Multi-dimensional advances in travel modeling

Excerpt

This issue includes five papers that highlight new developments in the formulation and application of travel demand models. As transportation and land use planners, policy and decision makers, and the traveling public confront increasingly complex travel environments, the need for robust behavioral models capable of simulating people’s activity and travel patterns in the time–space continuum has never been greater. Concerns about global climate change, economic development, energy sustainability, the environment, livability of communities, and social equity call for the development and application of new microsimulation model systems that are responsive to a host of policy variables, built environment and network attributes, and socio-economic and demographic characteristics. Over the past decade, the field of travel modeling has stepped up to the challenge with developments in model formulation and specification, application, and implementation happening on multiple fronts. The selection of five papers included in this special issue illustrates the progress that is being made in deploying the types of tools and systems needed to address the transportation, land use, and environmental planning challenges of the 21st century. …