Soil compaction by agricultural machines can have adverse effects on crop production and environment. For soil compaction modelling, one problem is the stress distribution at the soil surface because it is inhomogeneous and depends on soil and tyre properties. However, a uniform vertical stress distribution on the soil/tyre interface is used to predict compaction of cultivated soils during traffic by most of the authors in their models. We proposed a new approach to model various stress distributions perpendicular to driving direction in PLAXISFEM model. It consists in the introduction of a plate at the soil/tyre interface. We could generate constant to U-shape distributions by varying the flexural rigidity EI of the plate, as a function of tyre characteristics. We showed a good correspondence between the simulations of models with a U-shaped vertical stress distribution and measured data from compaction field tests. Therefore, the use of a plate with various flexural rigidity at the soil/tyre interface can be used to generate the appropriate distribution of vertical stress for soil compaction modelling during traffic.