Integrating Land Use, Transportation and Air Quality Modeling

A Research Project Funded by

Environmental Protection Agency
2004-STAR-B1

Principal Investigator
Paul Waddell, University of Washington

Co-Principal Investigators
Chandra Bhat, University of Texas, Austin
David Layton, University of Washington
Maren Outwater, Cambridge Systematics, Inc.
Ram Pendyala, University of South Florida

Center for Urban Simulation and Policy Analysis

University of Washington
Box 353055
Seattle, Washington 98195

www.urbansim,org
pwaddell@u.washington.edu
Integrating Land Use, Transportation and Air Quality Modeling 2004-STAR-B1

E. Research Plan
Objectives
This proposal seeks to address one of the key research topics identified in the RFA:
“How might models that project changes in land-use and activity locations be improved
to better reflect and integrate lifestyle, economic production, and public policy factors that drive
vehicle miles traveled? How might spatial redistribution of activities and changes in land-use
influence investments in transportation infrastructure and technology? Conversely, how might
investment choices in transportation infrastructure and technology influence changes in spatial
distribution of activities and land-use change?”
The proposal focuses on this research topic with the aim of improving the ability to
model the air quality effects of land use and transportation within metropolitan areas.
Metropolitan areas produce the vast majority of mobile source emissions, and issues of air
quality conformity dominate the regional transportation planning process in many metropolitan
areas in the U.S. The emphasis of this proposal is the integration of recent advances in land use
and activity location modeling represented by the UrbanSim system with advances in modeling
travel behavior using activity-based approaches, and the use of this integrated framework to
assess the relative influence of transportation infrastructure, pricing, land use policies including
smart growth, and demographic and economic trends. The time scale motivating this analysis is
that generally used for developing the Regional Transportation Plan, 30 years, and the level of
spatial detail is intended to be high enough to resolve issues relevant to urban design and
pedestrian trips, which are critical to assessing smart growth strategies.
A key result of the project will be the development of an integrated, Open Source
software platform that integrates for the first time land use and activity-based travel, and couples
this tightly to emerging EPA emissions modeling software. This platform will provide a new
capacity for integrated land use, transportation and emissions modeling to support air quality
planning in metropolitan areas throughout the United States. The principal hypotheses to be
examined in this research are the following:
• Household residence location choices are interdependent with the workplace choices of
household workers. Current transportation modeling practice imposes the assumption
that these are independent, and that workplace choices are made on the same time scale
as travel choices such as shopping destination and route. If the hypothesis is correct,
failure to reflect this interdependence, and to appropriately represent the time-scale of
workplace choices, may significantly bias the assessment of responses to transportation
investments, over-estimating the responsiveness in workplace destination choice and
leading to downward bias in VMT predictions.
• Household residence location choices are interdependent with vehicle ownership.
Current transportation modeling treats auto ownership as an independent choice, again
potentially biasing the responsiveness of this key predictor of VMT.
• Expectations of daily travel patterns influence longer-term choices of residence,
workplace and auto-ownership, and these longer-term choices condition daily activity
scheduling and travel. Current transportation modeling does not consider either the
conditioning of daily activity and travel on these joint long-term choices, nor does current
land use modeling adequately incorporate expectations of daily activity scheduling and

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travel, potentially biasing significantly the nature of responses to changes in the

transportation system or changes in the housing or labor market.
• Treating long-term household choices and short-term activity and travel behavior in an
integrated way can be facilitated by representing these choices as dimensions of a latent
lifestyle choice, which may be influenced by policies or market conditions affecting any
one or any combination of these dimensions, resulting in compensating behavior that
attempts to restore a particular lifestyle. Reflecting the role of lifestyle preferences in
models that address these choice dimensions may significantly improve the realism of
predictions of responses to policy and other exogenous changes in economic, social, and
technical conditions.
• An integrated approach to modeling household lifestyle choices (residence, workplace,
auto ownership, and daily activity and travel patterns) can produce more realistic
substitution patterns, and ultimately better predictions of VMT and other factors that
directly influence emissions.
• An accurate knowledge of spatial cognitive maps of decision makers in residential choice
models will allow for a more realistic representation of perceived neighborhoods and the
appropriate consideration of the spatial extent of choice factors impacting residential
location choice. In addition, the improved representation of spatial correlation and spatial
heterogeneity in residential choice behavior will lead to better integrated land-use and
transportation model systems.
• Careful representation of the endogeneity produced by interactions or aggregation of
individual choices is critical to the ability of disaggregate behavioral models to produce
plausible aggregate sensitivity and substitution patterns. The interaction of households in
the housing market, and the endogeneity in residential location choices of housing prices
and of neighborhood social composition, need to be reflected in order to avoid significant
aggregation bias that would ultimately distort predictions of VMT and emissions.

In summary, a major goal of this effort will be to accommodate the self-selection of individuals
into neighborhoods (i.e., residential location choice) based on car ownership and activity-travel
pattern desires. This issue is critical to understanding the true causal relationships and dynamics
between land-use and travel patterns. This, in turn, will allow the design of appropriate land-use
and transportation strategies and policies to alleviate traffic congestion and improve air quality.
The questions addressed in the proposed research are significant because they get at the
essence of the linkage between land use and transportation, and should provide a more accurate
and policy sensitive approach to examine the travel and air quality effects of combined land use
and transportation strategies that are increasingly being used within growth management and
smart growth approaches. Such an approach can also shed light on the failure to effectively
coordinate land use and transportation policy.

Approach
Modeling Land-use and Activity Locations
Over the past several years, the Principal Investigator has led the development of a new-
generation land use model, UrbanSim (Waddell, 2000, 2002; Waddell and Nourzad, 2002;
Waddell, Outwater, Bhat and Blain, 2002; Noth, Borning and Waddell, 2003; Alberti and
Waddell, 2000). UrbanSim has been developed in response to limitations of existing land use

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models, and to support metropolitan planning agencies in modeling the feedbacks between land
use, transportation and air quality. With significant funding from the National Science
Foundation Information Technology Research Program (ITR), Digital Government Program,
Biocomplexity Program, and Urban Research Initiative, in addition to grants from Federal
Highway Administration and other state and local agencies, UrbanSim has been implemented as
an Open Source software system in Java and put into use in several metropolitan areas.
Applications of the model, integrated with a variety of existing four-step travel models to
support regional transportation and air quality planning, have been completed or are in various
stages of development in several metropolitan areas in the United States, including Denver,
Colorado, Detroit, Michigan, Eugene-Springfield, Oregon, Houston, Texas, Honolulu, Hawaii,
and Seattle, Washington. UrbanSim differs from prior land use models in many respects, but in
particular because it emphasizes a behaviorally-explicit representation of household choices to
move and make residential location choices within a metropolitan area, business location
choices, real estate developer choices, and the interaction of these agents and choices in dynamic
real estate markets. It is also very spatially detailed, using 150 meter grid cells to represent
sufficient spatial detail to begin to address behavioral and policy questions central to this
solicitation: the influence of smart growth strategies such as neo-traditional neighborhood
design, or Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) to reduce urban sprawl, provide affordable
housing, and alter travel behavior.
UrbanSim has most recently been used to help settle a major lawsuit in the Salt Lake City
region, where the Sierra Club and Utahn’s for Better Transportation sued the Utah Department of
Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration over conformity and other issues
pertaining to sections of the planned Legacy Highway. The basis for the lawsuit was that the
highway planning effort had not adequately addressed the feedback effects of the highway
projects on land use, and therefore did not account for potential short and long-term induced
demand effects. The settlement involved using UrbanSim in an integrated fashion with the
regional travel model system to examine these feedback effects.
While UrbanSim represents a major advance over urban models developed previously,
allowing for examination of feedbacks among land use, transportation investments and air
quality, the level of integration with the modeling of travel behavior is limited by the constraints
of existing four-step travel models. The decision to link to existing four-step travel models was
an early design choice made in order to move rapidly to add a capacity to Metropolitan Planning
Organizations to address the need to incorporate the feedbacks among transportation
investments, land use patterns, and air quality that were called for in the passage of the Clean Air
Act Amendments of 1991, the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1990, and
the Transportation Equity Act. However, the loose coupling of a behavioral land use model as
represented by UrbanSim with a traditional, four-step, trip-based travel model imposes several
significant constraints, including:
• The loss of individual detail provided by the micro-simulation in UrbanSim, since most
implementations of the four-step travel models use aggregate formulations for some of
the steps (for example, destination choice).
• Home-based work destination choices and auto-ownership are predicted within the trip-
based modeling framework, even though these are clearly not short-term decisions that
are of the same temporal scale as route choice or destination choice for shopping.

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• Interactions between short term and long-term choices made by households are not
represented in this approach, leading to potential bias in evaluation of effects of
transportation system changes.

Modeling Travel Behavior

In addition to these constraints from the loose coupling of the models, there are well-established
limitations in four-step trip-based models that impair predictions of emissions. The trip-based
approach uses individual trips as the unit of analysis and usually includes four sequential steps:
trip generation, trip distribution, mode choice, and traffic assignment. Time-of-day of trips is
either not modeled or is modeled in only a limited manner. Typically, time is introduced by
applying time-of-day factors to 24-hour travel volumes at the end of the trip generation step or
just prior to the traffic assignment step.
A fundamental conceptual problem with the trip-based approach is the use of trips as the
unit of analysis. Separate models are developed for home-based trips and non-home based trips,
without consideration of dependence among such trips (effectively, non-home based trips
become “orphans” in the trip-based approach; see Bhat and Misra, 2002). Further, the
organization (scheduling) of trips is not considered; that is, there is no distinction between home-
based trips made as part of a single-stop sojourn from home and those made as part of a multiple-
stop sojourn from home. Similarly, there is no distinction between non-home based trips made
during the morning commute, evening commute, from work, and as part of pursuing multiple
stops in a single sojourn from home. Thus, the organization of trips and the resulting inter-
relationship in the attributes of multiple trips is ignored in all steps of the trip-based method. This
is a very serious limitation (Bhat and Singh, 2000, Ye, et al., 2004, Bhat, 2001). Bhat and Misra
(2002) and Bhat et al. (2004) also indicate the pitfalls of the trip-based approach in analyzing
non-worker travel responses to congestion-management strategies.
The limitations of the trip-based approach in evaluating a wide variety of transportation
and land use policies, and in forecasting, has led to the emergence of the activity-based approach
to demand analysis. The activity-based approach to travel demand analysis views travel as a
demand derived from the need to pursue activities distributed in space. The approach adopts a
holistic framework that recognizes the complex interactions in activity and travel behavior. The
appeal of this approach originates from the realization that the need and desire to participate in
activities is more basic than the travel that some of these participations may entail. By placing
primary emphasis on activity participation and focusing on sequences or patterns of activity
behavior (using the whole day as the unit of analysis), such an approach can address congestion-
management issues through an examination of how people modify their activity participations
(for example, will individuals substitute more out-of-home activities for in-home activities in the
evening if they arrived early from work due to a work-schedule change?). More recently, the
activity-based approach to travel demand analysis has proven to be a powerful framework for
modeling the impacts of telecommunications, e-commerce, and internet use on travel behavior.
The shift to an activity-based paradigm is supported by the increased information
demands placed on travel models for air quality analysis considerations. There are two primary
issues in using current travel models for air quality analysis: the aggregation of vehicles in space
and time. Emissions are more accurate if the individual vehicle is tracked in space to identify
vehicle accelerations and decelerations and if vehicles are tracked in time to identify cold starts
and hot starts.

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Three of the Principal Investigators on this proposal have been leading the development
and deployment of advanced activity-based travel model systems. All of these efforts are aimed
at improving the state-of-the-art in transportation modeling by overcoming the many limitations
of the traditional trip-based four-step model. The activity-based model systems developed by the
principal investigators of this proposal include population synthesizers that can be used to
develop alternative scenarios of land use development, population growth, and population
movement. They account for trip chaining by explicitly considering inter-dependencies among
trips in activity/travel engagement, mode choice, and destination choice. The model systems
developed by the principal investigators of this proposal have left the “drawing board” and are in
various stages of real-world implementation for long-range transportation forecasting and policy
analysis. It is the intent of the principal investigators to bring the collective strength of these
methodologies and model systems to bear on this project so that the key research topics
identified in the RFP can be addressed in a theoretically powerful framework. The following
brief discussions demonstrate the activity-based model development and deployment efforts of
the principal investigators.

CEMDAP (Comprehensive Econometric Microsimulator for Daily Activity-travel Patterns)

CEMDAP is a software implementation of a system of econometric models that represent the
activity-travel decision-making behavior of individuals. The system comprehensively simulates
the activity-travel patterns of workers as well as non-workers along a continuous time frame
using an innovative econometric representation and analysis framework. Given various land-
use, sociodemographic, activity system, and transportation level-of-service attributes as input,
the system provides as output the complete daily activity-travel patterns for each individual in
each household of an urban population. The sociodemographic inputs required by the software
include household and person level attributes for the entire population of the study area, which is
obtained using synthetic population generation.

FAMOS: The Florida Activity Mobility Simulator

Similar to CEMDAP, FAMOS constitutes a comprehensive activity-based microsimulation
model system that simulates activity-travel patterns at the level of the individual decision-maker.
By simulating activity-travel patterns at the level of the individual traveler, the model aims to
serve as a strong platform for modeling travel demand in a region along a continuous time axis.
FAMOS has been designed to work with databases that are readily available in any MPO
engaged in long-range transportation planning. The data sets needed to implement FAMOS are
zonal socio-economic data, zone-based network level of service (LOS) data, and a household
activity or travel survey data set.

Full Day Pattern Activity Models (Bowman/Ben-Akiva)

This model system was designed to use the “full day pattern” activity modeling approach, first
introduced at MIT (Bowman and Ben-Akiva, 1999). The first practical application of that
approach was done for Portland METRO (Bradley, et al, 1998), with part of the funding
provided by the Federal Travel Model Improvement Program (TMIP). The second practical
applications of this approach was done for the San Francisco County Transportation Authority
(Bradley, et al, 2002). Key features of the model system are: the use of tours as a key unit of
travel, joint modeling of various tours made within a person’s day, breaking down each tour into
a chain of linked trips, microsimulation of the travel for each individual in the population. The

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full day pattern models are based on a synthesized population of residents that is used to estimate
choices for work location, vehicle availability, and tours and trips by time-of-day, destination
and mode of travel. These activity models have been integrated with aggregate network
assignment models and traffic microsimulation models to estimate transportation impacts and
system performance.
By combining the collective strengths of these activity-based modeling approaches with
that of UrbanSim, the principal investigators will unravel the complex causal relationships
underlying the effects that land use development patterns and transportation policies have on
people’s location choices (residential location and activity locations), vehicle ownership choices,
and activity-travel choices. This will be one of the major cornerstones of the research approach
followed by the investigators.

Modeling Lifestyle Choices in an Integrated Framework

In this project, we propose to develop a new, integrating approach to land use and transportation
modeling, by developing and testing a model that reflects the interdependence of four sets of
household choices: residential location, job location, vehicle ownership, and daily activity and
travel patterns. The synthesis we propose will draw on the features of the current model
specifications in UrbanSim, and in the range of activity models represented by CEMDAP,
FAMOS, and the Full-day Pattern Activity Models.
The choice of a residential location is actually a cluster of related choices, including the
decision to move from an existing residence, the choice of housing tenure (rent or own),
neighborhood, and housing unit. It is also bundled with expectations about the pattern of travel a
household will engage in once settled into the location. Expectations about the commute to work
of the principal wage-earners, and trips to school for school-aged members, as well as trips to
shopping and other activities all factor into the choice of a residence location, in addition to the
characteristics and price of housing, the quality of schools and public safety, and the social
composition of the neighborhood.
The absence of solid research linking the choices of residence location choice and travel
behavior has led to one of the key points of contention over the effectiveness of smart growth
strategies to promote New Urbanism, or traditional neighborhood design, to reduce VMT.
Proponents of New Urbanism point to studies comparing neighborhoods and evidence that
residents in neo-traditional neighborhoods drive less and walk more. Critics contend that the
effect is spurious, and due to self-selection of households who choose to live in these types of
neighborhoods because they want to engage in a pattern of travel that is more pedestrian and
transit oriented, not because the environment changed their behavior.
We propose to focus on the interdependence of household choices of residence location,
workplace, auto ownership and daily activity and travel patterns as multiple dimensions of
lifestyle choice. This approach extends earlier work on modeling life style choices (Waddell,
2001; Krizek and Waddell, 2002; Salomon, Waddell and Wegener, 2002), and provides a
coherent behavioral framework for the integrated model system.

Modeling Network Assignment

Network assignment is a key part of the proposed integrated model system, and is instrumental to
the connection between land use and activity locations, daily activity and travel, and their
influence on VMT and on emissions. We propose to take a two-pronged approach to addressing
multi-modal assignment. The first component would use the most effective existing equilibrium

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assignment techniques. Eric Zihring, on staff at Cambridge Systematics, developed the network
assignment component of the Caliper TransCad system, and would be specifying the algorithms
for use in this project. Rob Hranac, also on staff at Cambridge Systematics, is coordinating a
project of the Federal Highway Administration, called NGSIM, to develop new traffic
microsimulation assignment algorithms (see the section below on algorithms and software for
more details), and Rob would coordinate with the NGSIM project to make available
microsimulation algorithms that could be used in this project. While the microsimulation
approach to assignment better fits the longer-term capacity to accurately model emissions, it is in
progress, and may not be fully available in time for the work proposed here, hence the two-
pronged strategy on assignment.

Modeling Emissions
The shift to an activity-based paradigm is supported by the increased information demands
placed on travel models for air quality analysis considerations. Regional air quality models such
as EPA’s Models-3/Community Multiscale Air Quality model (CMAQ) require information on
vehicle activity disaggregated over time and space. Activity-based modeling systems provide
exactly this information, by simulating person and vehicle trips by hour of the day and
geographic location. The resulting information can directly be used with mobile source
emissions models to produce emissions by hour and grid cell, as inputs to a regional air quality
model.
In the long term, modeling of mobile source emissions at all levels of analysis will be
accomplished using EPA’s Multi-scale Motor Vehicle and Equipment Emission System
(MOVES). Currently under development, it is anticipated that MOVES will be made available
for modeling of criteria pollutants and precursors by 2006 or 2007. The outputs of the travel
modeling approach will therefore be formulated with the inputs required by MOVES in mind,
where MOVES would be run in the on-road mesoscale inventory implementation module. At a
minimum, these outputs will include vehicle soak-time distributions by time of day (hourly, or
aggregates thereof) and geographic location (most likely at a traffic analysis zone (TAZ) level),
as well as VMT by hour and geographic location (TAZ and/or network link). It is also possible
within the microsimulation modeling framework to carry through additional attributes of
travelers that relate to vehicle characteristics affecting emissions. For example, the household
income of a traveler can be related through separate analysis to distributions of vehicles by age,
body type, etc. The scoping work to be undertaken in the first year of this project will identify
the most important traveler/trip characteristics that relate to emissions generation.
In the short term, depending upon the schedule of the development and release of the
MOVES model, it is possible that emissions may need to be evaluated using the existing
MOBILE6 emission factor model. The inputs required for MOBILE6 will be similar in nature to
those required for MOVES, although the specific data formats will be different. For example,
MOBILE6 is capable of incorporating data on soak time distributions by hour of the day. With
some post-processing, MOBILE6 can also be used to develop geographic distributions of
emissions, by applying emission factors to trip-ends and VMT associated with each TAZ. Even
prior to the release of MOVES, the activity-based modeling framework will provide an important
advance in emissions estimation by taking advantage of capabilities that exist in MOBILE6 but
are not often used due to data limitations. The scoping work for this project will identify the
most current development schedule for the MOVES model, and a decision will be made as to

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whether outputs should be tailored toward MOBILE6 for interim purposes, or only toward the
MOVES model.

Methods to be Used in the Research

The complexity presented by the interactions of the choices we are interested in modeling is
quite high. Techniques developed to model choice behavior are principally extensions of
Random Utility Maximization (RUM) models pioneered by Daniel McFadden, a contribution
that earned him the Nobel Prize in economics. One of the principal investigators in this study
has been a pioneer in developing new discrete choice formulations and improved methods that
allow the estimation of behaviorally realistic spatial and aspatial choice models (see, for
example, Bhat, 2001, 2003; Bhat and Gossen, 2004; Bhat and Guo, 2004; Bhat and Lockwood,
2004; and Bhat and Srinivasan, 2004). More recently, the transportation field has also drawn on,
and contributed significantly to, hazard-based continuous-time models and joint discrete-
continuous econometric systems (see Bhat and Srinivasan, 2004; Bhat et al., 2004; Bhat and
Steed, 2002). But even with the rapid advancement of the family of discrete choice, hazard
duration, and joint discrete-continuous methods, there are few if any examples that address such
a high dimensionality as we propose to examine in this current research effort. It is also made
complex due to the interactions among household members, with some choices clearly
associated with the household (residence location) while others (workplace choice, shopping
destination choice) are associated with individuals in the household. And finally, the different
time scales of these choices, and the lack of any single sequencing of choices that would allow a
simplification of the problem, add further to the research challenge.
Finally, there is the problem of aggregation of individual choices. In disaggregate
models of residence location, for example, two critical variables are the price of housing and the
social composition of the neighborhood. But these variables are endogenous in the sense that the
social composition of a neighborhood is merely the aggregation of the choices of individual
households to move there. Further, prices are endogenous in markets where there are some
aspects of the product quality that are unobserved to the modeler (Berry, Levinsohn and Pakes,
1995), a condition that certainly holds in the housing market. To account for the endogeneity of
neighborhood sorting and of prices in the housing market, we will need to model the interaction
of agents.
We propose to examine a range of alternative specifications that would address most or
all of the concerns identified above, and use available data to estimate the model and perform
sensitivity tests with it. The principal methods we intend to examine are (a) Discrete choice
methods that are able to incorporate behaviorally realistic substitution patterns across
alternatives, accommodate heterogeneity among decision-makers in the sensitivity to factors
affecting land-use and acivity-travel choices (for instance, two observationally identical workers
may have differential sensitivities to commute time to work in their work place and residential
choice decision processes), consider spatial correlation and spatial heteroscedasticity, and
address interactions among choice-making of different individuals, (b) Hazard duration models
that consider the dynamics of duration in such decisions as travel times and activity durations,
recognize reporting of times rounded to the nearest 5 minutes or 10 minute intervals in surveys,
accommodate heterogeneity among individual decision-makers due to observed and unobserved
individual attributes, and allow a flexible formulation to capture duration dynamics, and (c) Joint
discrete-continuous systems that combine the above two, retain a very flexible behavioral
formulation, and consider the joint nature of decision processes driving land-use/activity choices

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and also the interaction among multiple agents. The Principal Investigators on this team have
contributed very substantially to such efforts in the past several years using such methods as
maximum simulated likelihood estimation with quasi-Monte Carlo sampling and the method of
moments. Another approach we will examine is to use a Bayesian perspective and Markov Chain
Monte Carlo (MCMC) simulation to extend the generalized method of moments approach
developed by Berry, Levinsohn and Pakes (1995) and adapted to the housing market by Bayer
and Timmins (2003), Bajari (2003), building on an MCMC adaptation of the original auto-
market model of Berry, Levinsohn and Pakes (Romeo, 2003).
At the heart of the state-of-the-art advanced econometric and statistical modeling
formulations is the ability to specify model forms and relationships consistent with sound
behavioral theory. The principal investigators will use methods aimed at unraveling underlying
human behavioral processes such as qualitative methods, computational process methods, and
cognitive mapping to specify model systems that accurately capture behavioral mechanisms and
relationships of interest in this project.

Data to be Used in the Research

We intend to use the Puget Sound region as a testbed for this research, for several reasons. First
is that there is a large project already well in progress to apply UrbanSim to the Puget Sound
region, funded by the Puget Sound Regional Council and the National Science Foundation.
Second, there are excellent data available, including a unique decade-long panel survey of travel
behavior that includes residence, workplace, and vehicle ownership as well as recording travel
behavior, and a 6,000 household activity-based household survey completed in 1999. As part of
the project to apply UrbanSim to the region, a database of parcel data and business
establishments has been extensively improved and integrated for use in model development. In
addition, the Principal Investigators have used all of the above data for various model
estimations in recent years, which provides confidence in the reliability of the data and a cost-
efficient approach to extending these data for use in this research.

Algorithms and Software to be Developed and Used in the Research

The UrbanSim software platform will form the foundation for implementation of the
proposed integrated model design. As noted previously, UrbanSim is implemented in Java as an
Open Source project, and uses other Open Source tools such as the MySQL database, and a new
Java GIS component, JUMP, in addition to tools for charting and report development, and the R
statistical package (http://www.r-project.org/) and BIOGEME (http://roso.epfl.ch/biogeme) for
model estimation. A team of professional software developers at the Center for Urban
Simulation and Policy Analysis have developed and refined the software architecture of
UrbanSim over several years using an Agile development process that emphasizes extensive
testing, an automated build system, and incremental development. The system and supporting
documentation is freely available from www.urbansim.org. The current proposal does not seek
funding for software development. The project will be closely coordinated with the NSF
Information Technology Research grant on which Waddell is a Co-Principal Investigator, and
which provides substantial funding for further development of the UrbanSim software
architecture over the next three years. The model design we propose to develop and test within
this project will be implemented as a component in the UrbanSim software architecture through
this ITR grant.

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The research team will closely examine the algorithms and software implementations
used in CEMDAP, FAMOS, and the Portland and San Francisco activity-based travel models, to
draw together a single, unified approach to be used within this project. Similarly, the team will
examine the available aggregate equilibrium network assignment algorithms and software. We
will also examine the algorithms being developed as part of the Federal Highway
Administration’s Next Generation Simulation Program (NGSIM) project (see
http://ngsim.fhwa.dot.gov for details), which is being coordinated by Cambridge Systematics.
NGSIM is developing an open framework of microsimulation assignment algorithms that will
better support emissions modeling, pedestrian and bicycle modes, and be usable on large
networks to support multi-modal planning.
We note that the design choices made in developing UrbanSim mirror the choices made
by EPA in its project to develop a successor to Mobile6, which is also being developed in Java as
an Open Source project, and using the MySQL database: ‘MOVES, or Multi-scale mOtor
Vehicles & Equipment Emission System, is an effort to develop a new set of modeling tools for
the estimation of emissions produced by on-road and nonroad mobile sources. Also known as the
“New Generation Model,” MOVES should encompass all pollutants (including HC, CO, NOx,
particulate matter, air toxics, and greenhouse gases) and all mobile sources at the levels of
resolution needed for the diverse applications of the system.’ (from the EPA web site at
http://www.epa.gov/OMSWWW/models.htm).
These design choices provide excellent opportunities to closely integrate UrbanSim with
emerging EPA air emissions models. Similar design choices (Open Source, Java) have been
made in the EPA Multimedia Ingegrated Modeling System (MIMS) Software Suite, again
providing opportunities to closely integrate these modeling systems (details available at
http://www.epa.gov/asmdnerl/mims/index.html). We propose to work closely with these EPA
software development efforts to maximize the potential for integration of these systems.

Workplan and Schedule

This project is aimed at developing analytical methodologies for modeling the complex
relationships underlying people’s activity and travel choices, location choices, and vehicle
utilization, all of which have important implications for forecasting the impacts of regional
development trends, land use patterns, and transportation investments on the spatial distribution
of air pollutant emissions. To meet this broad objective, the research team envisions undertaking
the following specific tasks, scheduled across three years. Work would be coordinated through
monthly electronic communications and telephone meetings, in addition to quarterly or semi-
annual workshops in Seattle convening the participants over several days at the Center for Urban
Simulation and Policy Analysis.
Paul Waddell will serve as the overall project director and coordinator of the project.
Chandra Bhat will provide technical leadership of the econometric specification and estimation
of the model system, with involvement of the rest of the research team. All of the principal
investigators will collaborate on the review and assessment of existing specifications and
develop jointly a unified design of the model system. Paul Waddell will supervise the
development of data; coordination of this project with the NSF Information Technology
Research Grant and with the Puget Sound Regional Council project to apply UrbanSim.

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Year 1: Development of Model Specifications

Task 1: Preparation of Literature Review
The first task, to be completed over the first six months of the project, will focus on integrating a
current and well-organized literature review related to methodological and empirical
developments in modeling relationships among land use, activities and travel, vehicle utilization,
and air pollutant emissions. The review will draw on international work that the principal
investigators are already very familiar with, having contributed to it substantially themselves.
The literature review will serve as a synthesis of the state-of-the-knowledge in the field and will
help guide the development of the integrated modeling platform envisioned in this proposal. The
close involvement of the research team in this literature will make this task relatively
straightforward, and the emphasis will be on consolidating a review to ensure that all important
recent contributions are considered in the planning for this project. The product of this task will
be a literature review report.

Task 2: Development/Identification of Key Hypotheses and Relationships

The principal investigators will work closely with EPA staff to define the key research
hypotheses and relationships that need to be investigated within the scope of this project. At a
minimum, the principal investigators envision the examination of several key relationships,
including, but not limited to:
• Relations between residential location choice and transportation infrastructure
• Relations between residential location choice, mode choice, and vehicle utilization
• Relations between long-term choices such as residential location choice and vehicle
ownership and shorter-term choices such as trip chaining and destination choice
• Impact of land use and mode choice on trip chaining patterns
• Influence of demographic and economic indicators on spatial patterns of activity
engagement and trip making
• Relationship among transportation investments, land use development patterns, residential
location choice, and travel demand
• Differences across market segments (demographic groups) with respect to various
relationships and behavioral traits
• Cause-and-effect relationships governing behavioral response to transportation policies and
investments
The research team will identify a clear set of hypotheses and relationships that need to be
examined as part of this research project. Suitable qualitative methods and behavioral process
frameworks will be used to help define the key behavioral relationships and hypotheses in this
task.

Task 3: Definition of Model Specifications and Forms

In this task, the research team will define a series of model formulations, analytical
methodologies, and model specifications that need to be estimated for answering questions,
examining hypotheses, and quantifying relationships identified in Task 2. The principal
investigators are experts in the specification and formulation of behavioral models of activity and
travel characteristics. Most of the models will take the form of advanced econometric and
statistical formulations that allow for the investigation of joint relationships among multiple
dependent variables in simultaneous equations structures. Many complex model formulations

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are now computationally tractable thanks to new analytical methods including simulated
maximum likelihood estimation and quasi-Monte Carlo simulation.

Task 4: Assessment of Modeling Approaches, Algorithms and Software

This task involve developing a detailed examination of the model specifications, algorithms, and
software implementations used in the following model projects and model systems:
• UrbanSim
• CEMDAP
• FAMOS
• The Portland and San Francisco activity-based models
• Existing aggregate network assignment models
• NGSIM microsimulation algorithms
• To the extent possible, we will also examine international contributions, including:
o Albatross, an activity-based model developed in the Netherlands
o ILUTE, an integrated microsimulation model under development in Canada
o Dortmund, an integrated microsimulation model in Germany
o Metropolis, a dynamic assignment model in France
The product of this task will be a review and assessment of the specifications, algorithms, and
software implementations.

Task 5: Development of Specifications for Model Integration and Refinement

Based on the research objective of developing an integrated framework for metropolitan land
use, transportation and emissions modeling, and the assessment of existing approaches outlined
in the preceding tasks, the principal investigators will develop a consolidated framework that:
• Improves specifications for the models in UrbanSim representing residential location,
business location, real estate development, real estate prices, and processes of
demographic and economic change.
• Adds specifications for workplace choice and vehicle ownership.
• Consolidates specifications for activity and travel patterns, drawing on CEMDAP,
FAMOS, and the Portland and San Francisco models.
• Integrates specifications for network assignment, initially based on equilibrium
assignment, but depending on feasibility, potentially based on NGSIM microsimulation
algorithms.
• Develops software requirements and specifications for the integrated platform to
implement these specifications, including:
o Choice classes that simulate household long-term choices of residence, workplace
and vehicle ownership, incorporating expectations or preferences for daily activity
and travel patterns.
o Choice classes that simulate daily activity and travel patterns and scheduling
(replacing the first three steps in the traditional four-step travel model), adding
time of day and a tour-based framework.
o Network classes and methods that accomplish the following: (a) import network
information from EMME2 into a documented “network object” data structure; (b)
perform equilibrium traffic assignment using conventional optimization
algorithms; and (c) produce link flows and level-of-performance measures that
can be used in later stages of analysis.

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Year 2: Model Estimation and Testing of Integrated Platform

Task 6: Assembly of Datasets
To test the model specifications identified in Task 3, the research team will build on an
integrated database containing parcel, household and employment data for the Puget Sound
region that has been developed by the Center for Urban Simulation and Policy Analysis
(CUSPA) to support the application of UrbanSim. The database development was funded by the
Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC), and is documented at www.urbansim.org/projects/psrc.
A unique 10-wave transportation panel survey has also been collected by the PSRC, and a 1999
household activity survey with a sample size of 6,000. The availability of these data will make
possible cost-effective model development, as the PSRC has already invested approximately
$300,000 in its development by CUSPA.

Task 7: Model Estimation and Hypothesis Testing

Advanced econometric and statistical methods will be used to estimate the models specified in
Task 3, examine the hypotheses postulated in Task 2 and quantify the relationships that describe
how land use patterns, activity and travel choices, vehicle utilization, and location choices
interact. The research team will use rigorous statistical and qualitative methods to draw
conclusions regarding the relationships among the different variables. The project will focus on
on the Puget Sound region as a test-bed for the development of the integrated model.

Task 8: Testing of Integrated Modeling Platform

As mentioned earlier, the principal investigators are the primary architects of major land use and
activity-based travel demand microsimulation modeling systems. The principal investigators
will work collectively throughout this research project with a view to building an open-source
open-architecture integrated land use-activity-travel modeling framework that brings together the
most powerful methodologies for deploying the relationships identified in Task 5. The software
development will occur in a coordinated project funded by the NSF Information Technology
Research (ITR) program at a level of $3.5 million over 5 years, by senior software engineers at
the Center for Urban Simulation and Policy Analysis at the University of Washington. In this
proposal we will develop software requirements and use the software platform developed in the
ITR project for a case study to examine land use and transportation effects on emissions in the
Puget Sound region.

Year 3 – Model Application

Task 9: Implementation of Behavioral Models in Integrated Platform
In this task, the research team will implement the behavioral models and relationships estimated
in Task 5 in the integrated platform. Thus, the integrated modeling framework will include the
kinds of relationships needed for forecasting the spatial distribution of activities and travel under
alternative scenarios of land use development and transportation investment.

Task 10: Testing of Integrated Platform for Forecasting and Policy Analysis
The integrated platform will be deployed in the Puget Sound region to demonstrate the
feasibility, power, and applicability of the platform for forecasting the spatial distribution of
activities, travel, and residential/work locations. The platform will be subjected to a series of
sensitivity tests to demonstrate the responsiveness of the analytical methodologies developed in

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this research project. These tests will be developed in consultation with EPA staff, but are
anticipated to include at least the following policy analyses and sensitivity tests:
• Adoption of policies to promote smart growth by funneling development into urban
centers and villages (as proposed in the current regional transportation plan, Destination
2030).
• Alternatives representing different emphases on highway and transit capacity expansion
to address future transportation needs.
• Alternatives emphasizing pricing of transportation, and other demand management
strategies.
• Alternative economic trends in terms of economic structure and rate of economic growth.
• Alternative demographic trends in terms of age, income and household structure.
For each of the alternatives examined, a range of travel, land use and emissions outcomes will be
measured as indicators and compared to a reference case represented by the current regional
transportation plan.

Task 11: Preparation of Final Deliverables

Finally, the research team will prepare a set of final deliverables including a final report that
documents the work and findings of the research study, the analytical methodologies developed
in the research project, and the databases utilized for model estimation and hypotheses testing. A
CD including the databases used in the study will be provided along with the final report. The
research team will make recommendations regarding the further development of the integrated
modeling platform/framework for forecasting long-term air pollution emissions.

Expected Results and Benefits

This research project will result in the development of methodologies and model systems that
can assist in the accurate assessment of Regional Development, Population Trend, and
Technology Change Impacts on Future Air Pollution Emissions. Long-range forecasting of the
spatial distribution of air pollution emissions will require sophisticated models and methods that
accurately represent the relationships among such key variables as regional growth, land use
development, economic development, residential and work location choices, traveler mode and
destination choices, vehicle ownership and utilization, and human activity and travel engagement
needs and desires. Until these relationships are accurately modeled in an integrated platform, it
is not going to be possible to undertake long-term (50 year) forecasting of air pollution emissions
on a regional scale.
This research project will serve as a major step in filling the critical need of understanding
fundamental relationships that underlie people’s activity and travel choices and the impact that
regional development trends have on such choices. The methodologies, model systems, data,
software, and deployment techniques that the principal investigators bring to bear are state-of-
the-art, rigorous, and behaviorally sound. The EPA will be able to utilize the results of this
research project to forecast the long-term impacts of land use development patterns, technology,
and population trends on the spatial distribution of activities and travel in a region, thus
providing a sound foundation for the accurate modeling of air pollution emissions.
Microsimulation approaches that model activity and travel choices along the continuous time
axis offer a disaggregate behavioral framework that has no equal for forecasting the spatial
distribution of air pollution emissions. In particular, this research effort will offer the following
results and benefits:

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• A set of analytical methodologies for modeling the joint relationships underlying human
activity and travel choices, location choices, and vehicle ownership and utilization
choices
• An integrated modeling framework that brings together a state-of-the-art land use
simulation model (UrbanSim) with a series of comprehensive activity-based travel
demand microsimulation models (CEMDAP, FAMOS, and San Francisco
County/Portland)
• A demonstration of how the integrated modeling framework can be utilized for modeling
the impacts of alternative population trends, land use development patterns, and
transportation policies/investments on the spatial distribution of human activity, location,
vehicle ownership/utilization, and travel choices
• A much improved understanding of the cause-and-effect relationships governing the
spatial distribution of human activity and travel patterns and therefore air emissions.
• An Open Source software platform that efficiently implements the model design.
At the heart of this proposal is the development and demonstration of an integrated modeling
framework that brings sophisticated activity-based travel micro-simulation models together with
an advanced land use simulation model. The main motivation in developing integrated activity-
based models is the need to better understand land use shifts and traveler’s responses to land use
and transportation policies. There are a number of ways that integrated land use and activity
models provide these capabilities:
• Integrated land use and activity models can account for tradeoffs of auto ownership based
on the employment location of the primary worker in the household. For example, this is
a significant factor for auto ownership in a transit-rich environment such as San
Francisco (Shiftan and Rossi, 2000).
• Activity-based models can account for tradeoffs between making additional stops on the
primary tour or making additional tours by defining the primary tour, tour type, and
number of stops simultaneously. For example, a policy that encourages alternative
modes for travel to work can be evaluated in relationship to the tradeoffs for making
intermediate stops (to run errands) to and from work using alternative modes. This is
achieved by including modal accessibility measures in the full-day pattern tour models.
• Activity-based models can account for tradeoffs between trip chaining and time of day by
evaluating time of day decisions at the tour level rather than the trip level. These time of
day decisions are made simultaneously for the outbound and return portions of tours and
are based on the tour type and number of stops. Pricing policies (such as parking or toll
policies) can be tested more accurately by including these tradeoffs between the need to
travel for purposes that are time-dependent (such as day care or work) and the desire to
avoid peak period pricing.
• Activity-based models can also account more reliably for the complexities involved in
multi-mode trip-making. Travel modes are affected by decisions to travel in a round trip
rather than an individual trip segment and certain modal options have multiple options for
modes within a round trip.
The simulated trips that result from the integrated land use and travel models can be aggregated
to perform equity analysis, create trip matrices or provide input to traffic simulations and air
quality analyses. This will take advantage of more detailed air quality analyses to evaluate
emissions based on accelerations and decelerations of individual vehicles, as well as hot starts
and cold starts depending on how long the vehicle has been parked.

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