PTV Traffic vs Logistics

[Duleep Janeiro]

What is the difference between PTV Traffic and Logistics?

[Bernd Welter]

Hello Duleep,

that's quite an interesting question! I'll try to describe my personal understanding of the terms - seen through the eyes of a developer and consultant.
Feel free to provide feedback and to ask questions in case of lack of info

TRAFFIC and LOGISTICS both deal with traffic infrastructure (road network, traffic signals, roundabouts, ...) and traffic participants (trucks, cars, cyclists, …) but there are some important differences in the way how to deal with those objects:

TRAFFIC models the infrastructure and parametrizes its settings such as signal changing times. Then a given (and even parametrizeable) load of participants (even mixed structures) tries to cope with the infrastructure without collapsing. By evaluating several scenarios the goal of the tests is to find the optimal parametrization of the infrastructure even by defining infrastructure elements and their properties (what is the ideal signal changing time? What happens if we use a roundabout instead of a crossing with traffic lights?)

Once such an infrastructure is fixed the LOGISTICS buddies deal with it:
They try to find best paths, shortest sequences or optimal distribution for the individual participants but the scope of parameters is reduced to the vehicles/participants properties (or even the drivers behavior or preferences such as shortest or fastest path). The LOGISTICS guys do not have influence on the major street infrastructure (except for live traffic info, but even this information is maintained outside PTV and imported by our providers such as TOMTOM).

Once you are aware of this difference you can see that the customers of the hemispheres differ:
Usually TRAFFIC serves administrative units such as cities or governments. Those are the providers of the infrastructure and they’d like to optimize the throughput.
On the other hand LOGISTICS deals with companies who bring their resources on the street network – whether it is for their own purpose or as transport service providers. So the goal of those customers is to reduce costs (kilometers, driving times, number of required vehicles) and to maximize utilization.

So here we go: let’s take this as a start. I know that most of the readers of this post belong to LOGISTICS but maybe you might have a better understanding of PTV’s business fields or even require further info!

Further info is available at the corporate website:
http://www.ptvgroup.com/en/ptv-group/company-profile/

Best regards
Bernd