Welcome to Springfield.

The world's first large scale, multi-use driving simulation environment.

A Futuristic Virtual City for Connected Vehicle and Automated Vehicle Research


Springfield is a 285 square mile proving ground that replicates the look and feel of urban, suburban, residential, rural highway and interstate settings. This photo-realistic driving environment contains roads, intersections, traffic signals, signs, and lane markings based on AASHTO standards.

It contains buildings and scenery that have been inspired by real-world locations. Springfield has been designed to replicate the experience of driving today. At the same time, it has already built-in capability to enable research on the technology of tomorrow’s automated and connected vehicles.

Urban. Suburban. Rural.

Springfield contains over 230 linear miles of roadway complete with realistic signs, traffic signals and lane markings. At the flip of a switch, the city can be driven at specific times of day and specific lighting conditions. We have control over the weather and road conditions and are able to simulate dry, wet, icy and snowy weather.

In short, Springfield has been designed to replicate the driving experience of virtually any city, in any time of the day and in any weather condition.

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Easily modified to suit any application

Unlike the real-world locations that Springfield is inspired after, it’s easy to make changes to this city to suit changing needs.

It’s possible to control traffic, orchestrate pedestrians, add signs, change building facades, adjust lane markings, adjust road surface properties, or even add new roads and intersections.

Springfield will enable the simulation of complex traffic events leading to a better understanding of connected and automated vehicle technologies.

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Springfield Stats

Total area:

285 sq miles

230 miles

of roadway

143

traffic signals

178

intersections

10

different road configurations

1362

signs

What makes Springfield so unique?

A vast driving environment, larger than Chicago
Easy to change and customize
Complete control over time of day, weather and road conditions
Complete control over other traffic and pedestrians
Ability to orchestrate complex events that can be accurately replicated again and again using different drivers and vehicles

Among the 230 miles of roadway, Springfield already contains these areas:

Work zones
School zones
Roundabouts
Bicycle lanes
Pedestrian crossings at intersections and mid-blocks
Railroad crossings

Traffic

Springfield has realistic traffic consisting of cars, trucks, motorcycles, bicycles, and various utility and service vehicles. Traffic of varying densities can be created around the driver. Individual vehicles in the traffic can be commanded to maintain specific headways and following distances. By default, traffic follows the rules of the road and fully reacts to the driver. Individual vehicles can also be commanded to break the rules of the road by speeding, running traffic lights, turn without signaling, etc.

Pedestrians

Springfield has realistic pedestrians that walk along sidewalks and crosswalks. Pedestrians can also been commanded to cross roads and interact with vehicle at specific times and distance. This enables simulation of complex interactions between pedestrians and vehicles. It’s possible to specify the gender, age group and clothing for each pedestrian.

Say Hello.

With Springfield, the possibilities for driving research and driver training are endless. Contact us to learn more about what Springfield means for you.

For more information, please contact us at contacts@nads-sc.uiowa.edu