Department of Transportation and

Geotechnical Engineering, CoET

TR 631: Highway Planning and Economics

Topic 2 – Transport Modelling

CoET
Department of Transportation and Geotechnical Engineering
Traffic Forecasting for Highways
Networks

CoET
Department of Transportation and Geotechnical Engineering
1.0 Role of Transport Models in Planning and
Project Appraisal
• A Transport Model is a tool providing a quantitative and
qualitative output of the likely impacts of alternative
solutions (hypotheses) formulated at planning level
(“What if ?”).

• This then provides the analytical input to the planning

and decision making process.

• The model can be used in many different ways to inform

this process, including:
o Understanding the function of existing infrastructure
in terms of passenger groups, freight types, trip types
and origins and destinations;
CoET
Department of Transportation and Geotechnical Engineering
1.0 Role of Transport Models in Planning and
Project Appraisal
o Identifying bottlenecks in the network and
understanding the need for additional capacity;
o Providing demand data for appropriate options
analysis, design and dimensioning of new
infrastructure and operational service (e.g. public
transport timetables) responding to real forecast
traffic and functional requirements;
o Understanding the impact of a new transport scheme
on transport flows through the modelled network
(multi-modal if necessary), showing how demand
responds to the new infrastructure and the resulting
conditions that will exist;

CoET
Department of Transportation and Geotechnical Engineering
1.0 Role of Transport Models in Planning and
Project Appraisal
o Understanding how transport conditions will change in
the future in response to changes in population,
employment, economic activity, car ownership and
development patterns;

o Understanding the passenger and revenue impacts of

changes in routing, frequency, speed or accessibility
of public transport services; and

o Understanding the relationship between changes in

land use and the resulting transport demand.

CoET
Department of Transportation and Geotechnical Engineering
1.0 Role of Transport Models in Planning and
Project Appraisal
• Ultimately, the outputs from the transport model provide
quantitative information that informs scheme design, cost
benefit analysis, financial analysis, and environmental
assessment.

• End-users of transport modelling outputs rely on robust

transport forecasts, weaknesses in a transport model
can therefore reduce the ability to support those other
specialists.
• As such, a good quality model, based on an appropriate
dataset will generate a good quality set of concept and
design inputs and assessment outputs, which will in turn
allow a more informed design and appraisal.
CoET
Department of Transportation and Geotechnical Engineering
1.0 Role of Transport Models in Planning and
Project Appraisal
• For the appraisal of transport projects, a transport model
is prepared for at least two scenarios – namely option(s)
with and without the project.

• In addition, both of these scenarios are prepared for an

opening year and a future design year.

• The impact of the project is defined as the difference

between the ‘with project’ and ‘without project’ options
for each year modelled

CoET
Department of Transportation and Geotechnical Engineering
2.0 Steps in Model Development
• Prior to undertaking any transport modelling exercise, it
is necessary to fully understand the requirements and
functions of that model.

• This will ensure that the model delivers output that is

relevant to the project and enables a good project
appraisal.

• The Scoping Stage of a modelling exercise examines the

type of model that is required, the level of detail that will
be input, and the method for undertaking the
calculations.

CoET
Department of Transportation and Geotechnical Engineering
2.0 Steps in Model Development
• In considering the scope of the transport model, the
following basic questions need to be addressed:
o What is the nature of the scheme to be assessed?
o Where is the scheme located and in what sort of
environment?
o What is the likely area of influence of the scheme?
o What modes of transport are likely to be affected by
the scheme?
o What outputs are required from the modelling
process?
• The answers to these questions should lead towards a
decision as to whether a model is required and, if so,
what form it should take.
CoET
Department of Transportation and Geotechnical Engineering
2.0 Steps in Model Development
• Following the Scoping, the data collection stage involves
the collection of all the necessary data.

• Because of the number of movements and the

complexity of a transport network, it is not possible to
measure every transport movement for inclusion in a
transport model.

• As such, the data collection stage seeks to identify a

statistically representative sample of transport
movements.

CoET
Department of Transportation and Geotechnical Engineering
2.0 Steps in Model Development
• The data collection stage also allows the necessary data
to be collected for the calibration and validation stages,
and the future year model development stages.

• The base year Transport Model involves the expansion

of the data collected into a full dataset of transport
movements using aggregate indicators.

• This demand is then loaded onto a transport network

and transport services (in the case of public transport)
that is also constructed as part of this stage, using an
initial set of mathematical algorithms.

CoET
Department of Transportation and Geotechnical Engineering
2.0 Steps in Model Development
• The calibration and validation process seeks to
ensure that this synthesised dataset then matches
observed conditions on the transport network.

• It provides an opportunity for the practitioner to modify

the transport network, transport services, transport
demand and mathematical algorithms such that the
model outputs better reflect existing observed transport
activity on the network (journey times, traffic flows at
individual locations, observed mode share on selected
corridors etc.).

CoET
Department of Transportation and Geotechnical Engineering
2.0 Steps in Model Development
• This stage also provides an opportunity to correct any
errors in the model development which may become
clear.

• Following this stage, future year forecasts of the

Transport Model are developed which incorporate
changes to the network and to the factors driving
transport demand (e.g. population, employment, car
ownership, economic activity).

• This provides a picture of the future year transport

conditions that will exist in defined years, and represents
the background against which a project is evaluated.
CoET
Department of Transportation and Geotechnical Engineering
2.0 Steps in Model Development
• Finally, transport infrastructure and policy and/or land-
use interventions are tested in future year versions of the
transport models.

• This allows impacts and benefits to be assessed for the

future year in question, and forms the input to design
and the subsequent project appraisal.

The ‘Four -Step Model’ describes the classical/ standard

approach to the modelling of transport impacts to a
range of proposals.

CoET
Department of Transportation and Geotechnical Engineering
3.0 Traffic forecasting for highways networks
• In reality, trips may start and end at every address in the
world and may use all available networks, streets,
services etc.

• In order to solve a particular transportation problem a

simplified description of the real system is needed.
• A transportation system description needs to be
designed so as to give answers to the following
questions:
– Which travel markets are relevant (only persons, or also goods?
Only commuting or also education? Etc)
– Which geographical area is relevant?
– Which transport supply networks should be considered?
CoET
Department of Transportation and Geotechnical Engineering
3.0 Traffic forecasting for highways networks
• Answers to such questions highly depend on the
problem at hand; the type of policy measures to be
studied, the type of assessment criteria that will be used,
etc.
• In order to plan the future development of the highway
network in an optimal way it is necessary to assess the
current transport demands between the various parts of
the area under study and to estimate the possible future
traffic volumes likely to use alternative preconceived
highway networks.
• Demand estimation based on the attributes of the entire
network is accomplished by undertaking the following
steps:
CoET
Department of Transportation and Geotechnical Engineering
3.1 Establishing the Market Segmentation
• Estimate the market segmentation; segmentation
criteria: passenger vs freight and commodity type, trip
purpose or mode.

• For more details see the handout.

CoET
Department of Transportation and Geotechnical Engineering
3.2 Defining the Study Area
• Prior to collecting and summarizing the data, it is usually
necessary to delineate the study area boundaries and to
further subdivide the area into traffic analysis zones (TAZ)
for data tabulation.

• The main two dimensions of a zoning system are the

number of zones and their size; the two are of course
related.

• The size and number of zones is a critical factor in

determining the realism and accuracy of a network model
and also how long the model takes to run.

• The greater the number of zones, the smaller they can be to

cover the same study area.
CoET
Department of Transportation and Geotechnical Engineering
3.2 Defining the Study Area
• If zones are too large, the model will be unable to reflect
changes in transport demand to the required level of
accuracy, however good the quality of the data.

• On the other hand, if the zones are too small, this increases
the level of work that is required to develop a functional
model and greatly increases model calculation times, which
can be a problem when many scenarios and options are
being tested as well as efforts for data collection.

• The definition of the study area consists of several steps; the

delineation of the study area, the subdivision of the study
area into zones and the definition of zone centroids.

CoET
Department of Transportation and Geotechnical Engineering
3.2 Defining the Study Area
• Study area delineation
• The first choice in establishing a zoning system is to
distinguish the study area itself from the rest of the world.

• In choosing the study area one must consider the decision-

making context, the schemes to be modelled, and the
nature of the trips of interest: mandatory, optional, long or
short distance, and so on.

• For strategic studies one would like to define the study area
so that the majority of the trips have their origin and
destination inside it; however, this may not be possible for
the analysis of transport problems in smaller urban areas
where the majority of the trips of interest are through-trips
and a bypass is to be considered.
CoET
Department of Transportation and Geotechnical Engineering
3.2 Defining the Study Area
• Similar problems arise with traffic management studies
where most of the trips will have their origin, destination or
both, clearly outside the area of interest.

• The study area should be somewhat bigger than the

specific area of interest covering the schemes to be
considered; opportunities for re-routing, changes in
destination and so on, must be allowed for so that their
effects can be modelled as part of the study area itself.

• The region external to the study area is normally divided

into a number of external zones which can be considered to
represent the rest of the world in a particular direction.

CoET
Department of Transportation and Geotechnical Engineering
3.2 Defining the Study Area
• Zonal subdivision
• The study area itself is also divided into smaller internal
zones, also called traffic zones.

• These zones represent at a coarser level the origin and

destination addresses of individual trips.

• The zonal subdivision implies that intrazonal trips cannot be

analysed because there is no geographical reference, and
therefore are not assigned onto a model network.

• If zones are too large, this may lead to a significant

underestimation of transport flows, both on links and at
junctions, and this in turn could seriously distort the pattern
of flows and delays given by the model.
CoET
Department of Transportation and Geotechnical Engineering
3.2 Defining the Study Area
• Zonal subdivision
• Similar distortions, particularly in the modelling of junction
turning movements and boarding/alighting forecasts at
public transport stops can also occur if zone sizes are not
compatible with the level of network detail included in the
model.

• In this sense, special care needs to be taken in wider area

models with major nodes which are often the source of
major bottlenecks, which will not be reflected in the model if
the zoning is too big.

• The finer the subdivision, the more the zones and the
higher the accuracy in model calculation but also the higher
the cost in data collection and computation.
CoET
Department of Transportation and Geotechnical Engineering
3.2 Defining the Study Area
• Zonal subdivision
• If public transport is an important issue it needs extra fine
zonal subdivision because it strongly depends on the
characteristics of local access and egress transport.

• For public transport networks, care should be taken in

situations where a single zone covers multiple public
transport boarding/alighting points, as the model may
assign all demand to a single stop or equally without
consideration of relative accessibility.

• In such situations, it is advisable to further disaggregate

zones such that each zone is associated with a single stop
on each public transport route.
CoET
Department of Transportation and Geotechnical Engineering
3.2 Defining the Study Area
• Zonal subdivision
• In a similar fashion to the network, zones sizes should
generally be smallest towards the centre or focus of the
model area and increase in size the closer to the model
area boundary they become.

• They should also seek to follow, or be capable of being

aggregated to, administrative boundaries as this can prove
useful when using other data such as population or
household information.

CoET
Department of Transportation and Geotechnical Engineering
3.2 Defining the Study Area
• Zonal subdivision
• The selection of zones is based on the following criteria:

1. Intrazonal trips should be minimized; it might be convenient

to start postulating a system with many small zones, as this
may be aggregated in various ways* later depending on the
nature of the projects to be evaluated.

* It is sometimes advantages to develop a hierarchical zoning system

where subzones are aggregated into zones which in turn are
combined into districts, traffic boroughs and finally sectors; which
facilitates the analysis of different types of decisions at the
appropriate level of detail.

CoET
Department of Transportation and Geotechnical Engineering
3.2 Defining the Study Area

2. The zoning system must be compatible with other

administrative divisions, particularly with census zones.

3. The shape of the zones should allow an easy

determination of their centroid connectors and its centroid
which is chosen such that it is indeed the centre of gravity
of the zone.

4. Zones should be as homogeneous as possible in their

land use and/or population composition; census zones
with clear difference in this respect should not be
aggregated, even if they are very small.

CoET
Department of Transportation and Geotechnical Engineering
3.2 Defining the Study Area

5. Zone boundaries must be compatible with cordons and

screen lines and with those of previous zoning systems;
the use of main roads as zone boundaries should be
avoided because this increases considerably the difficulty
of assigning trips to zones, when these originate or end at
a zonal boundary.

6. Zones do not have to be of equal size; if anything, they

could be of similar dimensions in travel time units.

CoET
Department of Transportation and Geotechnical Engineering
3.2 Defining the Study Area
• Zonal centroids
• Zones are represented in the computer models as if their
attributes and properties were concentrated in a single
point called the zone centroid.

• It is part of the modelled transport network; it is a fictitious

network node that connects the zone to the surrounding
networks.

• It is linked to the network by connectors which are fictitious

links representing the underlying local network not included
in the model.

CoET
Department of Transportation and Geotechnical Engineering
3.2 Defining the Study Area
• Zonal centroids
• The location of the centroid is chosen such that it is indeed
the centre of gravity of the zone, which means that its
location minimizes the distance and time errors in
geographically representing the individual trip addresses.

• Interzonal characteristics such as distance or travel times

between zones are based on the distances or travel times
between the zonal centroids.

CoET
Department of Transportation and Geotechnical Engineering
3.3 Highway Network Representation
• Normal practice is to model the network as a directed
graph, i.e. a system of nodes and links joining them;
most nodes are taken to represent junctions and the
links stand for homogeneous stretches of road between
junctions.

• Each node is specified by a numerical code and each

link is described by its end nodes.

• Important characteristics of each link (such as its

capacity, number of lanes, free-flow speed, or travel
time) are also specified.

CoET
Department of Transportation and Geotechnical Engineering
3.3 Highway Network Representation
• It is often advantageous to select the coding scheme
judiciously to reflect other link attributes as well.

• For example, nodes that lie exclusively on arterial streets

may be denoted by one range of numerical codes (say,
between 100 and 1000), whereas nodes that lie on
higher-type facilities may be coded with numbers in
another range (say, greater than 1000).

• Thus a link connecting nodes 525 and 666 is clearly a

segment of an arterial street, whereas link 1212-1213 is
a segment of freeway.

CoET
Department of Transportation and Geotechnical Engineering
3.3 Highway Network Representation
• Moreover, links 729-1432 and 1198-888 represent an
on-ramp (i.e., connecting an arterial to a freeway) and an
off-ramp (i.e., connecting a freeway to an arterial).

• A subset of the nodes is associated with zone centroids,

and a subset of the links to centroid connectors.

• Travel-analysis zonal centroids are usually designated

by numeric-al codes at the lower range of positive
integers .

CoET
Department of Transportation and Geotechnical Engineering
3.3 Highway Network Representation
• Centroid connectors, although not real links, are typically
given link attributes corresponding to the average
conditions that travellers experience on the non-coded
street system.

• The advent of geographic information system (GIS)

technology has greatly enhanced the efficiency and
accuracy of network specification and coding.

• Links are normally unidirectional.

• A problem with this scheme is that “at-node” connectivity is

offered to each link joining it at no cost.
CoET
Department of Transportation and Geotechnical Engineering
3.3 Highway Network Representation
• In practice, some turning movements at junctions may
be much more difficult to perform than others: indeed,
some turning movements may not be allowed at all.

• In order to represent these features better, it is possible

to penalise and/or ban some turning movements.

• This can be done manually by expanding the junction

providing separate (sometimes called dummy) links for
each turning movement and associating a different cost
to each.

CoET
Department of Transportation and Geotechnical Engineering
3.3 Highway Network Representation
• Alternatively, some commercial computer software are
capable of performing this expansion in a semi-
automatic way by following simple instructions from the
user about difficult or banned movements.

• Also, proper practice is to connect centroid links to

‘dummy’ nodes along network links rather than directly to
junctions so as to ensure that traffic flows on the centroid
connectors do not unrealistically load the junctions from
non-existing approaches and thus adversely affect
subsequent level-of-service calculations.

CoET
Department of Transportation and Geotechnical Engineering
3.3 Highway Network Representation
• The requirements for junction coding may arise in urban
areas or on congested networks, and should include:
o Junction type (traffic signals, roundabouts, priority);
o Number of approach arms, and their order (in terms
of entry link references);
o Number and width of traffic lanes on each junction
approach, and the lane discipline adopted (including
prohibited turns); and
o Any additional data required to describe the operational
characteristics of the junction (e.g. saturation flows, signal
timings and phasing, turning radii and gap acceptance
characteristics).

CoET
Department of Transportation and Geotechnical Engineering
3.3 Highway Network Representation
• A key decision in setting up a network is how many
levels to include in the road hierarchy.

• Jansen and Bovy (1982) investigated the influence of

network definition and detail over road assignment
accuracy; one should include in the network at least one
level below the links of interest.

• Specifying, coding, and cleaning the zone system and

the transportation network is a very tedious task.

• Well-defined zones and networks are critical.

CoET
Department of Transportation and Geotechnical Engineering