Quickstart

(0) Download the release and unzip it.

(1) Go the the directory where you find matsim-0.4.1.jar .

(2) Then type

java -Xmx2000m -cp matsim-0.4.1.jar org.matsim.run.Controler examples/tutorial/config/example5-config.xml

This should produce a new output directory.  Meaning of the parameters:

• -Xmx2000m : Increases the Java heap space to 2000MB of memory.  If you have less memory, try smaller values, but the Java default is too small.
• -cp matsim-0.4.1.jar : The jar file (Java library) which contains MATSim.
• org.matsim.run.Controler : The class where the main method for running "iterations" resides. 
• examples/tutorial/config/example5-config.xml : The xml file that contains all of the configuration of the run.  The file can be edited.

(3) Next type

java -Xmx2000m -Djava.library.path=libs/jogl-1.1.1/jogl-1.1.1-<your-os>/lib -cp matsim-0.4.1.jar org.matsim.run.OTFVis output/example5/ITERS/it.0/0.otfvis.mvi

Meaning of the parameters:

• org.matsim.run.OTFVis : The class where the main class for the visualization resides.
• -Djava.library.path=libs/jogl-1.1.1/jogl-1.1.1-<your-os>/lib/ : OTFVis needs an additional library (see here). Please replace <your-os> with the version required for your platform.
• output/example5/ITERS/it.0/0.otfvis.mvi : The mvi ("movie") file that contains the simulation run in a form which can be displyed by the visualizer.

This should produce a visualizer window that looks as follows:

(4) The logfile, with the above example in output/example5/logfile.log contains, between a lot of other information, also a dump of a the full matsim configuration.  If there are interesting parameters, you could try to copy then into your own config file, modify them, and re-run.

In my (kn's) view, one can actually get quite far in this way, i.e. by just editing the config file.  The main problem is how to obtain the network and in particular the so-called initial demand for your own scenario.  If you can't get that from somewhere else, it is probably better to go through the "Learning MATSim in 8 Lessons" tutorial.