Grantee Research Project Results
2005 Progress Report: Integrating Land Use, Transportation, and Air Quality Modeling
EPA Grant Number: R831837Title: Integrating Land Use, Transportation, and Air Quality Modeling
Investigators: Waddell, Paul , Layton, David F , Bhat, Chandra , Outwater, Maren , Pendyala, Ram
Current Investigators: Waddell, Paul , Bhat, Chandra , Outwater, Maren , Pendyala, Ram , Layton, David F
Institution: University of Washington , The University of Texas at Austin , University of South Florida
EPA Project Officer: Chung, Serena
Project Period: September 16, 2004 through September 15, 2007 (Extended to September 15, 2008)
Project Period Covered by this Report: September 16, 2004 through September 15, 2005
Project Amount: $700,000
RFA: Regional Development, Population Trend, and Technology Change Impacts on Future Air Pollution Emissions (2004) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Climate Change , Air
Objective:
The objective of this research project is to show how models that project changes in land-use and activity locations can be improved to better reflect and integrate lifestyle, economic production, and public policy factors that drive vehicle miles traveled. Our proposal addresses this topic by building on UrbanSim, an Open Source urban simulation system developed in the last several years at the Center for Urban Simulation and Policy Analysis at the University of Washington. We propose to integrate into this platform an activity-based travel model component and a network assignment component and tightly couple this system to air emissions models (Mobile6 and its successor, Motor Vehicle Emission Simulator).
Progress Summary:
Year 1 of this 3-year project focused on organizing the research program and developing data for use in the research phase. Although the project grant information indicates that the project began September 1, 2004, final grant authorization did not occur until 2005, and because of the late timing for recruiting graduate research assistants, the project began more slowly in 2005, with the full-scale effort beginning in the fall of 2005. The following are highlights of Year 1, covering the period from the initiation of the project to September 15, 2005:
- Organized a project meeting of the principal investigators in Seattle in September 2005. This meeting focused on refining the research plan.
- Processed a 1999 household activity survey for the Puget Sound region of Washington.
- Processed 2000 parcel data and began collecting 2005 parcel data for the Puget Sound region.
- Processed 2001 and began processing 2005 business establishment data for the Puget Sound region.
- Began exploring activity-based travel modeling projects that might be suitable to link to UrbanSim. These included the Comprehensive Econometric Microsimulator for Daily Activity-Travel Patterns, an activity-based modeling system developed by Chandra Bhat; the San Francisco activity-based model used by the San Francisco County Transportation Authority; and the Petroleum Convenience Alliance for Technology Standards activity-based model developed by Ryuichi Kitamura and others. Assessment of these models and their potential for connection to UrbanSim is ongoing.
- Began exploring available traffic assignment models for integration with UrbanSim. These included Metropolis, developed by Andre de Palma, and Matsim, developed by Kai Nagel.
- Developed an interface between UrbanSim and the emme/2 travel model system used by the Puget Sound Regional Council.
- Calibrated UrbanSim using data for the Puget Sound region.
- Began testing the combined land use and travel model system in the Puget Sound region, using a range of scenarios for sensitivity testing. Began refining the model system based on initial testing. This work is ongoing.
- Began planning initial behavioral research on interdependent household choices that influence travel. This methodological research focused on exploring mixing approaches to accommodate the endogeneity of land use and urban form structure effects on activity-travel patterns, although also recognizing differential sensitivity across individuals to land-use/urban form variables. An initial focus was selected on the joint choice of residence and workplace locations among single-worker households. This research is underway and was accepted for presentation at the International Association of Travel Behavior Research in Kyoto.
- Began developing improved transit accessibility measures to use in land use modeling, with an emphasis on capturing walk access at the parcel level to and from transit stops, and schedule-based paths on the transit system. Initial work on this was presented at a conference on transportation at the University of Minnesota, and has been subsequently published as a book chapter.
- Began collaborative planning with research teams in the United States, Belgium, Canada, England, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, and Switzerland to coordinate the development of a new Open Platform for Urban Simulation (OPUS). The intent of this collaborative effort is to produce an Open Source platform that will support integrated land use, transportation, and environmental modeling. An initial research meeting was held in Toronto in January 2005, at which the OPUS initiative was launched. The research team led by the principal investigator on this project is taking the lead on this new initiative and coordinating its design and implementation, principally with funding from the National Science Foundation, Information Technology Research Program. As part of this project, we are leveraging this platform development to undertake several of the research components we have outlined, including the integration of UrbanSim with an activity-based travel model system.
Future Activities:
For the period of September 16, 2005 through September 15, 2006, we plan to focus on the following tasks:
- Completing and publishing research on the interdependence of residence and workplace choice, leading to new methodologies to address econometric problems of endogeneity among land-use and travel-related choices.
- Completing and publishing research on the influence of multimodal accessibility on residence location that incorporates improvements in the treatment of individual accessibility in households with different numbers of households.
- Operationalization of an integrated land use-transportation model system in the Puget Sound region, using UrbanSim and the four-step travel model used by the Puget Sound Regional Council. This will become the baseline for comparing other model improvements against.
- Beginning to test the integration of one of the available activity-based travel model systems with UrbanSim.
- Beginning to test the integration of one of the available traffic assignment models with UrbanSim.
- Coordination with the development of the OPUS, scheduled for release in mid-2006.
Journal Articles on this Report : 1 Displayed | Download in RIS Format
Other project views: | All 60 publications | 21 publications in selected types | All 18 journal articles |
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Type | Citation | ||
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Waddell P, Bhat CR, Eluru N, Wang L, Pendyala RM. Modeling interdependence in household residence and workplace choices. Transportation Research Record:Journal of the Transportation Research Board 2007;2003:84-92. |
R831837 (2005) R831837 (2007) R831837 (Final) |
Exit Exit |
Supplemental Keywords:
land use modeling, residential location, urban simulation, activity-based modeling, risk assessment, toxic substances, ecosystem protection, risk management, climate change, air quality, climate models, motor vehicle emissions,, RFA, Health, PHYSICAL ASPECTS, Scientific Discipline, Air, Ecosystem Protection/Environmental Exposure & Risk, RESEARCH, Health Risk Assessment, climate change, Air Pollution Effects, Risk Assessments, Monitoring/Modeling, Monitoring, Physical Processes, Environmental Monitoring, Ecological Risk Assessment, ecosystem models, integrated assessments, particulate matter, remote sensing, air quality modeling, atmospheric measurements, model-based analysis, motor vehicle emissions, fine particles, automobile exhaust, exposure, global change, model assisted estimation, air pollution, green house gas concentrations, air quality model, modeling, human exposure, climate models, extreme heat events, environmental stressors, human activity, landscape characterization, air quality assessments, airborne urban contaminants, human health risk, land use, air quality, ambient air pollution, public health effects, ozone concentrations, transportation, atmospheric chemistryRelevant Websites:
Progress and Final Reports:
Original AbstractThe perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.