Urban decision support

Simulate the city before you commit to it.

Deflux models the traffic, environmental, infrastructure, and population impact of proposed urban changes, so cities, port authorities, and the consultancies that advise them can compare scenarios before they spend.

The case

Cities make decisions with permanent consequences. A pedestrianisation. A low-emission zone. A new housing development. A bridge replacement. Each decision shifts traffic patterns, air quality, business activity, public transport ridership, and population distribution in ways that play out over years.

Most of these decisions are made with traffic counts from last quarter, demographic projections from the last census, and intuition about how the system will respond. Deflux gives planners a way to model the second-order effects before commitments are made, compare scenarios on shared metrics, and present defensible analysis to councils, citizens, and oversight bodies.

What Deflux models

Traffic and mobility

Vehicle flow, modal share shifts, congestion patterns, and journey-time changes across the affected network.

Environment

Air quality, noise, energy use, and emissions impact, including downstream effects beyond the immediate intervention zone.

Infrastructure

Pressure on transport networks, utilities, schools, hospitals, and public services from population and activity shifts.

Population and equity

Demographic effects, displacement risk, accessibility for vulnerable groups, and distributional outcomes across neighbourhoods.

Deflux's coastal and maritime extension, Estran, applies the same modelling approach to ports, coastal zones, and maritime spatial planning. See estran.3ops.io for the prototype.

Use cases

Pedestrianisation and LTNs

Model traffic displacement, business impact, and air quality changes before piloting a low-traffic neighbourhood or street closure.

Low-emission zones

Compare ULEZ-style zoning options on emissions, equity, and economic impact across affected populations.

Housing developments

Model infrastructure pressure, school capacity, transport demand, and demographic effects of proposed residential schemes.

Public transport changes

Simulate ridership impact, network effects, and modal shift from changes to bus routes, tram lines, or fare structures.

Climate adaptation

Assess flood risk, heat island effects, and green infrastructure benefits for resilience planning.

Industrial and port planning

Evaluate logistics, environmental, and community impact of port expansion, industrial zoning, or freight corridor changes.

How it works

01

Scope

Define the intervention area, the scenarios to compare, and the impact dimensions that matter for your decision.

02

Simulate

Deflux runs each scenario across the agreed dimensions, producing comparative outputs at neighbourhood and city-wide scales.

03

Decide

Your team receives a defensible comparison ready for council briefings, public consultation, and oversight reporting.

Methodology

Sources

Deflux ingests publicly available data, including census, traffic counts, environmental monitoring, transport networks, and building registers, and combines it with the planning data the city provides. Sources are documented per scenario, so the analysis is reproducible and auditable.

Models

The simulation combines established urban-modelling approaches with custom layers for second-order effects. Traffic uses macroscopic flow modelling. Environment uses dispersion and energy-use modelling. Population uses agent-based and statistical methods. Each layer is appropriate to the question being asked, not a one-size-fits-all engine.

Validation

Outputs are validated against historical interventions where comparable data exists. Confidence intervals are reported on every metric. Where uncertainty is high, the report says so. Deflux is built to support defensible decisions, which means being honest about what the simulation can and cannot tell you.

Transparency

Every report includes the source data, the assumptions made, and the limitations of the analysis. Cities receive the full methodology with every scenario, so the work can be reviewed by independent experts, opposition councillors, and the public.

Scenario comparison

Baseline

  • Traffic
  • Emissions
  • Footfall
  • PM2.5

Scenario A: Pedestrianised

  • Traffic↓ 40%
  • Emissions↓ 25%
  • Footfall↑ 40%
  • PM2.5↓ 25%

Scenario B: Modal filter

  • Traffic↓ 25%
  • Emissions↓ 10%
  • Footfall↑ 10%
  • PM2.5↓ 10%

Illustrative comparison. Specific outputs depend on city, intervention type, and the dimensions modelled.

Who Deflux serves

Municipal governments
Cities and towns making infrastructure, transport, environmental, and housing decisions with public funds.
Regional and metropolitan authorities
Bodies coordinating planning across multiple municipalities or at regional scale.
Port authorities
Through Estran, the coastal and maritime extension, for port expansion and coastal zone planning.
Urban planning consultancies
Firms advising public-sector clients who need simulation capability beyond what is in-house.
National ministries
Departments of transport, environment, and housing supporting local authorities or running national programmes.

Procurement and access

EU procurement. Deflux is available through standard EU public procurement procedures. We respond to RFPs, framework requests, and competitive dialogues directly.

G-Cloud (UK). A G-Cloud listing is in active onboarding for UK public-sector buyers, enabling streamlined procurement under the framework.

Pricing. Tiered by city size and the scope of analysis required. Pricing details are shared during initial consultation and structured to match standard municipal budgeting cycles.

Trust signals

EU data residencyHosted in Tallinn, EstoniaTriops Technologies OÜGDPR-native architectureMethodology published per scenario

Talk to our municipal team

Tell us about your city and the decision you're working on. We respond within five working days.

Part of our Spatial Planning offering