scholarly journals Method of Obtaining Consumer Welfare from Regional Travel Demand Models

Author(s):  
Caroline J. Rodier ◽  
Robert A. Johnston

The need for more comprehensive traveler welfare measures is highlighted by the U.S. Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (1991) requirement that transportation projects and plans be evaluated for economic efficiency. However, to date, there has been a discrepancy between this requirement and the methods used by regional transportation organizations to evaluate transportation policies in the United States. Kenneth Small and Harvey Rosen illustrate how a consumer welfare measure known as compensating variation can be obtained from discrete choice models. A method of application is developed for the mode choice models in the Sacramento Regional Travel Demand Model. The results of the method’s application to the model for light rail transit, high-occupancy vehicle lanes, and auto pricing scenarios are examined for both total consumer welfare and consumer welfare by income class.

Author(s):  
Alex van Dulmen ◽  
Martin Fellendorf

In cases where budgets and space are limited, the realization of new bicycle infrastructure is often hard, as an evaluation of the existing network or the benefits of new investments is rarely possible. Travel demand models can offer a tool to support decision makers, but because of limited data availability for cycling, the validity of the demand estimation and trip assignment are often questionable. This paper presents a quantitative method to evaluate a bicycle network and plan strategic improvements, despite limited data sources for cycling. The proposed method is based on a multimodal aggregate travel demand model. Instead of evaluating the effects of network improvements on the modal split as well as link and flow volumes, this method works the other way around. A desired modal share for cycling is set, and the resulting link and flow volumes are the basis for a hypothetical bicycle network that is able to satisfy this demand. The current bicycle network is compared with the hypothetical network, resulting in preferable actions and a ranking based on the importance and potentials to improve the modal share for cycling. Necessary accompanying measures for other transport modes can also be derived using this method. For example, our test case, a city in Austria with 300,000 inhabitants, showed that a shift of short trips in the inner city toward cycling would, without countermeasures, provide capacity for new longer car trips. The proposed method can be applied to existing travel models that already contain a mode choice model.


Author(s):  
Venu M. Garikapati ◽  
Daehyun You ◽  
Wenwen Zhang ◽  
Ram M. Pendyala ◽  
Subhrajit Guhathakurta ◽  
...  

This paper presents a methodology for the calculation of the consumption of household travel energy at the level of the traffic analysis zone (TAZ) in conjunction with information that is readily available from a standard four-step travel demand model system. This methodology embeds two algorithms. The first provides a means of allocating non-home-based trips to residential zones that are the source of such trips, whereas the second provides a mechanism for incorporating the effects of household vehicle fleet composition on fuel consumption. The methodology is applied to the greater Atlanta, Georgia, metropolitan region in the United States and is found to offer a robust mechanism for calculating the footprint of household travel energy at the level of the individual TAZ; this mechanism makes possible the study of variations in the energy footprint across space. The travel energy footprint is strongly correlated with the density of the built environment, although socioeconomic differences across TAZs also likely contribute to differences in travel energy footprints. The TAZ-level calculator of the footprint of household travel energy can be used to analyze alternative futures and relate differences in the energy footprint to differences in a number of contributing factors and thus enables the design of urban form, formulation of policy interventions, and implementation of awareness campaigns that may produce more-sustainable patterns of energy consumption.


2018 ◽  
Vol 181 ◽  
pp. 03001
Author(s):  
Dwi Novi Wulansari ◽  
Milla Dwi Astari

Jakarta Light Rail Transit (Jakarta LRT) has been planned to be built as one of mass rail-based public transportation system in DKI Jakarta. The objective of this paper is to obtain a mode choice models that can explain the probability of choosing Jakarta LRT, and to estimate the sensitivity of mode choice if the attribute changes. Analysis of the research conducted by using discrete choice models approach to the behavior of individuals. Choice modes were observed between 1) Jakarta LRT and TransJakarta Bus, 2) Jakarta LRT and KRL-Commuter Jabodetabek. Mode choice model used is the Binomial Logit Model. The research data obtained through Stated Preference (SP) techniques. The model using the attribute influences such as tariff, travel time, headway and walking time. The models obtained are reliable and validated. Based on the results of the analysis shows that the most sensitive attributes affect the mode choice model is the tariff.


Author(s):  
Geoffrey D. Gosling ◽  
David Ballard

The paper describes the development of an air passenger demand model for the Baltimore–Washington metropolitan region that was undertaken as part of a recently concluded ACRP project that explored the use of disaggregated socioeconomic data in air passenger demand studies. The model incorporated a variable reflecting the change in household income distribution, together with more traditional aggregate causal variables: population, employment, average household income, and airfares as measured by the average U.S. airline yield, as well as several year-specific dummy variables. The model was estimated on annual data for the period 1990 to 2010 and obtained statistically significant estimated coefficients for all variables, including both the average household income and the household income distribution variable. Including household income distribution in the model resulted in a significant change to the estimated coefficient for average household income, giving a much higher estimated elasticity of demand with respect to average household income compared with a model that does not consider changes in household income distribution. This has important implications for the use of such demand models for forecasting, as household income distribution and average household income may change in the future in quite different ways, which would affect the future levels of air passenger travel projected by the models.


1995 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 283-291
Author(s):  
Amal S. Kumarage ◽  
S. C. Wirasinghe

Over the last 15 years, extensive research has been done on the transferability of travel demand models. However, much of this work has been concentrated towards investigating the transferability of disaggregate mode choice models. The transferability of an aggregate total demand model for intercity travel is examined. Model transfer is possible only when a number of preconditions for transferability are satisfied. One of the principal obstacles to the successful transfer of intercity demand models is the inability to overcome the contextual differences between calibration and application. Here, the components of the intercity total demand model are separated into exogenous and intrinsic (contextual) factors. The latter is thereafter classified as being either transferable or nontransferable. It is shown that transferable attributes can accompany a model during transfer. Nontransferable attributes, on the other hand, will free the model of city or city-pair specific contextual characteristics which should not be transferred to other city pairs. The issues involved in transferring an aggregate model are also investigated. Aggregate data on interdistrict travel by public transportation in Sri Lanka have been used to successfully calibrate a total demand model with a number of transferable and nontransferable attributes that represent both temporal and spatial contextual factors. It is shown that the forecasting ability of this model is far superior to a counterpart model without the intrinsic variables. Key words: travel demand, aggregate, forecasting, transferability, intercity, Sri Lanka.


2021 ◽  
Vol 55 (5) ◽  
pp. 1025-1045
Author(s):  
Stefano Bortolomiol ◽  
Virginie Lurkin ◽  
Michel Bierlaire

Oligopolistic competition occurs in various transportation markets. In this paper, we introduce a framework to find approximate equilibrium solutions of oligopolistic markets in which demand is modeled at the disaggregate level using discrete choice models, according to random utility theory. Compared with aggregate demand models, the added value of discrete choice models is the possibility to account for more complex and precise representations of individual behaviors. Because of the form of the resulting demand functions, there is no guarantee that an equilibrium solution for the given market exists, nor is it possible to rely on derivative-based methods to find one. Therefore, we propose a model-based algorithmic approach to find approximate equilibria, which is structured as follows. A heuristic reduction of the search space is initially performed. Then, a subgame equilibrium problem is solved using a mixed integer optimization model inspired by the fixed-point iteration algorithm. The optimal solution of the subgame is compared against the best responses of all suppliers over the strategy sets of the original game. Best response strategies are added to the restricted problem until all ε-equilibrium conditions are satisfied simultaneously. Numerical experiments show that our methodology can approximate the results of an exact method that finds a pure equilibrium in the case of a multinomial logit model of demand with a single-product offer and homogeneous demand. Furthermore, it succeeds at finding approximate equilibria for two transportation case studies featuring more complex discrete choice models, heterogeneous demand, a multiproduct offer by suppliers, and price differentiation for which no analytical approach exists.


Author(s):  
Tara Ramani

The overall goal of this study is to assess the concept of sustainability in relation to the related concepts of “health” and “livability” that have emerged in transportation planning discourse. This study achieves the goal using an indicator-based case study, conducted for the El Paso metropolitan area in the United States. Data from the regional travel demand model and other sources were used to quantify a sustainability index, livability index, and health index for individual traffic analysis zones in the region, for four analysis years over a 30-year planning horizon. Each index was comprised of representative indicators, which were normalized and aggregated in accordance with common multi-criteria decision-making methods. The analysis results demonstrated little correlation between the quantified livability, sustainability, and health indices developed for the El Paso region. The indices also showed relatively low levels of change over time for a location. That is, the relative performance of a traffic analysis zone tended to stay the same, despite the modeled changes to the transportation system, demographics, and land use. The main implication of the research findings is that despite overlaps at a theoretical level, concepts such as livability and health cannot necessarily serve as proxies for sustainability when implemented in practice. The study also provides insight into the challenges of making meaningful change in the area of sustainability over time and highlights the influence of factors beyond transportation, such as land use and socio-economic issues.


Author(s):  
Eirini Kastrouni ◽  
Elham Shayanfar ◽  
Paul M. Schonfeld ◽  
Subrat Mahapatra ◽  
Lei Zhang

Project selection and prioritization are of utmost importance to federal, state, and local agencies and should be performed cautiously on the basis of expected project costs and benefits. Informed resource allocation decisions with respect to project candidates not only maximize public investment benefits but create economic opportunities and ultimately improve quality of life. With the use of tools readily available to most state agencies (e.g., travel demand models), along with the open-source SHRP 2 Project C11 tools, planners and engineers can proceed with informed statewide assessments of investment projects that yield benefits in market accessibility, travel time reliability, and connectivity. In this study, a seven-level framework was proposed to integrate a travel demand model with the SHRP 2 Project C11 tools and to showcase its functionality with the Intercounty Connector (ICC) MD-200 in Maryland as a case study. After a customized version of the SHRP 2 tools was developed in which Maryland-specific values were used in lieu of the default SHRP 2 parameters, the results suggested that, in the year 2030, a total increase of approximately 1% in buyer–supplier market accessibility would be achieved in the counties that surrounded the ICC as a result of the new construction. Also, all three corridors parallel to the ICC, which served similar origin–destination pairs, would experience a decrease in recurring and incident delays attributable to the ICC. In dollar terms, the value of the total annual benefits from the ICC construction in the year 2030 would amount to approximately $200 million.


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