Transportation Planning Overview

Hong K. Lo

Civil Engineering
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

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Land use – transportation Interaction

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 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.

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 Planning procedure

1. Forecasts for the target year of the regional

population and economic growth for the subject
metropolitan area
2. Allocation of land uses and socioeconomic
projections to individual analysis zones according to
land 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
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 Planning procedure

5. Application of calibrated demand-forecasting

models to predict the target year equilibrium flows
expected to use each alternative, given the land-use
and socioeconomic projections of steps 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)
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4.1a
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Zone

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Traffic Analysis Zones (TAZs)

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 Zonal Characteristics

Zonal Employment Zonal Population and Income

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/planning/census/data.htm 13
 Overview of Information Needs

1. The study area

2. Urban activities
3. Transportation system
4. Travel

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 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
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• 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 to physical urban area
• The size of a zone may vary. In central business
district (CBD), zones may be small – a single 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.
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 Urban Activities

• Information about activities is gathered by

zones
• Sources of information include activities that
may influence travel
• The results provide levels of activities in zones
to help in predicting future levels that provide
a basis for forecasting

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 Transportation System

• Available modes (auto, bus, etc.)

• An abstraction – so not every 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 the road segments (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 are “loaded”. They are
sometimes called origin and destination.

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 Network Resolution

• Should every street and intersection be represented?

• Should every movement within a junction be represented?
• Answers depend on the study objectives and the zonal
resolution N

W E 2 3

S
representation of the a detailed intersection
intersection as a node representation
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 Travel Forecasting: techniques

1. Sketch Planning Tool:

– Preliminary screening of possible configurations or
concepts. It is used to compare a large number of
proposed policies in sufficient analytical detail to
support broad policy decisions.
– It uses minimum data yielding aggregate estimates
of capital and operating costs, patronage, corridor
traffic flows, service levels, energy consumption
and air pollution
– The final product may be a strategic plan
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2. Traditional Tools:
– They provide an analysis in much 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, and
level-of-service measures for specific geographical
areas.
– The cost of examining an alternative is about 10 to
20 times its cost at the sketch planning level. 22
3. Micro-analysis tools
– They are the most detailed of all planning 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.

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 Micro-simulation

• MATSim scenario
– Hong Kong Island scenario
– Focus on road network and private car traffic
– Synthetic population from 2011 Traffic Characteristics
Survey (TCS): 116,789 agents (car users)
– Network from Base District Traffic Model (BDTM)
2008

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 Travel Surveys

• Origin-destination (OD) survey

• Roadside interview
• Cordon/screenline survey
• Travel diary survey

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 OD surveys

• Expensive 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 travel
distance, time, and costs

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 OD Surveys

• General considerations
– The procedure to collect data will affect results significantly.
– Survey date: Best times of the year are spring and autumn.
During a typical work day
– Days and Times: No Mondays and Fridays. 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.
– 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.
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 OD surveys
• Contain three distinct sections:
– Personal characteristics and identification: age, 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-junction),
trip 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. 29
 OD Surveys

Sample size: the following table is the recommended figures for

traditional surveys, typically huge and uneconomical.

Population of area Sample Size (dwelling units)

Recommended Minimum
< 50,000 1 in 5 1 in 10
50,000-150,000 1 in 8 1 in 20
150,000-300,000 1 in 10 1 in 35
300,000-500,000 1 in 15 1 in 50
500,000-1,000,000 1 in 20 1 in 70
> 1,000,000 1 in 25 1 in 100
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 OD surveys

• Sample size
– Huge sample and not economical. Approaches estimate the
sample size based on accuracy requirements and coefficient
of variations.
– The sample size may be computed using the following
formula: 2 2
CV Z
n 2
E
– n: sample size, E is the level of accuracy (expressed as a
proportion),  is the value of the standard normal variate for
the confidence level ( Z ) required.
– COV (coefficient of variation) is typically 1
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 Example
Assume that we want to measure the number of trips per household in a certain area,
and that we have data about the coefficient of variation of this variable for various
locations in the US as follows:

Area CV
US average 0.87
Pennsylvania 0.86
New Hampshire 1.07
Baltimore 1.05

As all values are near to one, we will choose this figure for convenience. The decision
about accuracy and confidence level is the most difficult. The above equation shows that
if we postulate levels that are too strict, sample size increases exponentially. On the
other hand, it is convenient to fix strict levels in this case because the number of trips
per household is a very crucial variable. In this example, we will ask for 0.05 level of
accuracy at a 95% level.
For   95%, the value of Z is 1.645, therefore, n  10 a f a f
. 1645
.
2
/ 0.05  1084
2

Thus, it would suffice to take a sample of approximately 1100 observations to ensure

trip rates with a 5% tolerance 95% of the time. 32
 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, destination, trip purpose
• due to time limitation, these are questions asked only if time
allows: sex, age, income
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 Sample size

n
a f
p 1 p
FI a f
e
2
p 1 p where n = no. of passengers to
HK
z

N
survey; p is the proportion of trips with a given
destination, e is an acceptable error (expressed as
a proportion), z is the standard Normal variate
value for the required confidence level, N the
observed passenger flow at a roadside station.

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 Sample size
For given N, e, z, the highest value of n occurs
when p = 0.5. Taking this value and considering
e=0.1 (i.e. a maximum error of 10%) and z = 1.96
(corresponding to a confidence level of 95%), the
values shown in the following table are obtained:

Variation of sample size with hourly flow

N n 100n/N (%)
(passengers/hr) (passengers/hr)
100 49 49.0
200 65 32.5
300 73 24.3
500 81 16.2
700 85 12.1
900 87 9.7
1100 89 8.1

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 Cordon Surveys
internal-internal
cordon line (boundary of study area)
2 3
internal-external

external-internal
Z2 4
external trips (Dj 1 external trips (Oi
outside) < Z1
Study Area
< outside)

< > 5
6
7 8

cordon stations [1-8] (external

external-external zones)
through trips (Oi and Dj outside)

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 Cordon Surveys

• These provide external-external and external-internal

trips. Their objective 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 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.
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 Cordon Surveys

• An important 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, origin, destination and modes
available) to encourage better response rates. 38
 Screenline Surveys

• Screen lines divide the area into large natural

zones (e.g. at both sides of a river or
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.

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 Cordon and Screenline Surveys

A traffic area defined by an external cordon and

showing types of through and local trips
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 Travel Diary Surveys

• These are surveys conducted with a great level

of detail.
• 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
subjects during the day

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 Travel Diary Surveys

• Criteria:
– Ease of transport: a small format to be stored or
carried
– Ease of understanding to the user:
– Ease of completion
• Procedures:
– A first visit to each household in the 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. 46
Typical Household Travel Survey

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 Approaches for constructing surveys

• Stated-preference surveys
– provide an approximation to a sort of quasi-experiment
based on hypothetical situations set up by the researcher
– The degree of artificiality of the situations may vary,
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 or
one that she might consider undertaking in the future
• 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. 48
 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 families into the population.

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