The Project for Comprehensive Traffic Management Plan for Metro Manila

TECHNICAL REPORT NO. 10: PILOT PROJECT 2

8 MODULE 8: TRANSPORTATION IMPACT ASSESSMENT

8.1 Definition

Transportation impact assessment (TIA) is an evaluation of the potential effects that a particular
development’s traffic will have on the transportation network in its impact area. Previously, called
traffic impact assessment, ‘traffic’ was changed to ‘transportation’ to represent a wider coverage of
the transportation system rather than be limited to traffic as implied. The magnitude of studies will
vary depending on the following:

• Type of development, which may refer to residential, commercial, industrial, recreational,

institutional or other as well as mixed;
• Size or density of development, which may refer to high, medium or low density of
development; and
• Location of development, which may generally refer to the central business district or city
center, suburb, rural area

8.2 Usefulness

How is a TIA useful? It generally answers or attempts to answer the following questions pertaining
to a proposed development or project:

1) What are the transportation improvements needed to serve the traffic generated by the new
development?
2) How much will the improvement cost be and who will pay for them?
3) Will the new project have impact on traffic on any existing residential streets and how will
those impacts be mitigated?
4) Will the new development aggravate any existing safety hazards or create new ones and,
if so, how can those hazards be corrected?
5) Can the proposed development be served by public transportation?
6) Is the design of the development friendly towards bicyclists and pedestrians who need to
access the development or who need to pass through or by the development?
7) Is the on-site parking sufficient or is there an opportunity to share parking with other
adjacent uses?
8) How many driveways are needed, what design should each driveway have and is there a
long enough throat for each driveway that is clear of parking spaces and other cross aisle
traffic?
9) If any driveway is proposed to be signalized, is the traffic signal really needed and can on-
site circulation handle the traffic that will be queuing to wait for a green light?

8.3 Applications of TIA

ATIA is typically employed in situations when there is a proposed development that is perceived to
generate trips that will have a significant impact on transportation. The National Center for
Transportation Studies (NCTS) identified the following situations:

• When a specified amount of area is being rezoned.

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Figure 10.13: Functional Transportation Planning Step 6 – Evaluation

Figure 10.14: Functional Transportation Planning Step 7 – Selection/ Implementation

10.3 Travel Demand Forecasting

Travel Demand Forecasting is a multi-stage process, and there are several different techniques
that can be used at each stage. The basic steps are as follows:
1) Database Development
2) Trip Generation
3) Trip Distribution
4) Modal Split
5) Traffic Assignment

A Trip is a one-way movement from a point of origin to a point of destination. Home-based trips are
trips that either start from or end at the home. Trips from home to work are referred to as Home-
Based Work (HBW) trips. Trips from home to school are referred to as Home-Based School (HBS)
trips. Other types of trips coming from home are referred to as Home-Based Others (HBO). Finally,
trips that do not have home as its origin or destination are referred to as Non-Home Based (NHB)
trips.

Figure 10.15: Definition of a Trip

Trips captured in the conduct of Household Interview Surveys (HIS) can be classified based on:
• By Purpose (Work, School, Shop, Others)
• By Time of Day (AM, PM, peak, off-peak)

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• By Person Type (income, car ownership, family size, accessibility, etc.)

The Origin-Destination (OD) is a collection of typical day trip activities of residents within the Study
Area.

Figure 10.16: Single Trip Entry

Figure 10.17: Constructing an OD Table

Travel Demand Models

Transport demand models refer to a series of mathematical equations that are used to represent
how choices are made when people travel. Travel demand occurs as a result of thousands of
individual travelers making individual decisions on how, where and when to travel. These decisions
are affected by many factors such as family situations, characteristics of the person making the trip,
and the choices (destination, route and mode) available for the trip.

Mathematical relationships are used to represent (model) human behavior in making these choices.
Models require a series of assumptions in order to work and are limited by the data available to
make forecasts. The coefficients and parameters in the model are calibrated using existing data.
Normally, these relationships are assumed to be valid and to remain constant in the future.

Travel demand modeling was first developed in the late 1950's. As the need to look at other
problems such as transit, land use issues and air quality analysis arose, the modeling process has
been modified to add additional techniques to deal with these problems.

Models are important because transportation plans and investments are based on what the models
say about future travel. Models are used to estimate the number of trips that will be made on a
transportation systems alternative at some future date.

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These estimates are the basis for transportation plans and are used in major investment analysis,
environmental impact statements and in setting priorities for investments.

Models provide forecasts only for those factors and alternatives which are explicitly included in the
equations of the models. If the models are not sensitive to certain polices or programs (i.e. policy
sensitive), the models will not show the effects of such policies.

Database Development

Generally, the development of database for use in travel demand forecasting involves the following
items:
a) Break the area that requires prediction of future travel demand into study zones that can
be accurately described by a few variables (Zoning Design);
b) Collection of existing socio-economic data for the study area;
c) Conduct of Person-Trip (PT) surveys to establish the present travel patterns, specifically,
person OD trips;
d) Conduct of other traffic surveys to calibrate the model for the base year (e.g. screenline
traffic counts); and
e) Conduct of land use surveys to establish land use development patterns

The zoning design requires considering the decision-making context, the schemes to be modeled,
and the nature of trips of interest in the study. The study area should have majority of origin and
destination trips inside it. The study area should be somewhat bigger than the specific area of
interest.

The Study Area will be comprised of zones. The zoning system is a way of aggregating trips into
manageable chunks for modeling purposes. The Traffic Analysis Zone (TAZ) is a basic unit of
zoning system where each zone is a point of origin and destination for trips.

The zoning criteria that are used in establishing the zone boundaries of Traffic Analysis Zones (TAZ)
are:
a) Zoning size must be such that aggregation errors are minimized
b) Zoning system must be compatible with other administrative divisions, particularly with
census zones
c) Zones should be homogeneous as possible in their land use and/or population composition
d) Zone boundaries must be compatible with cordons and screen lines and with those of
previous zoning systems
e) Shape of the zones should allow easy identification of centroid connectors
f) Zones do not have to be of equal size
g) Zone sizes must consider population distribution; that each zone may have similar
population (homogeneity)

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Figure 10.18: MMUTIS Zoning System - NCR

Figure 10.19: MMUTIS Zoning System - Outside NCR

Typical surveys that are undertaken in the development of a travel demand forecasting model are:
a) Infrastructure and existing services inventories

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b) Land use inventory

c) Household Interview Surveys (HIS)
d) Socio-economic information

The Household Interview Survey (HIS) is the most valuable source of data for travel demand
analysis and is certainly the most costly and time-consuming to conduct. The objectives of the HIS
or Person-Trip (PT) Survey are:
a) To capture the socio-economic profile of households in the study area; and
b) To establish detailed trip information of household members in the study area

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TECHNICAL REPORT NO. 10: PILOT PROJECT 2

Figure 10.20: Household Information Form

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TECHNICAL REPORT NO. 2: QUESTIONNAIRE SURVEY TO MMDA AND LGUs

Figure 10.21: Member Information Form

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Figure 10.22: Household Information Form

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A Sampling design aims at ensuring that the data to be examined provide the greatest amount of
useful information about the population of interest at the lowest possible cost. The problem is how
to use the data (i.e.expand the values in the sample) in order to make correct inferences about the
population.

The greatest difficulties in the conduct of sampling surveys are:

a) How to ensure a representative sample
b) How to extract valid conclusions from the sample

Common sampling methods that are employed in the conduct of HIS are:
a) Simple random sampling
• Simplest and basic method
b) Stratified random sampling
• Subdividing the population into homogeneous strata (with respect to the stratifying
variable)
• Then, random sampling is conducted inside each stratum using the same sampling
rate
c) Choice-based sampling
• Stratifying the population based on the result of the choice process under
consideration
• Fairly common in transport planning with the advantage that data may be produced
at a much lower cost
• Drawback is that the sample may not be random and the therefore the risk of bias
in the expanded values

Sources of errors from household surveys include:

a) Sampling error
• Always present in dealing with samples
• Does not affect the expected values but influences variability and confidence level
b) Sampling bias
• Caused by mistakes either when defining the population of interest or when
selecting the sampling methods
• May be avoided or eliminated by taking extra care during sampling design and data
collection

One critical aspect in survey planning is the determination of sample size. There is no
straightforward or objective answer to the calculation of sample size in every situation. It must be
produced by the analyst after careful consideration of the problem at hand. There is a trade-off
between sample size and overall survey cost.

If the sample size is too small, the degree of confidence on the data will be very low. On the other
hand, if the sample size is too big, the degree of confidence on the data will be very high but the
survey cost will be impractically high.

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Figure 23. Trade-off between Sample Size and Cost

The number of samples may be computed by

CV2 Z 2
n=
E
CV = /µ
where CV is the coefficient of variation, E is the level of accuracy (expressed as a proportion) and
Zc is the valued of the standard normal variate for the confidence level (c) required.

The types of errors encountered in household surveys, include:

a) Measurement Errors
• Errors in getting base year data
b) Sampling Errors
• Models must be estimated using finite data sets
c) Specification Errors
• Phenomenon being modeled is not well understood or due to simplifications
d) Transfer Errors
• Spatial and temporal transfers
e) Aggregation Errors
• Arise basically out of the need to make forecasts for groups while modeling needs
to be done at the individual level
• Types: Data aggregation, Aggregation of alternatives, Model aggregation

Overview of the Four-Step Model

The Four-Step Model is a sequential process for generating travel demand forecasts with the
following steps:
a) Trip Generation
• Calculate the number of trips starting in each zone for a particular trip purpose
b) Trip Distribution
• Produce a table of the number of trips starting in each zone and ending up in each
other zone
c) Modal Split
• Complete the allocation of the various trips among the available transportation
systems (bus, train, pedestrian, and private vehicles)
d) Traffic Assignment
• Identify the specific routes on each transportation system that will be selected by the
travelers

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Figure 10.24: Four-Step Model

The key objective of the four-step model is to determine the future traffic volumes on the road
network under various assumptions of road and land use changes.

The total traffic volume in the future will be composed of the following components:
a) Existing traffic;
b) Traffic due to natural increase;
c) Traffic due to proposed development;
d) Traffic due to other developments

Figure 10.25: Objectives of Four-Step Model

Trip generation is the first step in the conventional four-step transportation planning process, widely
used for forecasting travel demands. It predicts the number of trips originating in or destined for a
particular traffic analysis zone.

Trip generation uses trip rates that are averages for large segment of the study area. Trip
productions are based on household characteristics such as the number of people in the household

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and the number of vehicles available.

For example, a household with four people and two vehicles may be assumed to produce 3.00 work
trips per day. Trips per household are then expanded to trips per zone. Trip attractions are typically
based on the level of employment in a zone. For example a zone could be assumed to attract 1.32
home based work trips for every person employed in that zone. Trip generation is used to calculate
person trips.

Figure 10.26: Trip Generation

Figure 10.27: Sample Trip Generation Computation

Trip distribution is the second component in the traditional 4-step transportation planning (or
forecasting) model. This step matches trip makers’ origins and destinations to develop a “trip table”
a matrix that displays the number of trips going from each origin to each destination.

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Figure 10.28: Trip Distribution

Mode choice analysis is the third step in the conventional four-step transportation planning model.
Trip distribution's zonal interchange analysis yields a set of origin destination tables which tells
where the trips will be made; mode choice analysis allows the modeler to determine what mode of
transport will be used.

Figure 10.29: Modal Split

Mode choice is one of the most critical parts of the travel demand modeling process. It is the step
where trips between a given origin and destination are split into trips using transit, trips by car pool
or as automobile passengers and trips by automobile drivers.

A utility function measures the degree of satisfaction that people derive from their choices and a
disutility function represents the generalized cost that is associated with each choice.

The most commonly used process for mode split is to use the 'Logit' model. This involves a
comparison of the "disutility" or "utility" of travel between two points for the different modes that are
available. Disutility is a term used to represent a combination of the travel time, cost and
convenience of a mode between an origin and a destination. It is found by placing multipliers
(weights) on these factors and adding them together.

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11 MODULE 11: WRAP-UP SESSION

11.1 Objectives of the Workshop:

1) Evaluate how the training modules have addressed prevalent challenges in traffic
enforcement experienced by the participating LGUs and NGAs;
2) Solicit recommendations on technical topics and follow-through support to strengthen
traffic enforcement efforts

The template below may be used for Item #1:

Traffic Management Issue Training Module/s that were Strategy/ies that were used
useful to address the issue based on the module/s

Time allocation:
Time Activity
9:00 – 9:15am Discussion of workshop mechanics
9:15 – 9:45 am Group discussion to finalize report
9:45 – 11:15 am Group presentation (each group is given 3-5 minutes each)
11:15 – 11:30am Free discussion
11:30 – 11:45am Synthesis and way forward

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