the engineers as it was for the accountants and managers who walked through this refinery every day and didn't know what these pipes were carrying. — Will Wright

https://obscuritory.com/sim/when-simcity-got-serious/

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SimRefinery

I remember a software, where you could take real world streets, run traffic simulations on it, and also make changes to the street layout. Basically, fix the crossing that costs time on your commute every day.

I read about it many years ago, sadly forgot its name and a bit of searching didn't make it show up. So leaving this here in hope someone knows what I am talking about and drops a link. I'd like to read up on what happened to the project as well.

A/B Street seems like a good candidate.

https://github.com/a-b-street/abstreet

Exactly that! Thank you :)

Hi! https://a-b-street.github.io/docs/project/history/retrospect... has a summary of where the project went. The original scope of the traffic simulation was too grandiose, and it was hard to influence real decision-making with something so complex and buggy. A/B Street morphed into several simpler tools focused on specific problems (removing through-traffic through an area, estimating uptake of new cycle lanes). I'm focused more on web-based tools for gov use these days, but will get back to simulation someday!

thanks for the summary and link, yes it was pretty boldly scoped indeed:)

One problem with that idea: sim games almost all (intentionally) model only a tiny fraction of the insane parking requirements in most US cities.

Nit exacly what you asked about and more as an anecdote, it was used once during elections for president of Warsaw.

https://citymonitor.ai/community/2002-warsaws-mayoral-candid...

Not sure who the client would have been but i've seen traffic simulations that would be useful to city planners

https://www.tracc.anl.gov/joomla/index.php/transims-visualiz...

I have brought this up a few times, we need a ux on top of open city data so we can run simulations, and compare that with ai outcomes as also compared to actually municipal policy outcomes

Search for digital twin.

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