Future travel demand and its implications for transportation infrastructure investments in the Texas Triangle.

752309313Final report.PDFTech ReportSWUTC/09/167276-110727Traffic estimationMode choiceTraffic simulationSimulationTexasUniversity of Texas at Austin. Center for Transportation ResearchZhang, MingChen, BinbinUniversity of Texas at Austin. Center for Transportation ResearchSouthwest Region University Transportation Center (U.S.)Texas Transportation InstituteNTL-OPERATIONS AND TRAFFIC CONTROLS-Traffic FlowNTL-PLANNING AND POLICY-PLANNING AND POLICYNTL-REFERENCES AND DIRECTORIES-StatisticsUS Transportation CollectionThis study takes a megaregion approach to project future travel demand and choice of transportmodes in the Texas Triangle, which is encompassed by four major metropolitan areas, Dallas-FortWorth, Houston, San Antonio, and Austin. The model was developed based on three behavioralcharacteristics of human travel. First, as income grows, demand for more and faster mobilityincreases. Second, on average, individuals allocate 1-1.5 hours per capita per day for travel.Third, people allocate 10-15% of per capita personal income for transportation related expenses.Measured by person-kilometers of travel (PKT), the total mobility demand in the Triangle regionis projected to grow nearly four times from 480 billion in year 2000 to 1.8 trillion in year 2050.Per capita PKT is expected to increase from 32,700 to 61,000 for the same time period. Theprojections show that more than 70% of the year 2050 travel demand likely comes from highspeedtravel at 600 km per hour..The study results call for serious consideration of investing inhigh-speed travel in the form of High Speed Rail (HSP) now in order to accommodate the futuretravel demand in the Triangle Region