Design of an Integrated, Advanced Travel Demand Model with a Fine-Grained, Time-Dependent Network for a Small Urban Area

The primary project objective of the Strategic Highway Research Program 2 (SHRP2) C10A project is to make operational a dynamic integrated model–an integrated, advanced travel-demand model with a fine-grained, time-dependent network, and to demonstrate the model’s performance through validation tests and policy and investment analyses. This integrated model system is necessary because most current travel models are not sufficiently sensitive to the dynamic interplay between travel behavior and network conditions, and are unable to reasonably represent the effects of transportation policies such as variable road pricing and travel demand management strategies. Additional project goals include producing a transferrable process and sample data that can be used in other regions, addressing travel time reliability in travel models, demonstrating an effective interface with the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA’s) Motor Vehicle Emission Simulator (MOVES) model, and incorporating knowledge from other research efforts that consider pricing operations issues. Finally, a key goal of the project is to design an integrated model system that can be implemented in other regions, so the design effort was guided by the requirements that the model must be scalable, relatively easy and cost-effective to implement and maintain. This paper presents the design of the new integrated model system, which is being implemented in Jacksonville, Florida and Burlington, Vermont.