Sequential Demand-Forecasting Models

Hong K. Lo

Civil Engineering
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

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 Travel Demand Forecasting in
Transportation Planning Process

Travel
Demand
Forecasting

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 Travel Demand Forecasting Models
• Use mathematics to represent a system – its
components and behavior
• Describe current state and predict future conditions of
the system
• The four-step travel demand forecasting model
Trip Generation

• Land Use Data

Trip Distribution • Travel Generation Factors
•
Feedback

Friction of Space Factors

• Calibration Factors
• Transportation Networks
Modal Split

Land use and socioeconomic

Traffic Assignment projections

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 Use of Travel Demand Forecasting
Models

• Evaluate transportation system performance

• Evaluate alternatives
• Develop Regional Transportation Plan
• Develop Transportation Improvement Program
• Support air quality analysis
• etc…

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 Baseline vs Forecasting
• Baseline Model
– Replicate the structure and behavior of the existing
system
– Produce outputs approximating current state of the
system (e.g., number of vehicles on streets)
– Calibration and validation
• Forecasting Model
– Assume the structure and behavior of the baseline model
will carry on to the future
– Produce outputs representing a future state of the
system, conditioned on given assumptions about the
future
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 Model Inputs

• Land use
• Demographic
activity
• Economic
activity

• Transportation
network

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 4-step procedure

1. Trip generation forecasts the number of trips that will be

made: the decision to travel
2. Trip distribution determines where the trips will go: the
choice of destination
3. Mode usage (modal choice) predicts how the trips will be
divided among the available modes of travel: the choice of
travel mode
4. Trip assignment predicts the routes that the trips will take,
resulting in traffic forecasts for the highway system and
ridership forecast for the transit system: the choice of route of
path
• Outputs of each step becomes inputs to the following step.
This simplifies the actual decision process tremendously 7
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 Four-Step Travel Demand Modeling
Procedure
Trip generation Zonal trip productions &
(Decision: to travel or not) attractions by trip purpose

Trip distribution
Origin and destination trips
(Decision – to where, what destination?)

Modal split
Number of trips by mode
(Decision – how, what mode?)

Traffic assignment
Traffic volume on each link
(Decision – how, which route?)

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 Trip Generation

• Journey: This is a one-way

movement from a point of origin
to a point of destination.
• Home-based (HB) trip: Home is
either the origin or the destination
of the journey
• Non-home-based (NHB) trip:
neither end of the trip is the home
of the traveler

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• Trip production: either the home end of a HB trip (not
based on the direction of a trip) or the origin of a NHB
trip
• Trip Attraction: the non-home end of a HB trip (not
based on the direction of a trip) or the destination of a
NHP trip
• Trip Generations: the total number of trips generated
by households in a zone

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 P-A versus O-D
Production Attraction
HOME WORK
Production Attraction

(a) Home-Based Trip

• the origin (destination) can be different from the production (attraction)

• In the HB trips, productions are always connected with residential area, and trip attractions
are always connected with nonresidential area

Production Attraction
WORK SHOP
Attraction Production

(b) Non-home-Based Trip

• Origin of a trip corresponds to its production end

• Destination of a trip corresponds to its attraction end
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• Classification of Trips
– By Trip purpose: to work, school or college, shopping, social and
recreational, and others
– By time of day: peak and off-peak period trips

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 Typical Trip Generation Models
• Develop trip generation expressions from survey data
to convert estimates of horizon year development
patterns into zonal productions and attractions for
each trip purpose
• Criteria:
– provide good explanatory power of observed base year
travel behavior
– parameters of these trip generation expressions should be
stable over time
– the independent or predictor variable should be easily
predictable with some precision for the horizon year
• Two approaches:
– regression analysis
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– cross-classification tables
 Regression Models

• Residential land use is an important trip generator

• Non-residential land use is a good attractor of trips
• A typical equation:
Y  A  B1 X 1  B2 X 2  B3 X 3
– Y = trips/household
– X1 = car ownership
– X2 = family income
– X3 = family size
– A, Bi = parameters determined through a calibration
process from survey data 15
 Regression models

• Model parameters and variables vary from one study

area to another and are established by using base-year
information
• Once the equations are calibrated, they are used to
estimate future travel for a target year.
• Assumptions:
– all the independent variables are independent
– all the independent variables are normally distributed
– the independent variables are continuous

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 R2, MSE, and t
Yi: Actual or observed magnitude of the

Y  A  B1 X 1  B2 X 2 ... Bn X n
dependent variable
N: Sample size
n: # of independent variable

  Yˆ  Y 
2

SSE   (Yi  Y i )
i
R 2
 2

 Y  Y 
2
i

 
N


2
Yi  Yˆi
SSE
MSE   i1 N-(n+1): Degree of freedom
N   n  1 N   n  1

tBi  Bˆi sBˆ used to check the significance of each Bi by the method of
i
hypothesis testing

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 Example

Y  0.0649 X 1  0.0034 X 2  0.0066 X 3  0.9486 X 4  12

Y = trips/household
X1 = family size
X2 = residential density
X3 = total family income
X4 = cars/household
A, Bi = parameters determined through a calibration process from survey
data
• To derive Y for a future year, appropriate estimates of X1, X2, X3, X4 are
substituted.
• Quality of fit of a regression line determined by multiple linear regression
analysis is indicated by the multiple regression coefficient (goodness of fit)
represented by R, between -1 and 1. The closer R is to 1 or -1, the better is the
linear relationship between the variables.
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 Example (cont’d)
Independent variable All home-based trips
X1 family size 0.41
X2 residential density -0.76
X3 total family income 0.73
X4 cars per household 0.86
X5 travel time to CBD 0.32
X6 proportion of school- 0.27
going children

• In preliminary investigation, it is useful to compute R

between trip making and separate independent variables.
• In the above example, Y is highly correlated with X1 through
X4 and weakly with X5 and X6.
• Multiple regression is appealing because it is easy to
determine the degree of relationship between the dependent
and independent variables
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• One can also derive:
– the standard error of estimate (MSE): a measure of
the deviation between observed trips from
predicted values
– partial correlation coefficient of each of the
independent variables
– t-test to determine whether an estimated regression
coefficient is significant

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 Example

• An analyst came up with the following regression

equations and a simple correlation matrix for 20 years,
as given below:

• Y , X 1 , X 2 , X 3 , X 4 = trips produced, total population,

blue-collar population, white-collar population,
school-going children

• Which equation should the analyst use?

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 Example (cont’d)

(A) Y  50.5  0.80 X 1 : MSE = 210, R2=0.95, t=34

(B) Y  308  0.79 X 2 : MSE = 844, R2=0.88, t=29
(C) Y  52.7  0.85 X 2  1.75 X 3 : MSE = 205, R2=0.98, t=60, 22
(D) Y  105  1.38 X 2  0.4 X 3  0.1X 4 : MSE = 155, R2=0.97, t=3, 2, 0.5

1. Check the t-statistics for

Y X1 X2 X3 X4 each independent variable
Y 1.00 0.95 0.85 0.42 0.23 2. Check the correlation
coefficients – two strongly
X1 1.00 0.92 0.53 0.22 correlated x should not
X2 1.00 0.35 0.09 enter
3. Choose the one with high R
X3 1.00 0.12 Square, low MSE, and
X4 1.00 contains the fewest number
of variables
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 Cross-Classification or
Category Analysis
• Widely used
• Household types are classified according to a
set of categories that are highly correlated with
trip-making
• Usually, use four explanatory variables, with
each broken into about three discrete levels, are
usually sufficient
• Trip rates associated with each type of
household are estimated by statistical methods
and these rates are assumed to remain stable
over time. 23
 Trip rates

4.2

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 Trip rates

Table 4.1a

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 Example

• An urban zone contains 200 acres of residential land, 50 acres

devoted to commercial users, and 10 acres of park land. The
following table represents the zone’s expected household
composition at some future (target) year.
Vehicle per Persons per household
household
1 2,3 4 5
0 100 200 150 20
1 300 500 210 50
2+ 150 100 60 0

• Using the calibrated cross-classification as shown in the

previous table, estimate the total non-work home-based trips
that the zone will produce during a typical target-year day. The
rates are given as trips per household per day. 26
 Solution

• The total productions are estimated by summing the contribution of each

PI   N h Rh
household type:

h
– where N h , Rh are the number of households of type h and their corresponding
production rate. For example, the 300 single person one-car households
contribute (300)(1.45)=435 non-work home-based trips per day. Summing over
all household types gives:
– PI  5760 trips per day

• Discussion:
– Only the residential land use sector of the zone entered into the solution because
trip productions are associated with the residential characteristics of the zone.
The commercial and recreational characteristics of the zone would be relevant to
the estimation of the attractiveness of the zone for these purposes. In that case,
properly calibrated attractiveness models would be required.
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 Example

• A number of suburban zones have a total of

1000 dwelling units (DU). The average income
per DU is $12,000. Using the curves a, b, and c
provided, estimate the number of trips
produced by the zones

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1. Enter curve a with zonal
income per dwelling unit to
determine car ownership level
by household:

2% 0 auto households = 20 DU
32% 1 auto households = 320 DU
52% 2 auto households = 520 DU
14% 3 auto households = 140 DU

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2. Enter curve b with income, to
determine the total
production (person-trips)
from each household:
Trips from 0 auto household =
5.5x20 = 110 trips
Trips from 1 auto household =
12.0x320 = 3840 trips
Trips from 2 auto household =
15.50x520 = 8060 trips
Trips from 3 auto household =
17.2x140 = 2408 trips
Total trips = 14418
Average trips/DU = 14.4
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3. Enter curve c with income to
determine the trips produced
by purpose:
Home-to-work trips = 19%x14418
= 2739 trips
Home-to-shop trips = 11%x14418
= 1586 trips
Home-to-school trips = 14%x14418
= 2018 trips
Home-to-other trips = 34%x14418
= 4903 trips
Non-home-based trips= 22%x14418
= 3172 trips
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