Integrated Transportation, Land Use And Demographic Modeling – Implications And Applications For School And Community Planning
Corresponding Author: Mathew Palmer, Institute for Transportation Research and Education
Presented By: Mathew Palmer, Institute for Transportation Research and Education
Abstract
School planning is a dynamic, complicated landscape that requires fluency in both transportation and land use planning in order to accurately assess the facility and mobility needs of a community’s public school students. The Operations Research and Education Lab (OREd) at NC State’s Institute for Transportation Research and Education has developed an integrated modeling approach that factors in local residential land use, demographic trends and school transportation network considerations in supporting school planning decisions. Pairing longitudinal public school bus travel data available via the North Carolina Transportation Information Management System (TIMS) with parcel level address data, OREd is undertaking an innovative research program that evaluates how school construction, local residential development, and school travel operations change over time. This transportation – land use analysis of school siting is the first longitudinal analysis of its kind and will enable the research team to speak to the causal effect that school construction has on local residential developments and the interactive effects that residential development construction has on school travel operations. Further, this analysis will also provide an opportunity to evaluate the dynamic nature of student generating ratios – a measure related to how many public school-enrolled students a plot of land (i.e. home) within a neighborhood development is responsible for. This research is directly related to the application of transportation and land use data to school facility and travel planning for public schools throughout the United States.