Module 2

Transportation Planning
Overview

1
Land use – transportation
Interaction
i

2
2
Objective

Provide information necessary for making

decisions on when and where
improvements should be made in the
transportation system, thus promoting
travel and land development patterns that
are in keeping with community goals and
objectives.
objectives

3
3
Planning procedure

1. Forecasts for the target

g yyear of the regional
g p
population
p
and economic growth for the subject metropolitan area
2. Allocation of land uses and socioeconomic projections to
individual analysis zones according to land availability,
availability
local zoning, and related public policies
3. Specification of alternative transportation plans partly
based on the results of steps 1 and 2
4. Calculation of the capital and maintenance costs of each
alternative plan

4
4
Planning procedure

5. Application
pp of calibrated demand-forecasting g models to
predict the target year equilibrium flows expected to
use each alternative, given the land-use and
socioeconomic p projections
j of steps
p 2 and the
characteristics of the transportation alternative (step 3)
6. Conversion of equilibrium flows to direct user benefits,
such as savings in travel time and travel cost
attributable to the proposed plan
7. Comparative evaluation and selection of the “best” of
the alternatives analyzed based on estimated costs
(step 3) and benefits (step 6)

5
5
 6
6
Overview of Information
Needs
d

1. The study area

2 Urban activities
2.
3. Transportation system
4 Travel
4. T l

7
7
The Study Area
• Defining the Boundaries: includes developed +
undeveloped land that will be encompassed in the
next 20, 30 years.
• The defined area is demarcated by the cordon line.
Factors of consideration include:
– a) future growth
– b) political jurisdictions
– c) census area boundaries
– d) natural boundaries
• The cordon should intersect a minimum number of
roads to save on subsequent interview requirements

8
8
Subdividing the Area of Forecasting: the area is divided
into analysis units or zones to enable the planner to link
information about activities,, travel,, and transportation
p to
physical urban area
The size of a zone may vary. In central business district
(CBD) zones may be small – a single block
(CBD), block. In
undeveloped area, it may be large – 10 or more square
miles.
A zone attempt to bound homogenous urban activities:
all residential, commercial, industrial, etc. It may also be
divided by natural boundaries and census designations.

9
9
Urban Activities

Information about activities is gathered by

zones
Sources of information include activities
that may influence travel
Th results
The lt provide
id llevels l off activities
ti iti iin
zones to help in predicting future levels
th t provide
that id a bbasis
i ffor fforecasting
ti

10
10
Transportation System
• Available modes (auto, bus, etc.)
• An abstraction – so not every
y local road is included
• A network is developed to describe auto and truck; a
separate description for transit.
• Network geometry includes:
• a) numbering the intersections (called nodes)
• b)) numbering g the road segments
g ((called links))
• Zone centroids (center of activity) are identified;
connected to nodes by imaginary links (called centroid
connectors) They are used as the points at which trips
connectors).
are “loaded”. They are sometimes called origin and
destination.

11
11
Travel Forecasting: techniques

1. Sketch Planning Tool:

– Preliminary screening of possible configurations
or concepts. It is used to compare a large
number
b off proposed d policies
li i iin sufficient
ffi i t
analytical detail to support broad policy
decisions.
– It uses minimum data yielding aggregate
estimates of capital and operating costs,
patronage corridor traffic flows,
patronage, flows service levels,
levels
energy consumption and air pollution
– The final product may be a strategic plan
12
12
2. Traditional Tools:
– Theyyp provide an analysis
y in much g
greater detail
than sketch planning. Examples include location
of principal highway facilities and delineated
transit routes
– The outputs are detailed estimates of transit
fleet size, refined cost and patronage forecasts,
andd llevel-of-service
l f i measures ffor specific
ifi
geographical areas.
– The cost of examining an alternative is about 10
to 20 times its cost at the sketch planning level.

13
13
 Micro-analysis
3 Micro
3. analysis tools
They are the most detailed of all planning
tools.
tools
Examples: detailed evaluation of the
extension, rescheduling, or pricing of existing
bus service; to analyze passenger and
vehicle flows through a transportation
terminal or activity center.
It is most effective in near-term planning,
when a great many outside variables can be
accurately observed or estimated.
14
14
Travel Surveys

Origin destination (OD) survey

Origin-destination
Roadside interview
C d /
Cordon/screenline
li survey
Travel diary survey

15
15
OD surveys

Expensive
p and difficult,, however,, offers the
possibility of obtaining more useful data
Could gather a lot of information, most typical
ones include O-D, mode choice and assignment
(route choice) in short-term studies encompassing
t l di
travel t
distance, ti
time, and d costs
t

16
16
OD Surveys
General considerations
The procedure to collect data will affect results significantly
significantly.
Survey date: Best times of the year are spring and autumn. During
a typical work day
Days
y and Times: No Mondays y and Fridays.y No weekends. Best is
to ensure a good recollection of events in the previous day. So the
survey should be conducted during Wednesday, Thursday, and
Friday. Household-based: 6 pm -9 pm. Workplace based: working
hours.
hours
Survey Period: Ideally all the selected sample should be
interrogated on one day in order to obtain a snapshot of what
happened on the previous day. However, this requires a large
number of interviewers. Practically, the period normally last for
several days.

17
17
OD surveys
Contain three distinct sections:
Personal characteristics and identification: age,
age sex,
sex possession of
a driving license, educational level, and activity. A complete set of
activities should be first defined
Trip data: detecting and characterizing all trips made by all the
household members. A trip is normally defined as any movement
greater than 300 meters from an origin to a destination with a given
purpose. Trips are characterized by: origin and destination
(expressed by nearest cross
cross-junction)
junction), trip purpose
purpose, trip start and
end times, mode used, walking distance (including transfers),
public-transport line and transfer stations or bus stop
Household characteristics: socioeconomic info about the
household, such as characteristics of the house, identification of
household vehicles, house ownership, and income.

18
18
Roadside Interviews
These provide useful information about trips not
registered in household survey (i.e. external-external
trips in a cordon survey)
Often a better method for estimating trip matrices than
home interviews as larger samples are possible.
Results could be used to validate and extend house-hold
based information
Involve asking a sample of drivers and passengers of
vehicles crossing a roadside station
Information collected include:
origin,
i i d destination,
ti ti ttrip
i purpose
due to time limitation, these are questions asked only if
time allows: sex, age, income
19
19
Cordon Surveys

• These provide external-external and external-

internal trips
trips. Their objecti
objective
e is to determine the
number of trips that enter, leave, and/or cross the
cordoned area, thus helping to complete the
information coming from household O-D O D survey.
• The main one is taken at the external cordon,
although surveys may be conducted at internal
cordons.
• To reduce delay, they involve stopping a sample of
the vehicles passing a control station, to which a
short questionnaire is given. Sometimes, a sample
of license plates is registered and the
questionnaires are sent to the corresponding
addresses.

20
20
Cordon Surveys

• An important
p p
problem is that return-mail
surveys are known to produce biased results.
Less than 50% questionnaires are usually
returned and it has been shown that the type
of person who returns them is different from
those who do not.
• Therefore, roadside surveys often ask a
rather limited number of questions (e.g.,
occupation purpose,
occupation, purpose origin
origin, destination and
modes available) to encourage better
response rates.
21
21
Screenline Surveys

Screen lines divide the area into large

natural zones (e.g. at both sides of a river
or motorway),
motorway) with few crossing points
between them. The procedure is
analogous to that of cordon surveys and
the data also serve to fill gaps in and
validate the information coming from the
household and cordon surveys.

22
22
Travel Diary Surveys

These are surveys conducted with a great

l
levell off d
detail.
t il
They are applied separately to each
member of the household traveling at the
time of the study.
They are carried out and completed by the
j
subjects during g the day
y

23
23
Travel Diary Surveys
• Criteria:
– Ease of transport: a small format to be stored or
carried
– Ease of understanding to the user:
– Ease
E off completion
l ti
• Procedures:
– A first visit to each household in the sample
sample.
Interviewees are trained to use the instrument
and asked to fill it with complete details of their
travel data for the following day
– A second visit the day following the last surveyed
day (24 hours later in the case of one-day diaries.
24
24
Approaches
pp for constructing
g surveys
y

• Stated-preference
p surveys
y
– provide an approximation to a sort of quasi-experiment
based on hypothetical situations set up by the researcher
– The degree
g of artificiality
y of the situations may
y vary,
y
according to:
• the decision context may be a hypothetical or a real one; in
other words, the respondent may be asked to consider an actual
journey
jou ey oor o
one
e tthat
at sshe
e might
g t co
consider
s de uundertaking
de ta g in tthe
e future
utu e
• the alternatives offered are often hypothetical although one of
them may well be an existing one.
• The response elicited from the individual may take the form of
choices or just preferences expressed in a number of ways
• Revealed-preference surveys
– Capture interviewees’ actual choices or responses.

25
25
Approaches for constructing surveys

Longitudinal data collection

Most common approach is the panel survey, in which
similar measurements are made on the same sample
at different points in time.
Representative sample: a panel design should
attempt to maintain a representative sample of the
entire population over time, coping with the problems
of birth, immigration, and the addition of whole new
f ili iinto
families t th
the population.
l ti

26
26