The Park and Ride Bus Lane - Did PCC simulate it?

Portsmouth City Council has just announced that "Controversial" Portsmouth bus lane will be scrapped

From the News

What strikes me about this is that there is Simulation software available that can to a degree predict the effect of changes to the roads. You can learn about it on this Wikipedia Traffic simulation article
It uses some complex mathematics and is not the kind of software you are likely to find on your phone or pc,and it is expensive. I fiist came across Discrete event simulation back in the 80's when I was involved in the design of manufacturing processes such as Soups and Automated Guided Vehicles
But if it can help with making road layout decisions rationally then I think it should be used, or at least investigated.
So did PCC use such software when they originally designed the Park and Ride or have they used it in the process of making the recent decision?
And if they did not, did they at least try it?

Another point
How will they determine whether the change makes things better or worse?
It is not straightforward, for example how do you measure this?
Intuitively, it will probably make things worse for the users of the Park and  Ride and marginally better for drivers coming into the city at peak times.
So what Metrics has PCC to answer this?

Portsmouth Parking Zones and "Free" Permits

Much has been made of the issue of charging residents who live in a Permit Zone for their first parking permit.
So far they have been "Free"
But what do we mean here by Free?
First even those who have these permits are still having to pay for additional passes, and scratchcards for their guests and any traders that need to spend more than two hours at their residences. 
Secondly the fact that these residents agreed to be in a parking zone  (yes we voted for it) actually enabled the council to make money from their streets.
Thirdly the council receives a not inconsiderable sum from fines:
In 2011 they made £1,184,884, yep well over a million quid a year! (Note, the statistics do not seem to be being kept up to date)
However, they are not allowed to use that money in place of general taxation and that includes fines for those times when they are late renewing their 'free' permits.
The £40 proposed charge is of course a substitute for raising council taxes but let's face it council taxes have been frozen for so long that there must come a point when they should go up. Just compare your council taxes with all your other expenses - or even the TV License over the last decade.