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ICTD 2025

Transportation Planning

POSTER RECEPTION (View list of posters here)

A Comparative Illustration of Trip- and Activity-Based Modeling Techniques

Tuesday, June 10, 2025
4:45 PM – 6:00 PM MT
Abstract: Over the last fifteen years, activity based models have slowly replaced trip based models as the standard tool used for planning and forecasting efforts in the United States. But the general adoption of activity based models has been slowed by a number of factors, including real and perceived costs in terms of data availability, computational resources, and staff training for analysis. In this research, we explore the state of these considerations in light of newly developed open-source platforms for activity based modeling. We do this by applying a trip based model for the Wasatch Front region of Utah and an implementation of ActivitySim in the same region to analyze three scenarios common to transport planners: a change in land use, a change in transport infrastructure, and a change in underlying travel behavior. We find that the activity based approach allows for a more straightforward and intuitive interpretation of model results at little additional cost for scenario configuration, computation, or analysis. Further, we show that the construction of activity based models may make model extension and adaptation to new policies more straightforward than could be undertaken with a trip based model. This suggests that some of the commonly rehearsed justifications for not adopting activity based models may be outdated or irrelevant.

Learning Objectives:

Attendees can expect to learn the following from this session:
  • Describe common perceived issues with activity-based models.
  • Discuss the basic design of trip-based and activity-based travel demand models
  • See how modern open-source software has helped overcome some limitations with previous generations of activity-based models.