VT Planner Advanced Custom Demand Guide

Use Advanced custom demand… when a simulation needs absolute passenger rates, explicit origin-destination patterns, or demand that changes during the run.

Standard or Advanced

A Standard rate scales with population: 10% in a building with a population of 1,000 represents an expected arrival rate equivalent to 100 passengers per five minutes. An Advanced origin configured with 20 passengers per five minutes keeps that absolute rate while its period is active.

Create the Initial Draft

1. Open Analysis and select Simulation or Multi-run simulation.
2. Select the Standard Traffic profile closest to the intended scenario.
3. Open Traffic profile again and select Advanced custom demand….
4. Wait while VT Planner builds an editable OD schedule for the current building, setup, and duration.
5. Review the prefilled periods before changing their demand.

Standard remains selected until you apply the draft with Use demand schedule.

Schedule Structure

Each period contains origin floors. Each origin has an absolute arrival rate and its own destination distribution.

Destination probabilities are evaluated separately for each origin and must total 100% within that origin. If an origin generates 20 passengers per five minutes with 75% assigned to Level 5 and 25% to Level 10, the expected rates are 15 and 5 passengers per five minutes, respectively.

These are expected rates and probabilities, not guaranteed realized counts. A single stochastic simulation may not match the expected split exactly.

Configure Time Periods

The period table shows start, end, total rate, and origin count. You can:

• edit Start (min) and End (min);
• select a period to edit its OD data;
• change Total passengers / 5 min to scale the period while preserving its OD shares;
• split a period, duplicating its current demand into the two new periods;
• remove a period;
• generate the selected period from a Standard profile.

A gap between periods produces zero demand for that time. Overlapping periods remain independent, so their active arrival rates are added.

The schedule can contain up to 96 periods, with no more than 16 active at the same time.

Generate From a Profile

Generate from profile replaces the selected period's OD content with a complete OD pattern derived from a Standard profile.

1. Select the period.
2. Select Generate from profile and choose the profile.
3. Enter the period's Total passengers / 5 min.
4. Choose the available destination-distribution option.
5. Select Generate period.
6. Review origins, destinations, and total demand.

Generating one period does not alter the other periods.

Edit Origins

Only listed origins with a positive rate generate passengers in the selected period. For each origin you can change its rate, edit destinations, or remove it.

Add origins… adds multiple origins at once and can distribute a combined total:

• by floor population;
• equally between selected floors.

It can also initialize destinations uniformly across eligible floors or use another available destination pattern. Review the preview before Apply origin batch, especially if a selected origin already exists.

Edit Destinations

Select an origin to see the destinations that are reachable with the current building and service model. Changing passenger amounts by destination updates the probability shares while preserving the origin total.

• Equalize active divides demand between destinations that already have positive demand.
• Use eligible floors distributes demand across all eligible destinations.

VT Planner flags or blocks the following conditions:

• the origin itself as a destination;
• a floor outside the current building;
• a destination that cannot be served through the selected zones and transfers;
• a duplicate destination within the same origin.

See Zoning and Transfers when an expected destination is not eligible.

Import and Export CSV

Use Download CSV to keep a portable copy of the current draft. Use Paste CSV/TSV to import sparse OD data with one row for each positive link.

In this example, Level 0 generates 20 passengers per five minutes: 75% to Level 5 and 25% to Level 10. CSV probabilities use decimals from 0 to 1; 0.25 means 25%.

1. Select Paste CSV/TSV and paste the header and OD rows.
2. Review period count, positive links, peak rate, time coverage, and messages.
3. Select Import into draft when the preview is correct.
4. Review the imported periods in the editor.
5. Apply only after every blocking error is resolved.

The accepted import replaces the current draft. Data that can be read but is invalid may be imported for repair, but it cannot be applied until it is valid.

Local Draft Autosave

The editor stores the working draft in the current browser when local storage is available. Saved locally confirms the draft was stored.

Local autosave does not activate the schedule. Only Use demand schedule does that. If Local save unavailable appears, download the CSV before leaving.

Validate and Apply

Validation uses the current building, simulation duration, elevator setup, and service model. It checks:

• period start and end times against the simulation duration;
• valid origin and destination floors;
• positive origin arrival rates;
• at least one destination per origin;
• destination probabilities totaling 100% per origin;
• no duplicate origins or destinations;
• an origin that differs from its destination;
• a serviceable itinerary for every positive OD pair.

Gaps and overlaps produce warnings rather than blocking errors. A gap means zero demand during the uncovered time; overlapping periods add their active rates. Blocking errors appear under Review required.

1. Open each message and correct the affected period or origin.
2. Select Use demand schedule.
3. Confirm that the Advanced summary is active and ready.

The simulation cannot launch while the editor is open. Apply or cancel the draft first.

Reapply After Context Changes

An applied schedule becomes stale when you change the saved building, simulation duration, or selected elevator setup.

1. Open Edit demand.
2. Review periods against the new duration.
3. Review origins, destinations, zones, and transfer paths.
4. Resolve new validation messages.
5. Select Use demand schedule again.

Do not assume an old OD schedule remains valid after entrances, floors, or service zones change.

What Happens After Launch

After a run using the applied Advanced schedule launches, Traffic profile returns to Standard for the next run. The exact Advanced schedule remains frozen with the launched result and the editable schedule remains available from the profile menu.

This reset prevents a detailed schedule from being reused unintentionally. To use it again, reopen Advanced custom demand…, review it, and apply it.

Load Demand From a Selected Run

A saved result from an Advanced run can become a new editable draft:

1. Open Results and select the Advanced run.
2. Return to Analysis.
3. Select Load demand from selected run.
4. Review the restored periods, OD data, setup, and duration.
5. Select Use demand schedule when ready.

Loading historical demand does not activate it automatically. Standard remains selected until the restored draft is applied.

Controlled Comparisons

For like-for-like comparisons using Advanced demand:

1. Use the same building version and equivalent demand schedule.
2. Keep setup, dispatcher, duration, capacity factor, load bypass, and coincident bonus fixed unless one is the comparison variable.
3. Use the same seed for single simulations.
4. Use the same run count and seed policy for Multi-run.
5. Compare only runs with equivalent requested and effective durations.

To check a Standard profile against its generated Advanced equivalent, open Advanced from that Standard profile and leave the generated periods, rates, and OD distribution unchanged. Keep all other controls aligned. Small differences between stochastic samples may still reflect random variation; use Multi-run simulation when the decision depends on a narrow margin.