Performance of Single Internal Trip Purpose Methodology to Model Smaller Urban Area Traffic

Urban travel modeling techniques have not found widespread use in small urban communities because traditional forecasting models, designed for use in large urban cities, are very data intensive. In recent years, however, there has been a greater awareness of transportation problems occurring in small urban areas, which are generally defined as communities with a population less than 50,000. Previous transportation planning research efforts directed towards small urban areas have identified the need for planning techniques that are less data intense and less expensive to implement when compared with traditional transportation modeling methods. This paper presents an application of the urban transportation planning processes that has limited data collection and cost requirements, developed specifically for application in smaller urban areas. The data requirements are reduced through the use of a single internal trip purpose based on the total number of households and businesses in each traffic analysis zone. This single trip purpose forecasting technique was used to develop travel models for 18 Alabama cities with populations ranging between 5,000 and 55,000. Validation and analysis of the travel models show that the single internal trip purpose presented in this paper can accurately be used to forecast traffic in smaller areas without extensive data collection efforts.