Akira Kikuchi

Florida Activity Mobility Simulator: Overview and Preliminary Validation Results

The development of modeling systems for activity-based travel demand ushers in a new era in transportation demand forecasting and planning. A comprehensive multimodal activity-based system for forecasting travel demand was developed for implementation in Florida and resulted in the Florida Activity Mobility Simulator (FAMOS). Two main modules compose the FAMOS microsimulation model system for modeling activity-travel patterns of individuals: the Household Attributes Generation System and the Prism-Constrained Activity-Travel Simulator. FAMOS was developed and estimated with household activity and travel data collected in southeast Florida in 2000. Results of the model development effort are promising and demonstrate the applicability of activity-based model systems in travel demand forecasting. An overview of the model system, a description of its features and capabilities, and preliminary validation results are provided.

An Overview of PCATS/DEBNetS Micro-simulation System: Its Development, Extension, and Application to Demand Forecasting

The micro-simulator of individuals’ daily travel, PCATS, and a dynamic network simulator, DEBNetS, are integrated to form a simulation system for urban passenger travel. The components of the simulation system are briefly described, and three areas of on-going system improvement are described, i.e., (i) introduction of stochastic frontier models of prism vertex location, (ii) adoption of a fine grid system for quasi-continuous representation of space, and (iii) use of MCMC algorithms to handle colossal choice sets. Application case studies demonstrate that micro-simulation is a practical approach for demand forecasting and policy analysis, especially in the area of demand management.