modeling | National Institute for Transportation and Communities

Modeling Dependency with Copula: Implications to Engineers and Planners

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The modelling of dependence relations between random variables is a typically studied subject in probability theory and statistics. In the recent decade, the concept of copula gained enormous success in finance and economics in the risk management and analysis context. Engineers started investigating the applications of copula in recent years; it has been widely used in Hydrology and climate studies to model rainfall and overspill risk. As a powerful tool to model dependence, copula has been applied to travel behavior modeling and model choice by several researchers. Dr. Wang will share his understanding of copula and its implications to engineers and planners in a more general uncertainty modeling framework. Some of the ongoing research efforts regarding how copula is being applied to transportation network entrance-ramp flow dependency and spatial-temporal travel time reliability study at Oregon State University.

Speaker Bio: Dr. Wang recently joined OSU from the Trine University in Angola, Indiana where he worked as assistant professor with the Reiners Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Before joining Trine University, he spent a short time as a research associate with Institute for Multimodal Transportation at...

Modeling Safety and Urban Form

Kristie Gladhill, Transportation Modeler, on Modeling Safety and Urban Form.

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The Future of Advanced Travel Demand Modeling: Positive Theory, Behavioral Model, and Process Data

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Understanding Transportation in Urban China - Local Residents vs Migrant Workers

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Understanding Transportation in Urban China - Local Residents vs Migrant Workers

With rapid urbanization in China and other developing economies around the world, it has become imperative to understand household transportation behavior and expenditures in these urban areas. The objective of this study is to examine the differences in the determinants of household transportation expenditures within two very distinct populations...

Clouds, Crowds, and Traffic: What 10 emerging Megatrends mean for the future of transportation

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Summary: Ten new megatrends will be presented with a discussion on the resulting shifts on the transportation industry. Details will include a look on broken trends and the new challenges introduced for transportation planning. Thoughts will also be presented introducing a pivot to the current model being pursued by the Connected Vehicle program. Finally, planners will be challenged to consider a new question for the future of our connected communities, you have to come to hear it.

Bio: Ted Trepanier is the Senior Director for the Public Sector with INRIX, Inc. Prior to joining INRIX, Ted was the Director of Traffic Operations for the Washington State Department of Transportation. In addition to his extensive background in traffic operations, he has experience in design, planning, project management and toll operations. Ted earned his Bachelor's Degree in Civil Engineering from Washington State University and Masters in Civil Engineering from the University of Washington.

Residential Choice Locations - A Search in the Mirror of the Past

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Abstract: We propose to decompose residential self-selection by understanding its formation process. We take a life course perspective and postulate that locations experienced early in life have a lasting effect on our locational preferences in life. In other words, what was experienced spatially is a key factor contributing to our residential self-selection and our preferences in residential locations are formed long before our own self-selection begins. We further hypothesize that prior locational influence interacts with period effect such that the same location experienced in different periods may have distinct effects. Using an empirically collected dataset in the New York Metropolitan Region, we estimated a series of models to test these hypotheses. The results demonstrate that prior locational influence precedes residential self-selection. Furthermore, we show a variety-seeking behavioral pattern resulted from locations experienced during adolescence.

SPECIAL SEMINAR: Modeling Urban Commercial Vehicle Movements Using Tour-based Microsimulation

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A system for modelling commercial movements has been developed for Calgary in Canada, implemented as part of the transportation system modelling used by the City of Calgary in policy analysis. This effort included an extensive set of surveys collecting information on the roughly 37,000 tours and 185,000 trips (within these tours) made in the Calgary Region, with its population of just over 1 million, by commercial vehicles on a typical weekday in 2001. The resulting system of models includes an agent-based microsimulation framework, using a tour-based approach, based on what has been learned from the data. It accounts for truck routes, responds to truck restrictions and related policy and provides insight into various aspects of commercial vehicle movements. All types of commercial vehicles are represented, including light vehicles, heavier single unit and multi-unit configurations. All sectors of the economy are incorporated into the representation, including retail, industrial, service and wholesaling. This modelling system has been integrated with an aggregate equilibrium model of household-related travel covering the Calgary Region, with the microsimulation processes being done in external Java applications.

Dr JD (‘Doug’) Hunt is a Professor of Transportation Engineering and Planning in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Calgary in Canada. He is...

Pricing and Reliability Enhancements in the San Diego Activity-Based Travel Model

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Pricing and Reliability Enhancements in the San Diego Activity-Based Travel Model

The estimation of demand for priced highway lanes is becoming increasingly important to agencies seeking to improve mobility and find alternative revenue sources for the provision of transportation infrastructure.

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Managed Lanes in Orlando, FL

Special Seminar: Room 315 of the Maseeh College of Engineering & Computer Science on the Portland State University campus.

Florida’s Turnpike Enterprise has completed planning studies to forecast the revenue earning potential of tolled special use lanes along Interstates in Florida. The tolled special use lanes or “Managed Lanes” will be contained within the interior of the Interstates' highway corridors. The Managed Lanes concept has been incorporated into larger widening projects in Central and South Florida, which is under development by the Florida Department of Transportation. The presentation will focus on the approach and methodology for estimating traffic and revenue for Express Toll Lanes in an existing limited access corridor. The core content is the required data, traffic modeling efforts, and how the results are used by the Finance Department to estimate potential revenues.

Bio: Jack Klodzinski received his Bachelors’, Master’s and Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the University of Central Florida where his focus was on toll road operations. He is now the Travel Forecast Manager at Florida’s Turnpike for the URS Corporation where his main focus is on traffic forecasting for toll facilities. He works with a team of modelers to produce toll traffic forecasts used in roadway design, operations, or future revenue estimates. Jack also stays active with UCF as a Graduate Faculty Scholar for the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Construction...

Developing a Bicyclist Route Choice Model Using GPS Data

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Abstract: Existing regional travel forecasting systems are not typically set up to forecast usage of bicycle infrastructure and are insensitive to bicyclists' route preferences in general. We collected revealed preference, GPS data on 162 bicyclists over the course of several days and coded the resulting trips to a highly detailed bicycle network model. We then use these data to estimate bicyclist route choice models. As part of this research, we developed a sophisticated choice set generation algorithm based on multiple permutations of labeled path attributes, which seems to out-perform comparable implementations of other route choice set generation algorithms. The model was formulated as a Path-Size Logit model to account for overlapping route alternatives. The estimation results show compelling intuitive elasticities for route choice attributes, including the effects of distance and delay; avoiding high-volumes of vehicular traffic, stops and turns, and elevation gain; and preferences for certain bike infrastructure types, particularly at bridge crossings and off-street paths. Estimation results also support segmentation by commute versus non-commute trip types, but are less clear when it comes to gender. The final model will be implemented as part of the regional travel forecasting system for Portland, Oregon, U.S.A.

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