The TIGRIS XL Land Use and Transport Interaction Model for the Netherlands: Applications and Further Developments

The TIGRIS XL land use and transport interaction model for the Netherlands is developed for and owned by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Environment and the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency. Because of this ownership it is that in comparison with other LUTI-models this model has a strong practical focus. Since the finalization of the first version of the model in 2006 the modal has been applied in a number of policy studies. Currently a new version of the model is close of being operational and we use this opportunity to reflect on several of these applications and their lessons. The model can be characterized by its dynamic in structure, as it iterates between transport and land-use components, to model how the system evolves over time. Main design principles are that it avoids postulating a priori a hierarchical relationship between jobs and residents, a flexible modular set-up and its integration with the standard National Model System as its transport module. Internationally the TIGRIS XL model can be positioned in the family of utility based dynamic models, other members of this family are IRPUD (Wegener, 1998), Delta (Simmonds, 1999) and Urbansim (Waddell, 2002). A rather special characteristic of the TIGRIS XL model is that the availability of detailed spatial data enabled a formal statistical estimation of the residential and firm location choice module, while informal calibration procedures are more commonly applied in the international practice of LUTI models. The applications presented in this paper reflect the different functionalities of the model and include: (1) Scenario studies to address uncertain future developments. The paper will discuss the spatial outlook study addressing regional uncertainties In this study the TIGRIS XL model has been used to quantify in a integrative and consistent way the regional scenario’s regarding population, household, work force, employment, accessibility and congestion. The study also explores the impacts of a scenario including a less regulated residential land market in the Netherlands. (2) Strategy formulation studies exploring the potential of future land use and transport strategies. As example the paper will discuss the application of the TIGRIS XL model in the second sustainability outlook study. In this study the model has been used to explore the potential of urban density strategies in combination with infrastructure investments and pricing policy strategies. (3) Land use and transport project evaluation study. For the New Town developments in the city of Almere the impacts of alternative land-use and transport on the population, employment and transport benefits have been evaluated. This analysis included the mutual interactions as the benefits of the transport investment depends on the land-use developments and the land-use developments depend on the accessibility of the locations. (4) Urban development and Cost-benefit analysis. This study addresses a longstanding research issue and explores the definition of the reference case for urban development projects within cost benefit analysis studies. The TIGRIS XL model has been used to demonstrate the impacts on the benefits of the selection of alternative reference cases. The benefits include land revenues, agglomeration benefits and travel time savings. For each application the description will focus on how the model has been applied and what the contribution has been of applying a LUTI-model. Finally the paper will focus on upcoming challenges and future applications. As one of the upcoming research issues in this field we identify the increasing differences in regional developments and the implications of these growing regional disparities for spatial and infrastructure investments policies. In addition the government in the Netherlands is in the process of decentralizing its spatial planning policies and, to a much lesser extent, its transport policies. Applying a LUTI model can help to get insight in the differences in impacts at the regional and national level.