Advancing a transparent and collaborative transportation modeling.
The Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG) Technical Team awarded inaugural Zephyr Award for Outstanding Technical Achievement.
The Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG) Technical Team effort represented a collaborative and transparent approach to model development and advancement. Given the tough California Statewide mandates and the emerging mobility options and transportation technologies that are particularly active in California, the SACOG team had a very challenging task in developing their Metropolitan Transportation Plan (MTP) update
The SACOG team devoted considerable effort in improving modeling procedures and testing new features, with a view to better reflect the potential impacts of transformative technologies in transportation. The SACOG team adopted a collaborative and transparent approach to model development, thus enhancing trust in the modeling process and providing policy makers an appropriate understanding of how results should be interpreted and used in planning future transportation policies and investments. The effort is to be commended for its contributions to advancing best practice.
The Zephyr Decision Making Hero Award
The Zephyr Outstanding Technical Achievement Award shall be given to an individual or team for superior innovation and creativity in developing a project, method, study, or product that contributes to a positive impact on transportation and/or land use decision-making.
The SACOG technical team, led by Bruce Griesenbeck, devoted considerable effort in improving modeling procedures and testing new features, with a view to better reflect the potential impacts of transformative technologies in transportation. The SACOG team adopted a collaborative and transparent approach to model development, thus enhancing trust in the modeling process and providing policy makers an appropriate understanding of how results should be interpreted and used in planning future transportation policies and investments. The effort is to be commended for its contributions to advancing best practice.
How did they do it?
Bruce and the SACOG Team faced these challenging circumstances through a transparent approach that balanced model capabilities with model limitations. This approach was essential for improving trust in regional modeling. Significant effort went into model enhancements and testing new features in an open fashion with the modeling community. This was followed by effective use of observed data and forecasts to help explain current disruptive trend effects such as internet shopping and the factors that contribute to induced vehicle travel. The induced travel evaluation was unique in that it investigated contributing factors to changes in travel behavior such as an aging population to help explain how travel demand would change overtime.
What can other technical teams learn from this example?
Metropolitan areas around the country are being challenged to develop regional transportation plans that address region-wide and community-level goals of enhancing sustainability, livability, and accessibility. Transportation planning processes need to account for substantial uncertainty associated with travel demand forecasting, especially around transportation network companies (TNCs), internet shopping, induced travel, autonomous vehicles (AVs), vehicle miles of travel (VMT) trends, and associated air pollutant and GHG emissions. An important aspect of the uncertainty is associated with the various disruptive trends noted above, but also increasing VMT per capita trends in the state and regional levels despite predictions that VMT per capita would be declining. The transparent, collaborative, and open technical discussions incorporated into the RTP and its associated environmental impact report (EIR) are important templates for other modelers and analysts facing similar challenges.
The 2020 Outstanding Technical Achievement Award Committee was:
- Ram Pendyala, Arizona State University (chair)
- Hani Mahmassani, Northwestern University
- Stephen Lawe, RSG Inc.
- Julie Dunbar, Dunbar Transportation
Read about other 2020 Zephie Award Winners
The Zephyr Foundation is a venue through which leading researchers and practitioners seek to develop and implement travel analysis methods and tools that are demonstrably more valuable, credible, transparent, tractable, reproducible, and usable in order to support public policy decision-making that is inclusive and promotes equitable outcomes, shared prosperity, and sustainability. Contact us if you’re interested in learning more about other Zephyr projects.
