Investigation of improvements to truck volume assignments and public transportation benefits methodologies in TTI's urban mobility report.

Details

• Creators:
  Eisele, William L. ; Schrank, David L. ; Kang, Dong Hun ; Polzin, Steven E. ; Xuehao Chu
• Corporate Creators:
  Texas A&M Transportation Institute
• Corporate Contributors:
  University Transportation Centers Program (U.S.)
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  Benefits Methodology Public Transit Ridership Traffic Congestion Traffic Volume Travel Patterns Trucks
• Publication/ Report Number:
  SWUTC/13/600451-00013-1
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  United States
• Corporate Publisher:
  Southwest Region University Transportation Center (U.S.) ; National Center for Transit Research (U.S.)
• Abstract:
  The Texas A&M Transportation Institute’s (TTI’s) often-cited Urban Mobility Report (UMR) provides
  
  transportation decision-makers with urban-area congestion statistics and trends. Data and their availability have
  
  continued to evolve rapidly over the years that this report has been produced, and TTI researchers have updated the
  
  UMR methodology as new data sources and information become available.
  
  The objectives of this project were to (a) investigate the UMR methodology assumptions related to the daily
  
  volume distributions for trucks and possible methodology improvements, and (b) investigate the UMR methodology
  
  related to the benefits of transit ridership and transit delay reduction calculations and possible methodology
  
  improvements.
  
  To satisfy the first objective, TTI researchers collected vehicle classification data from Georgia, Texas,
  
  Washington, and Colorado. While there were only 36 sites used to investigate potentially new truck distribution
  
  graphs, the results indicate that trucks have a different time-of-day distribution than a distribution created from all
  
  vehicles together. Because the sample size of these findings is relatively low, researchers hope to investigate these
  
  findings on larger samples prior to making methodological changes in the UMR.
  
  To satisfy the second objective, TTI researchers collaborated with public transit experts at the University of
  
  South Florida, Center for Urban Transportation Research. Chapter 4 provides several proposed methodological
  
  improvements to the transit benefits methodology for the 2013 UMR, including (a) explicitly accounting for the
  
  miles traveled by roadway-based transit vehicles operating in mixed traffic conditions, and (b) more accurately
  
  accounting for the potential shift to private passenger vehicles in a post-transit environment by transit riders for the
  
  passenger miles they have actually traveled by transit. Researchers plan to incorporate these proposed changes into
  
  the 2013 UMR. Chapter 4 also documents future improvement opportunities for the short term and long term.
  
  
• Format:
  PDF
• Funding:
  DTRT12-G-UTC06
• Collection(s):
  University Transportation Centers US Transportation Collection
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:5b2c1d76277e4d5b66ff836c297272f916c81043abb8e86fb467ce6ca40ba8e6
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/26649/dot_26649_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 2.71 MB ]