TUBA (the current standard UK software for evaluation) provides three different text formats for matrices, all three of which were added in release 10.5 and enhanced under release 10.6. For example, the number of decimal places can now be user-set under all 3 formats and the latest value stored within the preferences file (as NDPS). However the output “units” are “fixed” so that, e.g., a matrix of distances is always output as kilometres (whereas SATURN would normally use metres).
Note that TUBA format 1, (CSV format) is effectively the same as that output under option 4) above and the same caveats apply. Formats 2 and 3 are very similar to the SATURN single record outputs, option 3). Under formats 2 and 3 zone names are automatically used as opposed to sequential numbers. (N.B. if the input matrix .ufm file does not contain the correct zone names, only sequential numbers, the zone names must be added from a network .ufs file; see 10.3.3.)
In addition, from Version 11.1, cells with zero values may optionally be output under TUBA formats 2 and 3. By default they are excluded and including them is definitely not recommended – it may create extremely large files – but there may be circumstances under which it is necessary. See 10.20.15 for command line options which control the choice of zero cells or not.
Tuba formats are used directly by procedures such as SATTUBA, SATTUBA2 etc. which skim times etc. from network files for input to TUBA; see Section 15.41.