A simulator for inter-vehicle radio communication includes terrain and building data and can simulate the effects of buildings in terrain on radio propagation. The simulator also models other vehicles and the shadow effects of their presence. The system comprises a simulation engine, a network simulator, a driving simulator, a database and a user interface module adapted for communication. The simulation engine simulates the propagation of communication signals between vehicles including the effects of shadowing, and also receives data from the network simulator, the driving simulator and database to generate the propagation simulation. The simulation engine outputs the results of the propagation simulation to the user interface module which translates the information into various displays. The present invention is particularly advantageous because it provides a variety of different user interfaces to show the effective range/propagation of communication signals for different conditions including vehicle locations, terrain, vehicle movements, data traffic and networks configuration.