Week 9:

Trip Distribution
KIA4015

Coding and Zoning - Creating Zones

•Traffic Analysis Zones (TAZ)
– Uniform land use
– Bounded by major roads
– Typically small in size (about the
size of a few neighborhood blocks)

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 Trip Distribution
• We link production or origin zones to attraction
destination zones
• A trip matrix is produced
TAZ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1
2
3
Zone 1
4
5
Trip Matrix
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7
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• The cells within the trip matrix are the

“trip interchanges” between zones

Trip Interchanges

• Decrease with distance between zones

– In addition to the distance between zones, total
trip “cost” can include things such as tolls and
parking costs
• Increase with zone “attractiveness”
– Typically includes square footage of retail or office
space but can get much more complicated

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 Trip Distribution

•Similar to Trip Generation, all the modes are

still lumped together by purpose (i.e. work,
shopping)
– This creates a problem for non-vehicular trips
because distance affects these trips very
differently
– Additionally, many walking and biking trips are
intra-zonal & difficult to model

Basic Criteria for Trip

Distribution
•Criteria for allocating all the productions
among all the attractions
 Cost of trip
• Travel Time
• Actual Costs
 Attractiveness
• Quantity of Opportunity
• Desirability of Opportunity

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How to Distribute the Trips?

I. Growth Factor Models

II. Gravity Model

Fratar Method
(Growth Factor Model)

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Fratar Method

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 Limitations of the
Fratar Model
• Convergence to the target year not always possible
• The model does not reflect travel times or cost of travel
between zones
• Thus, this model as well as the other growth factor
models are only used for
• External trips through the zones or
• Short-term horizon years

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 The Gravity Model

The Inspiration for

the Gravity Model
• The big idea behind the gravity model
is Newton’s law of gravitation…

M 1 M2
F=k
r2
• The force of attraction between 2 bodies is directly
proportional to the product of masses between the two
bodies and inversely proportional to the square of the
distance

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 The Inspiration for
the Gravity Model

•In terms of transportation planning

and trip distribution:
– The zones correspond to the objects
– The attributes of the zones in terms of the relative
proportion of productions and attractions
represent the mass of the objects
– The distance between the zones is captured by the
distance between the objects

The Gravity Model

(Productions)(Attractions)(Friction Factor)
= Sum of the (Attractions x Friction Factors) of the Zones

The larger the friction factor, the more trips that are encouraged

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 Some of the Variables

Tij = Trips between i & j

i = production zone
j = Gravity
To Apply the attractionModel
zone

• What we need…
Tij = f (Pi, Aj, Cij)
Cij = Generalized cost
1. Productions, {Pi}
of trip from i to j
2. Attractions, {Aj}
3. Skim Tables {Wij)
 Target-Year Interzonal Impedances

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 Attractions vs. Attractiveness
• The number of attractions to a particular zone depends upon the
zone’s attractiveness
• As compared to the attractiveness of all the other
competing zones and;
• the distance between them
• Two zones with identical attractiveness may have a different number
of attractions due to one’s remote location
• Thus, substituting attractions for attractiveness can lead to incorrect
results

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 Limitations of
the Gravity Model
•The model fails to reflect the characteristics of the
individuals or households who decide which destinations to
choose in order to satisfy their activity needs

White Collar Jobs

Zone 3
Income=20000
Zone 2
Zone 1
Zone 4
Income=75000
Blue Collar Jobs

 The gravity model does not take this type of situation

into account without using K-Factors which leads
back into another whole set of problems

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 Trip Assignment

Trip Assignment

• Trip assignment is the forth step of the FOUR STEP

process

• It is used to determining how much traffic will use each

link of the transportation system

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 Route Choice or Trip Assignment in 4 Step Process

Example

Consider two zones

• Section 14 PJ
• Section 16 PJ

Four Steps
1. Trip Generation - Determines production from S16
2. Trip Distribution - Gives QIJ - Trips from S16
attracted to S14
3. Modal Split - Fraction of QIJ using different modes of
travel
4. Trip Assignment - What roads? What bus routes?

Characterizing Road Network for Trip

Assignment
• In trip assignment the road network is represented by links
and nodes
• Links - major roads including arterials, expressways and
freeways (local roads are not usually included - this can be a
problem in places like in S16 were the local road network is
very dense and carry a significant portion of the traffic)
• Nodes - typically intersections or interchanges but could be
other points that are important to the network
• Each node is numbered
• Links are specified by the nodes at the end
• Each link is associated with an impedance (the impedance
might not be the same in each direction

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 Example Road Network for Trip Assignment

1 2
5 5 8 2 3 4 4

6 3
7 7 6 8 4
6 5 5
5 7
8 8 8
11
9 4
7
10 7 7
7 7 5 5
8 8 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
are zone
12 centroids
7 13 7
14
5 5

Route Choice Behavior

 Trip assignment is based on one of two assumptions about traveler's
behavior
◦ User Equilibrium
◦ System Equilibrium
 User Equilibrium
Based on the assumption that users try to minimize their individual time
of travel by going along the shortest path from origin to destination
 System Equilibrium
Based on the assumption that users try to minimize the TOTAL system
cost - that is the cost for all users of the system, not just his or her own
cost
 Route assignment based on user equilibrium require that we determine
the ‘minimum path’ between any two zones or the ‘minimum tree’ which is
a diagram showing the minimum path from one zone to all other zones

Djikstra’s algorithm

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 Allocating Traffic to Individual Routes
• Once the MINIMUM PATH is determined between different zones
then traffic can be allocated to the various links between the zones

• One common approach is the FREE FLOW/ALL-OR-NOTHING

TRAFFIC ASSIGNMENT technique

• As the name implies, the technique assumes that all traffic between any
two zones will use the minimum path between those two zones.

• The other big assumption is that the minimum path is calculated based on
FREE FLOW conditions. In other ways, it is assumed that the minimum
path calculations will not be affected by the amount of traffic using
that path.

• This is obviously this an unreasonable assumption. Other traffic

assignment techniques have been developed which tries to correct for the
two big problems with Free Flow/All-or-Nothing Traffic Assignment

Allocating Traffic to Individual Routes

(continued)
FREE Flow/Multipath Traffic Technique

 Does not assume that all traffic will use the minimum path - instead
traffic is assigned to the various paths between the two zones based
on their relative impedance. So for example, the path with the
minimum impedance will get the most traffic followed by paths with
increasing impedance

 This method is still limited by the fact that the impedance is based on
free flow assumptions and the impedance value is not changed to
reflex the level of traffic loading.

Capacity-Restrained Traffic Assignment Techniques

 Accounts for the fact that as the traffic on a link increases, the
impedance also increases. Therefore, it is based on an interactive
traffic assignment process that re-calculate the impedance to account
for the level of traffic assigned to each link. As you can imagine this is
a complex and computer intensive process.

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 Trip Distribution & Assignment
• Analyzing where trips come from and go to in relation to
development
• Results in a determination of traffic that will use each access
point and route on the roadway network
• Total traffic
• Development traffic
• Non-development (background) traffic
• Manual methods: most analysis estimate distribution and
assignment at the same time

REAM-GL 10/2011

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Start With Major Directions

6% 12%

40% 15%

17% 10%

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 Distribute Trips To The Network

6% 12%

40% 15%

17% 10%

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Major Directions Decided

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Thank you

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