TRB 2016 Blue Ribbon Committee
16th National Transportation Planning Applications Conference

An Integrated, Validated, and Applied Activity Based-DTA Model for the Baltimore-Washington Region


Corresponding Author: Thomas Rossi, Cambridge Systematics, Inc.

Presented By: Sepehr Ghader , University of Maryland

Abstract

This presentation will discuss the integration process and initial applications of a new model for the Baltimore-Washington region that integrates an activity based demand model with a dynamic traffic assignment (DTA) model. Specifically, the integrated model includes InSITE, an activity based model developed for the Baltimore Metropolitan Council (BMC), and DTALite, a mesoscopic DTA model developed by Arizona State University. The model is part of the Maryland Integrated Travel Analysis Modeling System, a joint effort of the Maryland Department of Transportation State Highway Administration (SHA) and BMC performed under a grant from the Federal Highway Administration to implement the products of the Strategic Highway Research Program Project C10.

The integrated model simulates the complete daily activity choices of individuals residing in the model region, including long term choices, such as workplace location; daily activity patterns, including joint household activities and school escorting; activity location choices; time of day choices; mode choices; and route choices. This is a completely disaggregate application of the individual choices that uses a synthetic population developed as part of InSITE. The application uses a the open source software platforms TourCast and DTALite as well as a proprietary travel demand modeling package licensed to SHA and BMC, which is used for transit network modeling.

The presentation will describe on the model development and integration approach, including modeling challenges, such as the need to maintain consistency between the activity based and DTA models in terms of temporal and spatial resolution, and practical implementation issues such as managing model run time and ensuring sufficient convergence of the model. Additionally, the presentation will describe the validation effort for the integrated model, including the challenges associated with making sure that DTA results are reasonable at both the regional level and for specific roadways, interchanges, and intersections. Furthermore, the presentation will describe the application of the model for both the baseline and a new scenario that analyzes the re-development of a brownfield site in Baltimore.

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