Scenario Analyses and Simulations using TRANSIMS and UrbanSIM for the Chittenden County of Vermont.

摘要

Although transportation serves as the foundation of our nation's economy and fulfills indispensable social functions critical to our quality of life, the current state of the nation's transportation system is unsettling. This makes the search for sustainable transportation systems, energy-efficient cities and travel demand reduction strategies a national priority. Further, transportation networks have been found to be a critical driver of land use patterns. So, the transportation system development strategies hinges on our understanding of the complexity inherent in the land-use-transportation system. In turn, a comprehensive understanding of this complex system demands accurate, well-calibrated models. The study using these models is important for evaluating alternative courses of actions and for providing information to the public policy makers. One of the key goals here is to improve the current state-of-practice modeling so that the new models are accurate enough to allow for evaluation of strategies that are of significant policy and planning.