TRANSPORT PLANNING

AND MODELING

MUHAMMAD ZUDHY IRAWAN

INTRODUCTION
• Trip distribution is a process by which the trips generated in one zone are
allocated to other zones in the study area.
• These trips may be within the study area (internal - internal) or between the
study area and areas outside the study area (internal - external).
• For example, if the trip generation analysis results in an estimate of 200 HBW
trips in zone 10, then the trip distribution analysis would determine how many of
these trips would be made between zone 10 and all the other internal zones.
• In addition, the trip distribution process considers internal-external trips (or vice
versa) where one end of the trip is within the study area and the other end is
outside the study area.
• For example:
external stations for a
study area boundary are
depicted. If, for example,
a trip begins somewhere
south of the study area
and ends in the center of
the study area using
Route 29, then an
external – internal trip is
defined that begins at
external station 103 and
ends in a zone located in
the center of the study
area.

Definitions and Notation

• This is essentially a two-dimensional array of
cells where rows and columns represent each
of the z zones in the study area (including
external zones)
• The cells of each row i contain the trips
originating in that zone which have as
destinations the zones in the corresponding
columns.
• The main diagonal corresponds to intra-zonal
trips.
• Therefore: Tij is the number of trips between
origin i and destination j;
• The total array is Tij or T; Oi is the total number
of trips originating in zone i, and Dj is the total
number of trips attracted to zone j.
 • Pi is the number of trips produced or
generated in a zone i and Qj those attracted to
zone j.
• We shall use lower case letters, tij, oi and dj to
indicate observations from a sample or from
an earlier study;
• Capital letters will represent our target, or the
values we are trying to model for the
corresponding modelling period.

• The matrices can be further disaggregated, for example, by person type (n) and/or by
mode (k) :
- T ij kn are trips from i to j by mode k and person type n;
- Oi kn is the total number of trips originating at zone i by mode k and person type n,
and so on.

• pijk is the proportion of trips from i to j by mode k;

• cijk is the cost of travelling between i and j by mode k.
• The cost element may be considered in terms of distance, time or money units.
• It is often convenient to use a measure combining all the main attributes related to
the disutility of a journey and this is normally referred to as the generalised cost of
travel.
• This is typically a linear function of the attributes of the journey weighted by
coefficients which attempt to represent their relative importance as perceived by the
traveller.
METHOD
• Growth factor (uniform, single constrained, double constrained)
• Synthetic or gravity model

Growth-Factor Methods
1. Uniform Growth Factor
If the only information available is about a general growth rate τ for the whole of the
study area, then we can only assume that it will apply to each cell in the matrix:

Tij = τ ꞏ tij …. for each pair i and j

Of course τ = T/t, i.e. the ratio of expanded over previous total number of trips.
Example
Consider the simple four-by-four base-year trip matrix of Table 5.2. If the growth in traffic
in the study area is expected to be of 20% in the next three years, it is a simple matter to
multiply all cell values by 1.2 to obtain a new matrix as in Table 5.3.

2. Singly Constrained Growth-Factor Methods

• Consider the situation where information is available on the expected growth in
trips originating in each zone, for example shopping trips.
• In this case it would be possible to apply this origin-specific growth factor (τi) to
the corresponding rows in the trip matrix.
• The same approach can be followed if the information is available for trips
attracted to each zone; in this case the destination-specific growth factors (τj)
would be applied to the corresponding columns.
• This can be written as:
Tij = τi ꞏ tij …. for origin-specific factors
Tij = τj ꞏ tij …. for destination-specific factors
 This problem can be solved immediately by multiplying each row by the ratio of target Oi over the base
year total (Ʃj), thus giving the results in Table 5.5.

3. Doubly Constrained Growth Factors

• An interesting problem is generated when information is available on the future
number of trips originating and terminating in each zone.
• In transport these methods are known by their authors as Fratar in the US and
Furness elsewhere.
• For example Furness (1965 ) introduced ‘balancing factors’ Ai and Bj as
follows:
Tij = tij ꞏ τi ꞏ Γj ꞏ Ai ꞏ Bj

• or incorporating the growth rates into new variables ai and bj:

Tij = tij ꞏ ai ꞏ bj

with ai = τi Ai , and bj = Γj Bj
• This is achieved in an iterative process which in outline is as follows:
1. Set all bj = 1.0 and solve for ai; in this context, ‘solve for ai’ means find the
correction factors ai that satisfy the trip generation constraints;
2. With the latest ai solve for bj, e.g. satisfy the trip attraction constraints;
3. Keeping the bj ’s fixed, solve for ai and repeat steps (2) and (3) until the
changes are sufficiently small.
• This method can be said as bi-proportional algorithm’ because of the nature of
the corrections involved
• The most important condition required for the convergence of this method is that
the growth rates produce target values Ti and Tj such that

The solution to this problem, after

three iterations on rows and
columns (three sets of corrections
for all rows and three for all
columns), is shown in Table 5.7

Note that this estimated matrix

is within 1% of meeting the
target trip ends, more than
enough accuracy for this
problem.
• A small study area has been divided into four zones and a limited survey has
resulted in the following trip matrix:

• Estimates for future total trip ends for each zone are as given below:

• Use an appropriate growth-factor method to estimate future inter-zonal movements.

• Hint: check conditions for convergence of the chosen method first.

Advantages and Limitations of Growth-Factor Methods

• simple to understand and make direct use of observed trip matrices and forecasts
of trip-end growth.
• This advantage is also their limitation as they are probably only reasonable for
short-term planning horizons or when changes in transport costs are not to be
expected
• Any error in the base-year may well be amplified by the application of successive
correction factors. Moreover, if parts of the base-year matrix are unobserved,
they will remain so in the forecasts. Therefore, these methods cannot be used to
fill in unobserved cells of partially observed trip matrices.
• limitation is that the methods do not take into account changes in transport costs
due to improvements (or new congestion) in the network. Therefore they are of
limited use in the analysis of policy options involving new modes, new links,
pricing policies and new zones.
 Synthetic or Gravity Models
1. The Gravity Distribution Model
• They start from assumptions about group trip making behavior and the way this is
influenced by external factors such as total trip ends and distance travelled.
• These models estimate trips for each cell in the matrix without directly using the
observed trip pattern; therefore they are sometimes called synthetic as opposed
to growth factor

where Pi and Pj are the populations of the towns of origin and destination, dij is
the distance between i and j, and α is a proportionality factor (with units
tripsꞏdistance2/population2)

• Zone A connects to 4 other zones (B, C, D, E) with the number of origin in zone A is
25.000 trips
• Number of population in each zones and travel time between Zone A to Zone B, C,
D, E is as follows:

Zone Population (in thousand) Travel time (in hour)

B 40 6
C 75 4
D 120 3
E 150 7

• Calculate the number of trip distribution from Zone A to Zone B, C, D, and E

• The model was further generalised by assuming that the effect of distance or ‘separation’
could be modelled better by a decreasing function, to be specified, of the distance or travel
cost between the zones.

• where f (cij) is a generalised function of the travel costs with one or more parameters for
calibration.
• This function often receives the name of ‘deterrence function’ because it represents the
disincentive to travel as distance (time) or cost increases. Popular versions for this
function are:

given the information that the best value of β is

0.10. The first step would be to build a matrix of
the values exp (−β cij),
 Compared what if without value of β and using

• Consider a study area consisting of three zones.

• The data have been determined as follows: the number of productions and attractions
has been computed for each zone by methods described in the section on trip
generation, and the average travel times between each zone have been determined.
• Assume Kij is the same unit value for all zones. Finally, the F values have been
calibrated as previously described and are shown in Table 12.11 for each travel
time increment.
• Note that the intra-zonal travel time for zone 1 is larger than those of most other
inter-zone times because of the geographical characteristics of the zone and
lack of access within the area.
• This zone could represent conditions in a congested downtown area.
• Determine the number of zone-to-zone trips through two iterations.
2. Singly and Doubly Constrained Models
• The need to ensure that the restrictions are met requires replacing the single
proportionality factor α by two sets of balancing factors Ai and Bj as in the Furness
model, yielding:
Tij = Ai Oi Bj Dj f(cij)

• In a similar vein one can again subsume Oi and Dj into these factors and rewrite the
model as:
Tij = ai bj f(cij)
• The results are summarized in Table 12.13. Note that, in each case, the sum of the
attractions is now much closer to the given value.
• The process will be continued until there is a reasonable agreement (within 5%)
between the A that is estimated using the gravity model and the values that are
furnished in the trip generation phase.
When should a singly constrained gravity model or the doubly constrained gravity model be used?
• The singly constrained gravity model may be preferred if the friction factors are more reliable than the
attraction values.
• The doubly constrained gravity model is appropriate if the attraction values are more reliable than friction
factors.
• To illustrate either choice, consider the following example:

• Table 12.15 is more likely to be

accurate if engineering
judgment suggests the
occurrence of travel
impedances and thus the
friction factors are more
accurate than trip attractions.
• Table 12.16 is more likely to be
accurate if the attractions are
more accurate than the friction
factors.