TRANSIMS: Applications and Development Workshop

April 8–9, 2010
Integrated multimodal corridor analysis: an application of TRANSIMS in the greater Phoenix Metropolitan Region

Sarah Ellie Ziems
School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ, 85287-5306
480-727-9164

List of Authors
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Ram M. Pendyala, Sarah Ellie Ziems, and Bhargava Sana
School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment
Arizona State University, Room ECG252
Tempe, AZ, 85287-5306
Phone: 480-727-9164
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Abstract
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This paper presents a detailed description of an ongoing TRANSIMS application and deployment effort to microsimulate a mixed highway - light rail corridor in the Greater Phoenix metropolitan area. The multimodal corridor is 20-miles long and includes a light rail line running in mixed highway traffic along major arterials with numerous intersections. The project adopted a two phase approach to deploy TRANSIMS. In the first phase, the Router and Microsimulator components of TRANSIMS were applied, with demand estimates obtained from standard four-step travel demand model origin-destination matrices by purpose, mode, and time of day. The Router was applied to the entire Maricopa model region, while the Microsimulator was applied to a subarea that included the existing 20-mile light rail line and possible future extensions of the existing light rail line. This project effort provides insights into the applicability of microsimulation modeling tool such as TRANSIMS to the analysis of multimodal corridors. The first phase of the project is now complete and the project team is working on the second phase of the project, which involves microsimulating demand within TRANSIMS as well (as opposed to relying on four-step travel model origin-destination matrices). Activity-travel patterns are simulated using classification-based regression trees for a synthetic population of the region and routed on the network for the entire region. Then, the Microsimulator is run for the light rail corridor subarea to evaluate corridor performance with and without the light rail extensions. The paper describes the entire first-phase effort of the project including how the subarea analysis was conducted, how the subarea network was enhanced with greater detail to be consistent with a microsimulation approach, and how the model was implemented in an iterative fashion to achieve stability in the outputs. The calibration procedures adopted in the study, and the data used for model calibration, are described in detail. Finally, the paper describes how the calibrated model is applied to test the impacts of alternative operational strategies aimed at improving traffic flow along the multimodal corridor.

Biography
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Ram M. Pendyala is a Professor of Transportation in the newly formed School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment at Arizona State University. He has been at Arizona State University since 2006. Prior to that, he served on the faculty at the University of South Florida in Tampa for 12 years. Ram conducts research in activity-based travel demand model development, microsimulation approaches for travel forecasting, and travel behavior analysis.

Sarah Ziems is a graduate research assistant in Transportation in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, working on her MS and PhD studies under the guidance of Ram Pendyala. Sarah is the primary graduate research assistant working on the TRANSIMS Application and Deployment project awarded to ASU and has been developing comprehensive documentation on TRANSIMS as part of the ongoing effort. She has a BS in Civil Engineering from ASU.

Bhargava Sana is a graduate research assistant in Transportation in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, working on his MS in Civil Engineering under the guidance of Ram Pendyala. Bhargava is assisting on various tasks related to the TRANSIMS Application and Deployment project, while working on the development of integrated microsimulation models of travel demand that focus on the nexus between land use, transport demand, and network dynamics.