Forecasting Network Traffic for Small Communities in Utah

US Transportation Collection2012PDFResearch PaperChen, AnthonyJansuwan, SarawatRyu, SeungkyuUtah State University. Department of Civil and Environmental EngineeringUtah State University. Utah Transportation CenterUtah State University. Utah Transportation CenterUtahResearch projectsSmall citiesTraffic forecastingNetworksTransportation planningHighway planningMetropolitan planning organizationsTraffic modelsTraffic simulationTravel demand managementUrban transportation policyTrip generationTrip distributionMode choiceTraffic assignmentSmall communitiesTraffic networksPlanning ToolsPath flow estimatorStochastic user equilibriumUTC-1002Current practice in modeling network traffic for planning applications is through a four-step travel demand forecasting model (i.e., trip generation, trip distribution, mode choice, and traffic assignment) that requires travel surveys and specialized technical staffs to operate. Although such a modeling approach has been used in practice in major metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), many small MPOs usually do not have sufficient resources to conduct travel surveys, nor to house technical staffs for model development and maintenance. The purpose of this paper is to develop a simplified planning tool specifically targeted at small MPOs. To show proof of concept, a case study is conducted using a small MPO in Utah to demonstrate how the tool can be implemented in practice.127