8 Essential Urban Planning Tools in 2025

Urban spaces are in constant flux: growing populations, emerging technologies, shifting mobility patterns, and climate change are just a few of the forces changing today’s urban landscapes. Amid these constant shifts, urban planners are challenged to not only keep up with the pace of change, but anticipate the needs of the future. This means investing in improved safety, connectivity, accessibility, economic activity, and resilience to meet today’s needs and get ahead of tomorrow’s challenges. 

Luckily, a host of urban design and analysis tools now exist to help urban planners and transportation professionals meet this challenge. But determining which platforms best support your urban area’s planning needs can be overwhelming. 

This complexity often leads to drawn-out planning processes, delayed decision-making, fragmented workflows, and inconsistent data quality—challenges that hinder long-term planning and infrastructure development. 

This article simplifies the process by highlighting eight essential urban planning tools in 2025, each selected for its ability to help planners and public agencies make their jurisdictions safe, efficient, resilient, healthy, and inviting places to live, work, and visit. The following sections break down key features, strengths, and considerations to help readers identify the right tools for their planning objectives. 

Key Takeaways

• Urban planner tools in 2025 emphasize mobility analytics, land-use modeling, and integrated geospatial intelligence, helping planners make data-driven decisions.
   
• StreetLight leads the field in transportation analytics, offering multimodal mobility insights unmatched in coverage and precision.
   
• Tools like ArcGIS, Placer.ai, and INRIX provide complementary capabilities like GIS mapping, competitive benchmarking, and curb analytics 

What are Urban Planning Tools?

Urban planning tools are software platforms that help planners, engineers, and policymakers analyze and design urban environments. These platforms enable users to visualize geospatial data, model transportation and land-use scenarios, measure environmental impacts, and forecast development outcomes. 

Urban planner tools may enable users to: 

• Analyze transportation infrastructure, traffic conditions, and mobility patterns 
• Anticipate future land use, zoning, and infrastructure needs 
• Visualize demographic and socioeconomic changes 
• Support climate resilience and sustainability planning 
• Engage in collaborative, data-informed decision-making 
• Study the impact of policy and infrastructure changes 

In this article, we cover the following tools: 

• StreetLight 
• ArcGIS 
• Replica 
• AirSage 
• UrbanFootprint 
• LOCUS 
• Placer.ai 
• INRIX 

Best Tools for Urban Planners in 2025

1. StreetLight

StreetLight (previously known as “StreetLight Data”) is a leading mobility analytics provider, offering a comprehensive suite of solutions from everything from Transportation Planning to Operations to business intelligence. 

Since its founding in 2011, StreetLight has earned the trust of urban planners across the US and Canada for its granular, validated, and actionable insights into how people, vehicles, and goods move through urban environments and transportation networks. Its large dataset and advanced tools help urban areas of all sizes evaluate traffic demand, infrastructure performance, and multimodal travel patterns with precision.

Key Features

• High-resolution, full-coverage, on-demand transportation data to help urban planners understand traffic patterns across their entire road network 
• Historical and real-time data offerings to help urban planners and operations professionals anticipate and respond to real world scenarios
• Multi-modal insights to help urban planners understand the movements of personal vehicles, trucks, pedestrians, and cyclists. 
• Bread-and-butter transportation metrics including, AADT, Origin-Destination flows, VMT, and speeds 
• Insights on traveler demographics, trip lengths, trip purpose, and other nuances to help urban planners dive deeper 
• Purpose-built solutions to help urban planners tackle traffic safety, climate resilience and emissions reduction, congestion management, corridor studies, active transportation planning, construction projects, transportation modelling, and other projects. 
• APIs for exporting StreetLight metrics into proprietary dashboards and apps as well as GIS data platforms such as ArcGIS
• Easy-to-share data visualizations to assist in collaboration and win support from city council, the public, and private stakeholders 

Pros

• Industry-leading mobility analytics trusted by government agencies, researchers, and major consultants 
• Purpose-built products for any city, from those under with populations less than 100k to urban giants like NYC and LA. 
• Highly granular and validated insights 
• Strong data governance and anonymization standards 
• Best-in-class customer service and training materials that help customers get the most out of their investment

Pricing 

StreetLight offers custom pricing based on data access levels and project scale. Readers can explore StreetLight’s suite of transportation data solutions here: 
https://www.streetlightdata.com/

2. ArcGIS

ArcGIS is a GIS data platform widely used among transportation and urban planning teams for mapping, spatial data analytics, zoning workflows, and 3D urban modeling. Its urban planning ecosystem—including ArcGIS Urban and related modules—helps users understand geographic information to support land-use forecasting, urban scenario planning, and urban design and infrastructure development projects.

Key Features 

• Comprehensive GIS tools for urban environment mapping, visualization, and analytics 
• 3D modeling capabilities for zoning, massing, and city-scale planning 
• Integration with transportation datasets, environmental layers, and mobility metrics 
• Cloud-based, desktop, and enterprise deployment options 
• Extensive data libraries and partner ecosystem 

Pros

• Industry-standard tool with broad adoption 
• Highly scalable for small teams to enterprise agencies 
• Robust integration with StreetLight and other mobility datasets 

Pricing

ArcGIS uses a tiered licensing model. Pricing depends on user type, deployment, and data requirements, with different rates for “core users” vs. “collaborators” who may only need to view data or help collect and update it. Free trials exist for certain modules such as ArcGIS Urban.

3. Replica

Replica is a traffic analytics platform with an emphasis on predictive insights to help transportation professionals and urban planners forecast future travel patterns, economic activity, and environmental impacts. Replica offers insights and data visualizations based on predicted behavior and synthetic populations to inform urban development, project planning, and more.

Key Features

• Activity-based model with a seasonal simulation that represents the population 
• Urban scenario tools for road closure scenarios, special events, safety and equity impacts, and transit demand 
• Geographic data that provides a summary of land uses and urban elements by area

Pros

• Useful for economic development when looking for insights on consumer spending  
• Easy to view macro-level trends when looking for “average day” instead of individual days 
• Helps agencies compare “what-if” scenarios with measurable outcomes  

Pricing

Replica offers project-based or subscription pricing based on region size and modeling scope.

4. AirSage

AirSage is a data analytics platform focusing on delivering solutions that are customized to each customer, whether they are a public agency or private business. Like other urban planner tools explored here, it uses big data to enable users to execute transportation studies and regional travel-demand assessments that inform successful urban design and project planning.
 
Many of AirSage’s products are delivered in CSV format, making it easy to integrate with existing dashboards, GIS platforms, Power BI, excel, and other mapping tools.  

Key Features 

• Trip matrices with information on trip attributes and trip purpose 
• Tools to measure population movement and density to assist with event-based migration analysis such as evacuation scenarios 
• Point-of-interest analytics to understand visitor activity and foot traffic 
• Multimodal analytics derived from anonymized and aggregated mobile app, GPS, and other geospatial data 

Pros 

• Large historical datasets valuable for longitudinal analysis 
• Customized solutions based on each customer’s goals and budget 
• Data formats compatible with most GIS platforms 

Pricing 

AirSage provides custom pricing based on geography, use case, and study duration.

5. UrbanFootPrint

UrbanFootprint is an urban intelligence and scenario modeling platform with a focus on climate resiliency. It offers geographic information and data solutions designed for urban planners, sustainability teams, utilities, and businesses looking to answer questions like “where in my city are people most vulnerable to the effects of climate change?” or “how can I balance my investment portfolio against climate risk?”

Key Features

• Specialized solutions across infrastructure and mobility, public service and administration, climate risk and sustainability, and capital markets and ESG 
• Built-environment, hazard, infrastructure, and population datasets in a unified database 
• Map and assess existing conditions with built-in datasets 
• Supports funding applications, resilience and relief planning, and community vulnerability analyses 

Pros

• Targeted mapping solutions for cities focused on climate action and resilience 
• Detailed data layers to help visualize land use, resource consumption, socioeconomics, and more 
• Multiple ways to access map layers, including cloud-based GIS mapping, visualizations, dashboards, and data integrations 

Pricing

UrbanFootprint does not list pricing information on its website.

6. LOCUS 

LOCUS specializes in mobility insights for transportation performance, freight movement, safety analysis, and multimodal urban planning. It began as a visualization and analysis tool used exclusively by the consulting firm Cambridge Systematics, but is now available as a standalone platform. It emphasizes customized solutions paired with consulting services. 

Key Features 

• Multimodal mobility and freight movement analytics 
• Performance measurement, EV charger deployment, model validation, roadway evaluation, and safety analysis tools
• Insights aligned with public agency reporting requirements 

Pros 

• Focus on customization and consulting options may appeal to urban planners looking for tailored solutions 
• Multimodal insights assist with nuanced safety studies as well as freight and transit planning processes

Pricing 

LOCUS offers custom subscriptions for state, regional, and municipal agencies. 

7. Placer.ai 

Placer.ai provides location intelligence and foot traffic analytics used primarily by commercial businesses and public agencies that want to understand economic patterns and drive growth. Its data helps private and public organizations understand visitation patterns, economic activity, and neighborhood vibrancy to help with everything from site selection and site plans to urban design projects and urban development.

Key Features 

• Foot traffic data for retail centers, public spaces, and districts 
• Competitive benchmarking and visitation insights 
• Demographic overlays and behavioral segmentation 
• Real-time or near-real-time dashboard reporting 

Pros 

• Highly visual and user-friendly metrics 
• Specialized solutions for retail, advertising, finance, restaurants, and other commercial sectors 
• Useful for cities focused on economic insights, tourism, and development 
• Available in-platform or via API and data feeds 

Pricing 

Placer.ai operates on a subscription-based model, but does not publish pricing details publicly on its website. 

To explore other tools like Placer.ai, check out this article. 

8. INRIX 

INRIX provides real-time and historical traffic, safety, and roadway analytics used by urban planners and smart city programs. Its extensive incident and roadway performance datasets help agencies monitor and improve mobility systems. 

Key Features 

• Real-time traffic speeds, incidents, and congestion data 
• Curb, signal, parking, shared mobility, and roadway insights 
• Freight movement and roadway performance metrics 
• Global coverage across major corridors 

Pros 

• Robust offerings in curb management and performance monitoring 
• Available internationally beyond just the U.S. and Canada 
• Large suite of purpose-built solutions for public agencies and private businesses 

Pricing 

INRIX’s pricing details are not listed directly, but are customizable by agency size and data products. Read this article to learn more about INRIX and its alternatives. 

Why StreetLight Stands Out for Your Urban Planning Needs 

While each tool on this list provides valuable insights for specific aspects of urban planning, StreetLight uniquely excels in translating real-world movements into actionable planning insights. Its combination of multimodal coverage, high data accuracy, and highly-rated customer service makes it especially effective for transportation planning efforts. 

StreetLight helps agencies: 

• Evaluate infrastructure performance 
• Plan effective safety and equity initiatives 
• Model current and future travel behavior 
• Quantify emissions and climate impacts 
• Inform funding applications and long-term mobility plans 
• And more 

For these reasons, StreetLight is consistently a top choice for cities and MPOs of all sizes across North America, appealing to urban planning professionals looking to make informed decisions quickly and effectively: 

We saved at least three months of time. To set [the analysis] up in less than a day and get all the info we needed, all nice and clean and formatted was so easy.

Nick Minicilli, Traffic Engineer, City of Temecula, CA

To learn more, explore StreetLight’s transportation data solutions or book a demo today: 
https://learn.streetlightdata.com/get-started