Most existing activity-based travel demand models are implemented in a tour-based microsimulation framework. Due to the significant computational and data storage benefits, the demand microsimulation allows a greater amount of flexibility in terms of demographic market segmentation, temporal scale, and spatial resolution, and thus the models can represent a wider range of travel behavior aspects associated with various policies and scenarios. This dissertation proposes three innovative methodologies, one for each of the three key dimensions, to fulfill the greater level of details toward a more mature state of activity-based travel demand models.

Bibliography: leaves 213-224.

We report on a project with Polaroid Corporation in which we developed a supply chain model to provide decision support for planning production and transportation. Production occurs in Asia to serve world-wide demand. Production planners must determine both the production quantities as well as whether to ship by sea or by air. We develop a model to optimize a static version of this problem and then show how to use this static model in a dynamic setting. We test the model with data from Polaroid and show its effectiveness. / Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA)

This interdisciplinary thesis combines psychological and transportation planning knowledge. Three main questions are investigated: 1) What concepts and ideas do people have with regard to a public transportation system (cognitive user perspective)?; 2) What orientation and information factors within the public transportation system enhance Ease-of-Use and make it simpler and more efficient to use public transportation in metropolitan areas?; 3) How can Ease-of-Use of a public transportation route be measured? A combination of qualitative and quantitative methods was used. Between 2002 and 2007 a total of nine different studies were conducted: An in-depth study on a single exchange student, an interview study with exchange students, a questionnaire study on exchange students, a before-after interview study with travellers on selected bus stops, an before-after telephone interview study on residents, an expert questionnaire study via email, a behaviour observation study on travellers, a before-after questionnaire study on travellers on a tram line, and an on-board questionnaire study. To analyse the cognitive user perspective the term memory representation was introduced, that includes cognitive maps of and additional knowledge about a public transportation system such as service frequency. Memory representation is influenced by experience. Three learning phases in an unknown public transportation system are proposed and a general information search script is described. A new approach is presented regarding the organisation of public transportation knowledge: The ground level is that there exists a public transportation option, the next level is the identification of the mode of transport and at the highest level of the hierarchy is the code for the line. Within the second level, the public transportation mode, a hierarchical structure of public transportation option knowledge is proposed. Three factors are postulated that contribute to the extent to which a line is represented in people’s memory: visibility, straight route layout and labelling. Which orientation and information factors within the public transportation system enhance Ease-of-Use, i.e. match the cognitive user perspective? It was found that trunk bus lines enhanced Ease-of-Use and at-stop real-time information can have various positive effects. The role of good maps is explained and stretched and the importance of consistent information throughout the travel chain is also pointed out. In addition, many valuable concrete hints are given with regard to how to match the system properly with the cognitive user perspective. Undoubtedly, an interaction exists between system and user and they influence each other. This is where the third research question comes in: How can Ease-of-Use in public transportation systems be measured? The iterative process of defining and measuring Ease-of-Use resulted in a scale that measured the defined concept well with good reliability and validity. The final discussion highlights the contribution to science of this thesis and presents some possible paths for further research. The thesis consists of a summary and eight papers. / QC 20100621

In the first chapter, we develop a dynamic model of collusion in city-pair routes for selected US airlines and specify the first order conditions using a state-space representation that is estimated by Kalman-filtering techniques using the Databank 1A (DB1A) Department of Transportation (DOT) data during the period 1979I-1988IV. We consider two airlines, American (AA) and United (UA) and four city pairs. Our measure of market power is based on the shadow value of long-run profits in a two person strategic dynamic game and we find evidence of relative market power of UA in three of the four city pairs we analyze. The second chapter explores three models of forecasting airline energy demand: Trend line, ARIMA and Structural Model based on results from Chapter 1 and find that none of them is a dominant winner in American (AA) and United (UA) between Chicago and Salt Lake City. In the third chapter, we use Model Averaging and Forecast Combination Techniques to provide a decisive conclusion focusing on discussing Equal Weighted Averaging, Mean Square Weighted Averaging and Optimized Weighted Averaging on UA and AA in City-Pairs Chicago -Seattle and Chicago-San Diego.

Mid-sized metropolitan areas face very different challenges and transportation planning issues than those faced by larger metropolitan areas. This is especially true in the area of safety conscious planning (SCP). Conflicting organizational cultures and limited staff and technical tools are major challenges in SCP efforts for mid-sized metropolitan areas (200,000 to 600,000 population). This study surveyed mid-sized metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) and conducted seven case studies of mid-sized metropolitan areas to better understand the challenges and opportunities facing SCP in such a context. The national survey and case studies focused on long range planning, data collection, human resources, technical analysis, and collaboration aspects of SCP as applied today. The results indicate that the majority of mid-sized MPOs have incorporated safety consideration into their long range transportation plans vision, goals and objectives, but some mid-sized MPOs are more proactive in the quantitative analysis of project safety outcomes than others. The dissertation recommends that the institutional and technical issues faced by mid-sized MPOs can be overcome by engaging all government levels of planning in SCP efforts that identify a safety champion in the management ranks, encourage state departments of transportation to provide mid-sized MPOs with more tools and training in SCP, promote a stronger relationship between the Governor s Safety Representative and the MPO, and create a more comprehensive forum for collaboration among safety professionals.

Existing literature suggests that mixed land-use developments have the potential to reduce traffic by “capturing” some trips internally and providing a pedestrian-friendly environment to facilitate walking for some trips. However, these elements which are meant to provide the traffic-reducing benefits also reduce the overall cost of travel, thereby increasing the total amount of travel. This “induced” travel has implications for the site planning process, which assumes that all internal trips are replacing trips on the external street network. In this investigation, travel survey data were analyzed to determine the nature and extent of induced travel at mixed-use developments. The study site was a 75-acre suburban infill mixed-use development in Plano, Texas. Features of the study site included a diverse land-use mix, a grid-style street layout, and pedestrian-oriented streetscapes. The travel survey was administered as an interview of persons exiting buildings at the site and gathered information about two trips made by the respondent, including whether the trip made at the time of the interview was induced. A trip was considered induced if the respondent would not have made the trip if it had required travel outside of Legacy Town Center. Analysis found that in the morning, four percent of all trips at the study site were induced; in the afternoon, about one-quarter of all trips were induced. Induced trips accounted for one-eighth of internal trips in the morning and forty percent of internal trips in the afternoon. Most internal trips made in an automobile were replacements for off-site travel while most trips made on foot were induced. Based on this study, it is evident that some internal trips at mixeduse developments are not “captured” from external streets, but represent additional trips, induced by travel cost savings in the mixed-use environment. However, it is demonstrated that, even with this additional travel, mixed-use developments still contribute to a reduction in overall vehicle-miles of travel. Stakeholders are encouraged to consider these findings when evaluating new land-use policies or the traffic impacts of proposed mixed-use developments.

This study is about an integrated procurement and transportation planning system for purchased components of a consumer-durables manufacturer. Due to transportation cost structures and demand characteristics our problem can be classified as a variant of the dynamic-demand joint replenishment problem. The problem is to determine the replenishment policy using the advantages of coordinated transportation of items that will minimize the sum of total inventory holding and tranportation costs over a finite planning horizon. A mathematical model is formulated for purchasing and transportation decisions for the purchased items using the advantage of joint transportation costs. A two-phased solution method is proposed in order to obtain a &ldquo / good solution&rdquo / for the problem. The proposed solution method is compared with the current practice for different problem instances using retrospective data and created data. As a result it is shown that proposed method decrease the total inventory and transportation cost of the system even though the first aggregate problem can not be solved to optimality.

The thesis develops and documents a workflow for applying TRANSIMS to the analysis of Developments of Regional Impact (DRI). The proposed workflow will consider perspectives of both the transportation agency responsible for the evaluating the DRI and the transportation engineer responsible for performing the analysis. TRANSIMS offers a comprehensive framework for managing inputs and outputs that follow a transportation planning workflow. Not a single, monolithic software application, TRANSIMS is a suite of 65 small, light-weight, single-task tools for creating and manipulating GIS shape files and SQL data base files, estimating the elements of a four-step transportation modeling process, and computing link and vehicle delays for a given transportation network. Current analysis techniques for developments of regional impact require that the analyst apply arbitrary or non-repeatible estimates for trip assignments at the regional level. Because of the modular nature of the TRANSIMS, implementing each DRI as a layer in the GIS data base will permit the mixing and matching of multiple DRI within a local area, permitting a risk-based approach to the evaluation of multiple DRI, any of which may or may not actually happen. This thesis focuses exclusively on the review of DRI analysis techniques, review of TRANSIMS modules, and development of a proposed DRI workflow within the TRANSIMS framework.

The purpose of this thesis is to quantify the economic costs associated with traffic crashes for 83 of the largest metropolitan areas in the United States and compare those costs to that of congestion. This was done by collecting injury and fatality data for each area and multiplying those by economic cost estimates for each developed by the FHWA. The findings of this analysis show that the economic cost of traffic crashes exceeds the economic costs of congestion in every metropolitan area studied. These results indicate that transportation safety deserves similar consideration to that of traffic congestion when allocation transportation funds.