Activity-based modeling treats travel as being derived from the demand for personal activities. Travel decisions, therefore, become part of a broader activity scheduling process based on modeling the demand for activities rather than merely trips. The explicit modeling of activities and the consequent tours and trips enables a better understanding of travel behavior and more credible analysis of response to policies and their effect on traffic and air quality.
Few applications of this approach have been developed in the last years but in an effort to enhance behavioral realism have reached a significant level of complexity that put their practical use, which is their main objective, at risk.
This talk will describe how to construct a practical policy sensitive activity-based model using the example of the model developed for the metropolitan area of Tel-Aviv, Israel and currently at its final implementation stages. The case study will show how one can develop such an advanced model that on one hand captures the key behavior aspects and policy sensitivities, and on the other hand, is practical and requires reasonable computational resources so that it can be widely used for decision-making. Extension of activity-based model to longer term decisions such as auto ownership and residential location will also be discussed.
About the Speaker
Dr. Yoram Shiftan is a professor at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Technion, Israel. He specializes in areas of travel behavior, demand modeling, transportation economics and transportation and air quality. Prior to joining the Technion, Dr. Shiftan was a Senior Associate at Cambridge Systematics Inc. in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he led major transportation projects across the U.S., as well as research projects for the U.S. Department of Transportation. Dr. Shiftan significantly contributed to the development of state of the art travel demand modeling approaches. He developed pioneering applications of advanced model systems and conducted various activities for the U.S. Department of Transportation Travel Model Improvement Program. Dr. Shiftan is currently on Sabbatical at the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at University of Michigan. He spent his previous Sabbatical at the School of Public Policy in George Mason University, Virginia, where he was responsible for evaluating the Capital Wireless Integrated Network (CapWIN) project in the Capital area. In Europe Dr. Shiftan led research tasks for the European CyberCars and CyberMove Projects regarding innovative future transportation systems, and has been an active member of the trans-Atlantic STELLA (Sustainable Transportation for Europe with Link and Liaison to America) Network.
In Israel Dr. Shiftan is developing a new activity-based model system for Tel-Aviv, consulting to the Government on transport policies and modeling issues, and a member of various committees of the Ministry of Transportation. Dr. Shiftan was the president of the Israel Association of Transportation Research. Dr. Shiftan is currently a member of the board of the International Association of Travel Behavior Research, the TRB Committee on Travel Behavior and Values, and the European Transport Conference Committee on Planning for Sustainable Land Use and Transport. He is also co-chair of the Network on European Communications and Transport Activities Research cluster on Environment and Policy and member of the WCTR scientific committee. Dr. Shiftan holds a Masters degree from Technion in Transportation Planning, and a Ph.D. from MIT in transportation systems.