NEW APPROACHES TO TRANSPORTATION FORECASTING MODELS - A SYNTHESIS OF 4 RESEARCH PROPOSALS

In 1992, the Federal Highway Administration awarded small research con tracts to four teams of transportation researchers to design alternati ve approaches for improving the urban travel demand forecasting proces s. The purpose of these contracts was to enable each research team to explain how transportation planning models could and should be improve d to meet the new forecasting requirements brought on by recent legisl ation, to address the impacts of new transportation technology, and to exploit the travel behavior theories and methodologies that have deve loped over the past two decades. This paper presents a summary and syn thesis of the ideas which emerged from the four research reports. Its purpose is to identify common themes suggested by several of the resea rch teams, to point out what appear to be critical elements missing fr om some approaches, and to combine the best aspects of the four approa ches into a research plan for improving the current generation of trav el demand models.