CT-SPREADS is an open-source agent-based simulation tool for modeling epidemic dynamics in cities and urban areas. CT-SPREADS stands for Customizable Tool for Simulating Populations and Response to Epidemics for Advanced Decision Support. The tool can be calibrated for any city given input data on population composition, health, and mobility patterns. All input data are conveniently specified in an Excel file which the tool uses to generate a synthetic population and mimic the daily movement of individuals and their contact networks in different gathering places including households, schools, universities, workplaces, public transportation, and other community activities. The tool also enables modeling and investigating various interventions and control strategies such as social distancing, school/business closures, travel restrictions and limitations on public transportation, disease testing stations, and quarantines.

In the paper that introduces the tool, we assess the efficacy, applicability, and validity of the proposed tool, we present a case study of the COVID-19 outbreak in New York City (NYC), where publicly available data are used to calibrate the model and interventions are implemented according to their real-world timeline of NYC’s response to COVID-19. The simulation results show close alignment with the real COVID-19 outcomes in NYC at different levels of granularity, namely city-wide infection dynamics, neighborhood-level deaths, and percentage of exposures per gathering place. The paper also discusses future extensions and research opportunities enabled by the proposed tool.

Associated Research Article

Speir, C. and Negahban, A., 2026. “An Open-Source Agent-Based Simulation Tool for Analyzing Epidemic Dynamics and Interventions in Metropolitan Areas and Public Transit”. SIMULATION (under review)

Source Codes and NYC/COVID-19 Case Study Data

CT-SPREADS is developed using Repast Simphony, an open-source Java-based agent-based simulation platform. The Repast project files and source codes as well as the input data file for the New York City case study are available here.