Activity-based Modeling of Travel Demand

Since the beginning of civilization, the viability and economic success of communities have been, to a major extent, determined by the efficiency of the transportation infrastructure. To make informed transportation infrastructure planning decisions, planners and engineers have to be able to forecast the response of transportation demand to changes in the attributes of the transportation system and changes in the attributes of the people using the transportation system. Travel demand models are used for this purpose; specifically, travel demand models are used to predict travel characteristics and usage of transport services under alternative socio-economic scenarios, and for alternative transport service and land-use configurations.