Abstract:
Over the last decade in all metropolitan areas, growing peak period congestion has been accompanied by increased demand from the peak hour into the shoulder hours of the peak period. Conventional forecasting models generally adopt static diurnal factors and do not model time-of-day (TOD) choice, and are generally not well formulated to extend their capabilities to model travel by hour of day as a function of level of service and other factors, including simulation of peak hour spreading. As a disaggregate tour-based model, the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission (MORPC) travel forecasting system fully incorporates a TOD choice model for a 19-h average weekday. Because the TOD model is sensitive to travel times, peak hour spreading as the consequence of increased levels of peak period congestion should be evident in the model’s application. This paper explores this aspect of the MORPC tour-based model in application, comparing observed traffic data with the simulated hourly demand results from a series of tests of the model.
