Development Of External And Truck Components For A Regional Travel Model
Corresponding Author: Matt Stratton, WSP
Presented By: Matt Stratton, WSP USA
Abstract
A regional travel model has to include various components in addition to the core part that generates travel demand of the regional population with the trip ends in the modeled region. These include external passenger trips with either origin or destination outside the modeled region (externals) as well as truck trips (both external and internal). This paper describes a possible approach to improve the existing practices of modeling external trips. This approach is based on two principles. The first one is that external trips should be derived from a larger “mega” model that plays a meta role with respect to the external-internal proportions. The second is that the core internal model has to be properly scaled to reflect on the external trip shares predicted by the inter-regional meta-model.
In the current project, full advantage was taken of the Ohio Statewide model to provide a basis for the external and truck components for the regional ABMs developed for three major cities (Columbus, Cleveland, and Cincinnati) and corresponding MPOs. The ABM structure was adjusted accordingly to eliminate possible double-counting between internal and external trips. The travel and traffic components that have to be extracted from the Statewide model to regional ABMs include external auto trips, commercial vehicles, and trucks.
The paper describes the corresponding technical details, results, and a discussion about possible further improvements of this important model component.