A talented band of coders in St. Petersburg, Russia has put together a nifty simulation modeling application written in Java.  Anylogic™ "supports virtually all existing approaches to discrete event and continuous modeling, such as process flow diagrams, system dynamics, agent-based modeling, state charts, equation systems, etc. With this incredibly rich toolset you are not limited with the technology anymore – analyze the problem, identify the best approach, and find the solution!"

The package is relatively affordable, especially if one can qualify for the educational discount.  It could make for a handy tool to model and/or illustrate a variety of dynamic aspects in an urban setting -- ambulance response time, crowd movement during an anti-war demonstration.

Today, too, the roll-out of the LA Times re-designed web site includes an intuitive interactive map of freeway traffic flow -- real time -- of the greater LA basin.  Perhaps some enterprising news organization will figure out a way to tie these maps from SigAlert into the dashboard-mounted GPS navigation devices.  Or will SigAlert itself deliver those goods?