Methodological Notes on Combining Macro, Meso and Micro Models for Transportation Analysis

Traffic assignment models based on user equilibrium approaches are one of the most widely used tools in transportation planning analysis. The modeling hypotheses, soundly based on the well established concept of equilibrium, lead to nice mathematical models for which there are efficient algorithms that provide solutions in terms of the expected flows on network links, Florian and Hearn, 1995. Modeled flows offer a static average view of the expected use of the road infrastructure under the modeling hypothesis. This information has usually been sufficient for planning decisions, namely at regional and metropolitan levels, as far as the optimization algorithms, based on user equilibrium principle, have a quite efficient computing performance even for very large networks.