Transport Planning MSc

Zoning and Network Building

1. Their place in the overall process

The role of zoning and network building in the overall transportation planning process
is shown in Figure 4.1. This illustrates two points:

- first, the fact that a zoning system must be defined before any matrix
building can take place, and
- secondly, although a network is an obvious requirement for the assignment
process (stage 4 in the four stage process), networks are also required as an
input to the trip distribution process, as they are the course of the Os
element of the trip distribution equation.

Decisions taken about the zoning system at the outset of the study can have
repercussions throughout the rest of the study. For example, if the zones are too large
in a built up area, it will become very difficult to accurately represent in the
assignment process the actual volumes of traffic on roads and at junctions. If travel
surveys are undertaken as part of the study, it is extremely time consuming to
accommodate changes in a zoning system which might have been made after zones
have been allocated to the surveyed origins and destinations. On the other hand, it is
quite normal for networks to be continuously improved throughout the process as
indicated on Figure 4.1 in the validation loops. This process of updating and
improvements to networks can usually be made without repeating the distribution
procedures.

The definition of a zone and a network are as follows:

- a zone is the geographic unit at which, it is assumed, traffic enters or leaves

the network;

- the network is a representation of the actual road system or public transport

system in the area being studied.

2. ZONING

2.1 Introduction
In a real road system, traffic enters and leaves the road network at an almost infinite
number of points down to the level of individual houses or business premises. There
are relatively few large generators of traffic such as car parks, major factories, ports or
airports. Zoning is essentially a compromise between manageability, which favours a
smaller number of larger zones, and accuracy of representation, which requires a large
number of small zones.

In the interests of realism, we wish to avoid large amounts of traffic appearing on the
network at a single point, particularly close too junctions and links of interest. On the
other hand we wish to avoid unnecessary complexity, which leads to excessive data
requirements, excessive data storage space (especially for matrices) and excessive run

JBO/Jan2005 1
Transport Planning MSc

times. All these factors tend to add to the cumbersome nature of transportation
studies and in the past have led to excessive study times.

2.2 Specific Considerations

Our overall aim in designing a zoning system is to produce a system, which
realistically reproduces traffic flows in the area we are studying. The following
factors should be considered:

(a) Density of the Road Network

The number and size of zones should be closely correlated to the density of the road
network. This means that zones end to be much smaller in urban areas than in rural
areas. There is no virtue in splitting a settlement, which straddles a main road into
two separate zones. On the other hand, if there were two distinct settlements lying
either side of a main road with a considerable amount of traffic between them and
conditions at the crossing of the main road were of concern, it would be desirable to
zone the two settlements separately.

(b) Zones Straddling Competing Routes

This is a complementary consideration to point (a). It is undesirable to have zones,
which encompass two or more competing routes in the area being studied, since the
reality will be that traffic from the area will be shared between the two principal
routes and the zoning system should attempt to reflect this.

(c) Proximity to the Area of Interest

There is no point in having a detailed zoning system in areas remote from the area
actually being studied. It is important only to ensure that traffic from areas outside of
the area of interest enters the study area on the correct route. For example, if the West
Midlands area is being studied, there is no virtue in zoning Liverpool and Manchester
as separate areas, since we are not interested in traffic between these cities; it will not
affect the evaluation of schemes in our area. Traffic between the West Midlands and
Liverpool and Manchester, which we are interested in, will enter our study area via
the M6, and provided our zoning systems allows this routing to happen, Liverpool and
Manchester could be aggregated into one zone without detriment to our study.

(d) Availability of Land Use Data

This is often a severe constraint in land use transportation studies where the trip end
calculations require detailed land use data. It is essential to ascertain at what
geographical level the variables, which are being used in the trip end estimation
process, are actually available both at the Base Year and in the forecast Year. For
example, if such quantities as the number of employed persons per zone, or the
numbers of person employed in different employment sectors are inputs to the
production and attractions calculations, they must be available for the size of area
which would be desirable for zoning purposes. In addition, the shape of the areas for
which land use data is available may not be at all convenient for transportation study
zoning purposes.

JBO/Jan2005 2
Transport Planning MSc

(e) Homogeneity of Land Use Within a Zone

Since we are dealing with average responses in transport demand distribution and
assignment, it is helpful to have zones, which are the unit from which transport
demand is produced, which do not contain a wide variety of land use types. Ideally,
within a zone there should be uniform employment type and density, uniform car
ownership and housing type, and consistent accessibility through the transport system.

(f) Location of Future Development

There is a need to anticipate where future land use development might take place in
the study area, particularly if development is likely to take in hitherto undeveloped
areas. The zoning system adopted in such cases should be as detailed as that used in
equivalent existing developed areas.

(g) Public Transport Routes

If public transport, or any other mode of travel is part of the study the zoning system
must have regard to the network or public transport routes as well as the highway
network.

(h) Convenience, Computer Power and Storage Requirements

This is very real consideration. First a great deal of effort can be wasted in collecting
unnecessary data. Secondly, computer run times and storage requirements are very
dependent on the number of zones being represented. This is of particular importance
with personal computers, which commonly have relatively small hard disks. The
constraint on storage is particularly acute with matrices, where the amount of storage
space required depends on the square of number of zones, so that a 200 zone matrix
requires four times as much space as a 100 zone matrix.

3. NETWORK BUILDING

3.1 General
Networks are the means of connecting zones together so that traffic routes between
zones in a realistic way. Networks are generally represented as links between nodes,
with nodes representing either junctions, points where zones connect to the network,
or locations where the standard of the road changes, for example between single
carriageway and dual carriageway.

3.2 Specific Considerations

3.2.1 Road Networks

The following guidelines should be applied in building road networks:

(a) Only routes which are significant in traffic terms should be included.
A threshold of around a thousand vehicles per day is reasonable in
developed countries, but may be much lower in developing countries.
It should be borne in mind that trips within zones (“intra-zonal trips”)
are not assigned to the networks, so there is no point in including roads
in the networks that are used solely by this type of local traffic.

JBO/Jan2005 3
Transport Planning MSc

(b) The networks much include roads affected by the proposals likely to be
evaluated. The larger the scheme, the larger the area to be included in
the network.

(c) The following data is required for each link:

- the speed or time taken to traverse the link. This may be derived from
a survey, speed limits, or knowledge of the route in question;

- distance;

- the relationship of speed to capacity on each link. It is usually possible

to describe all links on the network in terms of about 30-60
classifications. The speed/flow approach does not fully represent what
happens at junctions, where there is in effect a different speed/flow
relationship for different turning movements. The link speed/flow
approach is suitable for suburban and rural networks, and large scale
urban networks;

- It is sometimes useful to put a code on each link, which indicates its

geographical location, so that in the evaluation phase the effect of a
scheme on particular areas, for example, in terms of an increase or
reduction in vehicle kilometres, van be quantified.

(d) In urban areas, it is often desirable to model junctions explicitly, since

the time taken to traverse the network is primarily dependent on
conditions at junctions, and not on links. The type of information
required is saturation flows when there are no conflicting vehicles, and
a relationship between how this saturation flow decays with increasing
conflicting vehicles. This information may be derived from standard
sources such as LR942 “The Traffic Capacity of Roundabouts”, and
SR582 “The Traffic Capacity of Major/Minor Priority Junctions”,
which consider relationships developed from observations at several
sites, or from on site surveys.

(e) Avoid zone centroids at junctions – it makes interpretation of turning

movements very difficult.

3.2.2 Public Transport Networks

The following data is required for building public transport networks.

(a) Link distances between nodes; in the case of public transport networks
nodes are located either at points where passengers can board or alight,
i.e., bus stops or rail stations, or at those points where an interchange
between services is possible.

(b) Link speeds, either timetabled or preferably those actually achieved; the
latter is preferable since actual journey costs are usually an input to
distribution and modal choice, and the output from the assignment process

JBO/Jan2005 4
Transport Planning MSc

may be used for calculating what resources are required to provide the
public transport services.

(c) A description of the routes in terms of a string of nodes and frequencies

associated with each route.

(d) Vehicle capacity (if modelled).

(e) Fare scales; and

(f) A representation of interchange facilities between different public

transport sub modes, i.e., a network of walk links between bus stops and
the nearest rail station, to enable passengers to change mode.

3.3 Other Data

The area descriptors for evaluation purposes should be seriously considered, as these
are quite valuable in the evaluation phase. It is also very useful (and essential in some
computer packages to allocate a grid reference to each node to enable plotting of
networks and assignment results. Some packages allow the labelling of links and
junctions and again this is recommended practice as it assists interpretation
considerably.

3.4 Network Checking

The following checks on networks should be carried out:

(a) Ensuring that the correct linkages have been made between nodes; in this
respect plots are a very useful aid.

(b) Checking distances. It is extremely easy to code a distance incorrectly by

say a factor of ten, which could remain undetected for sometime. From the
grid references of each node, it is possible to compute the straight link
distance between nodes and compare this with coded distances. It is useful
to flag any coded distances, which fall outside of the limits 0.9 – 1.2 times
the straight-line distances.

(c) Checking speeds. The speed taken between points on the network in the
area of interest should be checked against any surveyed journey times.

(d) All of the above factors may be checked by plotting “trees”. Trees are the
routes taken from one zone to a selection of other zones or to all other
zones through the network. By examining these to assess whether the
computed routes are the most reasonable, it is often possible to discover
major errors in the network coding. The plotting of trees is extremely
valuable in ensuring that networks do represent the situation on the ground
with acceptable accuracy.

JBO/Jan2005 5