Today, large cities and peri-urban areas experience problems in the mobility of their population. Faced with this problem, decision-makers must have reliable tools to help them to build and evaluate their policies of mobility. Computer simulations especially traffic simulation tools are, therefore, the solution to better understand (study) the problem and test different resolution scenarios. Unfortunately, there are numerous simulation tools and the choice can be very difficult for traffic modelers. In this paper, we present, based on a generic method, a comparison of the most popular traffic simulation tools in two steps: 1) a comparison part using a weighted system of evaluation criteria to automatically select the candidate simulators. 2) a deeper study of the candidate simulators according to a simulation scenario corresponding to the study case. Finally, this paper presents an application of this method for the selection of a simulator for the study of intermodal mobility behaviors where MATSIM and SUMO were studied in deeper.