Northeast Corridor Transportation Project: Structure and Operation of Model System

Recognition of the increasing magnitude and intensity of intercity transportation problems along the Northeastern seaboard of the U.S. and of the inadequacies of existing policies and programs in meeting these problems led in 1964 to the establishment of the Northeast Corridor Transportation Project (NECTP). In a deliberately experimental way, the Corridor Project was to be a comprehensive and systematic attempt at determining the intercity transportation facility requirements of one of the world's major urbanized regions. A system of mathematical models has been developed by the NECTP which simulates the forces of passenger transportation supply and demand in the Corridor and which permits examination of both competitive interrelationships among transport modes and interactions between transportation and other sectors of the Corridor economy. A brief overview of this system of models is given, in which emphasis is placed on the structure of the transport supply and demand models and on the process by which equilibrium between supply and demand is reached within systems comprised of a mix of conventional and innovative transport modes.