(Corresponding author)

Land use patterns are key determinants of traffic conditions, as well as energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. This work describes the modeling of year-2030 land use patterns of the Austin, Texas region using UrbanSim, an open-source model for microscopic simulation of land development, location choices and land values, at fine spatial resolution (typically 150 m x 150 m grid cells). An accompanying travel demand model was run every five years, resulting in accessibility indices for use in UrbanSim location choice models. A business-as-usual trend scenario was compared to urban growth boundary (UGB) and added transport-cost-sensitivity scenarios (TCS), expanded highway capacity scenario (EXPAN), and added state highway 130 (SH 130) scenario in order the appreciate UrbanSim’s performance and the potential land use and travel impacts of such policies. As expected, several land use results (e.g., population densities), travel patterns and energy consumption results responded to scenario contexts. Local access variables (within 600-meter Euclidean distances) also enjoy significant relevance in this implementation of UrbanSim. While UrbanSim specification limitations are multiple and its data requirements are serious (and may be impossible for almost any planning agency to meet − even after substantial effort), the model does run reasonably fast and may make good sense over the longer term for interested regions with sophisticated planning staff on board to pursue. Enhancements in the newer version of UrbanSim rendered the model to be more user-friendly