The SelfSim Technical Report is Now Available Online

Posted on 6 September 2025 by Songzi ZHOU

Our SelfSim research group is pleased to announce the release of the technical report “SelfSim: An Agent-based Integrated Framework for Simulating the Impacts of Sustainable Technologies, Infrastructures and Policies in Smart Cities”. Please click here to read the full report, and here to access to the SelfSim code.

SelfSim is an open-source agent-based integrated framework designed to simulate the impacts of sustainable technologies, infrastructures, and policies on the evolution of smart cities. Building on the classical concept of land use and transport interaction, the simulation integrates multiple urban sub-systems, including population, transportation, land use, energy, environment, and economy, and captures their dynamic interactions at the individual level.

SelfSim consists of two modules: (1) the Initialization Module, which generates a GIS- and agent-based virtual city including population agents, firm agents, school agents, and businessmen agents; and (2) the Simulation Module, which employs a set of spatially explicit agent-based models to simulate population dynamics, business occupier and school dynamics, land use, real estate market, human mobility, and accessibility. SelfSim is a flexible and scalable urban microsimulation platform that can adjust modules according to research purposes and implement multiple variants in different scenarios. Implemented in NetLogo and supported by Python-based visualization, SelfSim offers a flexible platform for evaluating “what-if” futures, providing insights for researchers and policymakers into how sustainable technologies and policies may diffuse and reshape urban systems.

SelfSim Report