Philosophy

Traffic is the pulse of a city (CITY AS AN ORGANISM)
Traffic is a chaotic emergent phenomenon (EMERGENCE)
Traffic shapes the city and the city shapes traffic (INTERDEPENDENT SYSTEMS)
Traffic shapes lives and lives shape traffic (INTERDEPENDENT SYSTEMS)
People and goods use a multitude/combinations of transport systems (UNIQUE INDIVIDUALS)
Pedestrians & vehicles move "like different kinds of swarms/liquids" (UNIQUE INDIVIDUALS, CITY AS AN ORGANISM, VASTNESS, FLOWS)
- individuals are the most visible when they are on the move
- crowds look antsy, sprawling, colorful
- cars can flow nicely but also get really pushy, different types/sizes of cars have obviously different silhouettes and movement patterns
- trains and boats are heavy and careful, they have impressive momentum
- planes are graceful and precise but need a lot of space

Decisions

Always model each trip individually and microscopically (never use statistical models) (ACTUAL PROBLEM, EMERGENCE)
- Physical motion through time/space
- Realistic use of potentially several modes of transport in sequence
- Counteract time-compression with generous behaviour parameters (but never cheat, i.e. teleport) (ACTUAL PROBLEM, OVERLAID TIME-SCALES)
Pedestrians, road traffic, public transport and freight transport of all kinds are all equally important
Parking is a core problem & component of road traffic

Simulation goal: trips are successful often enough and efficient enough to power all economic transaction realistically
All kinds of traffic are "vessels/bodies moving along the edges of a transport network graph"

Optimal granularity of traffic simulation: simulate the most strongly locally interacting traffic entities (e.g. cars on one lane) all at once within one actor (one lane = one actor)