This morning I attended a virtual workshop seminar hosted by the ITE entitled “Traffic Demand Forecasting”. Focused on local modeling and surveys taken by transportation engineers, the workshop was very informative on what models and tools are currently being used and their effectiveness.

One piece of information that I thought was especially useful was the detailed focus of the “4-Step Method”. We all learned it in school: Generation, Distribution, Mode Choice (split), and Assignment. But it never occurred to me that one can obtain a pretty good (and quick) estimate by eliminating Mode Choice completely in an area with little public transportation. Ehem, paging North Carolina.

Another thing that didn’t occur to me was the concept of “blind spots” in traffic analysis. Sure it may seem easy to assign average annual daily traffic to a specific route, but route directness never seems to come up (how direct a route really is). Or how about sidewalk completeness. These are things that are hard to factor and difficult to anticipate.

Very informative seminar overall. Thanks ITE!