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Transportation Research Procedia 20 (2017) 724 – 730

12th International Conference "Organization and Traffic Safety Management in large cities",
SPbOTSIC-2016, 28-30 September 2016, St. Petersburg, Russia

Methods for the Traffic Demand Assessment Based on the

Quantitative Characteristics of Urban Areas Functioning
Anton Zedgenizov a*, Dmitriy Burkov b
Irkutsk National Research Technical University, 83, Lermontova Str., Irkutsk, 664074, Russia

Abstract

The article considers the methods for the traffic demand assessment. The assessment is based on the quantitative characteristics
reflecting functioning of urban areas / traffic schedule areas (specific generation of correspondences, daily non-uniformity
coefficients, etc.). The suggested method allows for essential decrease of labor intensity at initial data collection and increase of
the traffic demand assessment accuracy. Based on the suggested method, the assessment of general, including commercial,
attractiveness of an urban area / mass concentration centers (MCC) is possible.
©
©2017
2016Published by Elsevier
The Authors. B.V. This
Published is an openB.V.
by Elsevier access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of the 12th International Conference "Organization and Traffic
Peer-review under responsibility
Safety Management of the organizing committee of the 12th International Conference “Organization and Traffic Safety
in large cities".
Management in large cities”
Keywords: traffic demand; correspondences generation; parking duration; daily non-uniformity coefficients; average fill-up by individual
vehicles; urban area attractiveness

1. Introduction

The world globalization processes, including new principles for labor force allocation, natural resources
processing, and creation of principally new information and cultural resources, predetermine public preferences in
favor of living and working in cities of our country. Alongside with positive effects of the urban environment, the
urbanization side effects such as necessity for passing long distances between places of living and work, use of
transport, which inevitably leads to the deterioration of the ecological situation, increase of morbidity including

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +0-000-000-0000 ; fax: +0-000-000-0000 .

E-mail address: azedgen@gmail.com a*, digerburkov22@gmail.com b

2352-1465 © 2017 Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of the 12th International Conference “Organization and Traffic Safety
Management in large cities”
doi:10.1016/j.trpro.2017.01.117
 Anton Zedgenizov and Dmitriy Burkov / Transportation Research Procedia 20 (2017) 724 – 730 725

psychological one, high level of dependence on energy resources, etc., are obvious.
Alongside with that, the existing methods for the traffic demand assessment are based on the application of
initial data which are currently either hardly accessible (a part of a trade secret) or do not reflect the modern
dependencies lying in the root of the traffic demand formation. For example, it is the number of the standard
residential population due to significant increase of rented accommodation and frequent change of residences. The
existing methodologies are best described in special literature [Yefremov et al. (1980), Lobanov (1990)]. In this
regard, the necessity for scientific research aimed at the development of the traffic demand assessment methodology
based on the quantitative characteristics of areas / MCC use is becoming specifically important.

2. Main text

The modern urban area has a significant scope of various institutions. In terms of the urban area typology, an
area is viewed not only from the position of locating land use facilities there; the focus is also placed on the nature
of internal ties of located facilities, visitation intensity and volume, as well as the square area of structures with
account of a number of storeys. In fact, any city’s functioning predetermines the combination of several types of the
area use. For example, chemistries are often located in close proximity to a polyclinics or hospital (moreover, they
often share one building); grocery shops are often located near residential buildings; spare parts shops — near
garage cooperatives; cafes (canteens) — near big business centers, etc. It shall be noted that the given examples of
an area / MCC have different functions and various quantitative characteristics with regard to correspondences
generation (traffic schedule areas capacity). In order to obtain tools allowing for evaluation of the influence degree
of each area use type on the traffic schedule areas capacity upon arrival and departure, it is required to establish
similarities and distinctions between the considered area types.
In big and the biggest cities, the number of types of area / MCC use may reach 200–250 items. Studies in the
field of urban areas typology have been already conducted in our country as well [Zedgenizova (2013), Romm
(2002)]. Considering a residential building, it is possible to highlight such grades as the number of storeys,
development density, status value, number of households, etc. Industrial as well as municipal and storage areas also
vary and function showing certain distinctions. One of the most complicated and complex areas / MCCs is trade.
Currently, big cities can offer a consumer goods suiting any taste and demand; trade is carried on in cultural and
historical centers and at the periphery, in small stands (square area of 1.5 m2) and megamalls (square area of up to
several hundreds of square meters), with groceries and specific goods, etc. It is crucially important to highlight the
hierarchy in the presented typology of urban areas based on the principle from the general to the specific (Fig. 1).
The top is represented by the general aggregate of all types of areas / MCCs, the lower stage on the path from the
general to the specific features the extended typology of areas / MCCs, characterizing areas / MCCs in terms of one
category e.g. residential areas; it is followed by the type of areas / MCCs, characterizing them only in terms of one
type (class), e.g. grocery shops, and, finally, the specific case of areas / MCCs, detailed by the name, location, and
other functioning peculiarities.
726 Anton Zedgenizov and Dmitriy Burkov / Transportation Research Procedia 20 (2017) 724 – 730

General
General aggregate of areas / MCCs

Extended typology of areas / MCCs

Typology of areas / MCCs

Specific case of typology of areas /

MCCs
Specific

Fig. 1. Area / MCC typology classification.

Studying of the most of types of areas / MCCs having minimum distinctions in functioning, e.g. cafes
(restaurants) diverging only in the scope of provided services, is rather labor consuming process; generalizing of
characteristics of any area use type on the basis of the available data on several characterizing subtypes can show the
vague pattern of functioning of an area. Resulting from numerous experimental comparisons, the most appropriate
criterion for the typology differentiation with regard to areas / MCCs turned to be parking duration which indirectly
reflects stay duration in an area / MCC and, consequently, its attractiveness (Fig. 2). Fig. 2 results in Table 1
presenting the allocation of a number of facilities falling into each of the clusters.

Table 1. Allocation of an area / MCC by clusters.

Clusters
Area code
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Ports and transport terminals 1 0 1 1 0 0 0
Industrial areas 4 0 1 0 0 0 0
Education 0 0 0 0 2 3 0
Recreation and entertainment areas 0 0 0 9 2 1 1
State authority institutions 0 0 0 0 8 0 0
Medical institutions 0 0 2 0 2 0 0
Offices 0 1 1 0 5 1 0
Retail trade 0 9 4 0 26 0 0
Service providers 0 0 2 0 4 2 3
Share of the most popular area / MCC 0.75 0.9 0.4 0.9 0.53 0.375 0.75
 Anton Zedgenizov and Dmitriy Burkov / Transportation Research Procedia 20 (2017) 724 – 730 727

70

60
Intraclass space account degree

50

40

30

20

10

0
C_106

C_105

C_100

C_111
C_110
C_109
C_108
C_101

C_102

C_103

C_104

C_112
C_107
C_55
C_85
C_56
C_54
C_16
C_15
C_83
C_29
C_12

C_58
C_14
C_21
C_17
C_13
C_93
C_20
C_18
C_10
C_57
C_38
C_63
C_98
C_97
C_75
C_74
C_66
C_60
C_41
C_36
C_45
C_44
C_33
C_82
C_59
C_22

C_86
C_84
C_80
C_79
C_78
C_77
C_76
C_42
C_65
C_64
C_48
C_94
C_31
C_19
C_95
C_73
C_61
C_43
C_34
C_99
C_72
C_68
C_67
C_62
C_37
C_71
C_26
C_70
C_28
C_25
C_27
C_11
C_24
C_23
C_53
C_52
C_35
C_32
C_39
C_81
C_40
C_30
C_89
C_96
C_90
C_88
C_87
C_69
C_49
C_50
C_47
C_46
C_51

C_91
C_92

C_7

C_8

C_9

C_5

C_4

C_2

C_6
C_3
C_1
Considered cases

Fig. 2. Area / MCC differentiation as to parking duration.

Thus, Table 2 clearly shows that each cluster corresponds to one most significant area code. The first cluster
relates to industrial areas; the second, third and fifth one — to retail trade, however, the fifth cluster, despite the
domination of retail trade (26 cases), shows the sufficient number of medical institutions, offices and service
providers. It can be assumed that a part of areas / MCCs of the retail trade group such as chemistries, grocery stores,
alcoholic beverages stores, etc. may have almost the same parking duration as service facilities (postal office,
telecommunication stations, cash collection stations, etc.) and, therefore, relate to one cluster. The overall share of
retail trade facilities in the fifth cluster slightly exceeds 50% which is indicative of the significant number of
facilities with this range of parking duration. Unfortunately, parking duration is not a unique parameter, therefore,
subjectively, it must be admitted that there are other parameters allowing allocating state authority institutions,
offices, residential areas, and educational institutions to individual clusters.
To obtain the tools allowing assessing the traffic demand on the basis of the quantitative characteristics, it is
required to perform studies allowing determining the interrelation between the number of correspondences to the
considered area / MCC and factors influencing the formation of these correspondences. The necessity to determine
the quantitative characteristics of areas / MCCs functioning, on which the main distinctive features of functioning
are based, is of special note. They include specific generation of correspondences, which is one of the most
significant characteristics reflecting the degree of the area / MCC attractiveness; (in fact, it is the ratio of the number
of correspondences to an area / MCC for the considered period (day) to the size of this area); daily non-uniformity
coefficients showing the share of area loading as to hours of a day (in practice of traffic schedules, it is important to
know loadings arising in rush periods to transfer from day values to hour ones); the average parking duration is
required to solve practical tasks aimed at the assessment of the required number of slots for traffic service of visitors
in an area / MCC; the share of visitors on individual vehicles characterizes the potential classification of all visitors
into those attending an area on individual vehicles and those using public or other kinds of transport; the average
fill-up by individual vehicles, which is required for conversion of the number of visitors arriving on individual
vehicles into intensity of transport means, which for practical purposes alone is used for the assessment of the
loading level of an adjacent street and road network (SRN).
Thus, taking into consideration the gist and physical meaning of the quantitative characteristics of urban areas /
MCCs functioning, it is required to review the factors influencing the traffic demand formation in terms of big cities
and their suburbs. For this purpose, it is required to form a conceptual model of the traffic demand assessment on the
728 Anton Zedgenizov and Dmitriy Burkov / Transportation Research Procedia 20 (2017) 724 – 730

basis of the quantitative characteristics of urbanized areas functioning:

‫ ܧ‬ൌ ݂ଵ ሺ‫ݔ݈ܮܨܩ‬ଵ ‫ݔ‬௡ ሻ ൅ ݂ଶ ሺ‫ݔ݈ܮܨܩ‬ଵ ‫ݔ‬௡ ሻ ൅ ‫ ڮ‬൅ ݂௡ ሺ‫ݔ݈ܮܨܩ‬ଵ ‫ݔ‬௡ ሻ ൌ σ௡௜ୀଵ ݂௜ ሺ‫ݔ݈ܮܨܩ‬ଵ ‫ݔ‬௡ ሻ (1)

where f1, f2, fn — functions of the considered factors; G — specific generation of correspondences, people/m2; F
— size of an area / MCC, m2; L — distance from the city center, m; l — distance from the arterial street, m; x1, x2,
xn — factors influencing the capacity of a traffic schedule area. It shall be noted that some presented factors are
obligatory (G, F) as the preliminary analysis of factors influencing the traffic demand shows that they manifest the
main influence in the most of areas / MCCs; the rest explaining effect relates to the share of other factors (L, l)
depending on the type of an area / MCC, including those factors which have not been studied yet (x1, x2).
For the development of an operative mathematical (empirical) dependence (model) allowing for the traffic
demand assessment as to individual mass concentration centers as well as in terms of urban transport unit of account
(traffic schedule area), full-scale studies are required to obtain the respective quantitative characteristics and their
subsequent approbation in real urban areas / MCCs. An example of the obtained data on specific generation of
correspondences as to various types of areas / MCCs is given in Fig. 3. The data are obtained on the basis of studies
performed in 14 cities and urban settlements of Russia (Irkutsk, Angarsk, Shelekhov, Krasnoyarsk, Lensk,
Kemerovo, etc.); moreover, the population size differentiation with account of population groups is possible for
individual area types [State Committee for Construction (Gosstroy) of the USSR (1989)].
Specific generation of correspondences, corr./m 2

Service providers
Grocery stores
Plant

Gardeners' non-commercial partnerships

Physical training areas

Car wash
Garage cooperative
Construction goods
Residential areas
High-rise residential units

Restaurants, cafes, bars

State authority institutions

Offices

Funeral services
Logistic center

Religious institutions

Design companies
Kindergartens, nurseries
Institutions of higher prof. education

Hospitals

Furniture

815_ Multi-functional trade centers

Recreation and entertainment areas

Fig. 3. Specific generation of correspondences (variation range, average value).

 Anton Zedgenizov and Dmitriy Burkov / Transportation Research Procedia 20 (2017) 724 – 730 729

Applications of the empirical dependencies reflecting the interrelation between the traffic demand and
quantitative and spatial characteristics of urban areas functioning may be consolidated for the creation of national
guidelines for the traffic demand assessment. At that, the field of its application is very wide: the assessment of area
/ MCC development influence on an adjacent SRN and allocation of an urban SRN in general; development of
standards for the required number of parking slots, public services (healthcare, sports, public catering, etc.);
assessment of property cadastral values on the basis of area / MCC attractiveness; assessment of commercial
functioning profitability of areas (Fig. 4).

3. Conclusion

Unfortunately, this article cannot accommodate the results obtained with regard to other quantitative
characteristics of urban areas. Alongside with that, the authors will continue the work over increasing the selection
scope as to the named quantitative characteristics and extension of research geography which, in its turn, will allow
obtaining new dependencies in differentiation with population groups.

Fig. 4. Applications of the methodology for the traffic demand assessment based on the quantitative characteristics of land use.

References
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