This conference celebrated in Seattle in October 15-17, 2014, represents (in words of Mike Florian, INRO’s president) a great opportunity to share experiences and critical perspectives on transportation planning applications with leading practitioners.
Enrique Lillo, partner at Diadro Consulting, with more than 25 years of experience in transport modelling, was invited to share his knowledge about a case study of Riyadh Transport Model developed with EMME.
The paper described the update process of the Riyadh transport model. The original model was developed in 2004, using the data collected from a big household survey and some additional data sources (such as stated preference surveys, traffic counts, etc.).
A large population growth and a plan to dramatically improve the public transport network (with 5 new metro lines and several BRT and conventional bus lines) compelled Arriyadh Development Agency (ADA) to update the model in order to have a better understanding of the changes in the city mobility.
The work was based on a limited number of new surveys, due to the time constrains and the practical difficulties of a big household survey. Also a new set of specific surveys (Stated Preference) were designed to adjust a modal split model.
A new set of models were developed and implemented in Emme to forecast the network performance once the new public transport system was in place. The paper describes the process and also some details of model implementation, such as an incremental distribution model, the use of SOLA algorithm to improve the overall running time of the model and the validity of small samples to update the models.