Geographic information system design for network equilibrium-based travel demand models

Travel demand analyses are useful for transportation planning and policy development in a study area. However, travel demand modeling faces two obstacles. First, standard practice solves the four travel components (trip generation, trip distribution, modal split and network assignment) in a sequential manner. This can result in inconsistencies and non-convergence. Second, the data required are often complex and difficult to manage. Recent advances in formal methods for network equilibrium-based travel demand modeling and computational platforms for spatial data handling can overcome these obstacles. In this paper we report on the development of a prototype geographic information system (GIS) design to support network equilibrium-based travel demand models. The GIS design has several key features, including: (i) realistic representation of the multimodal transportation network, (ii) increased likelihood of database integrity after updates, (iii) effective user interfaces, and (iv) efficient implementation of network equilibrium solution algorithms. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd