Utilizing Big Data to Verify and Enhance Route Choice Models in Travel Demand Modeling

Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) has invested roughly $5M to maintain and improve its long-range travel demand models, which are needed to help analyze candidate transportation projects. A key step within these models is “trip assignment” where the path vehicles follow is represented in the network. High-resolution global positioning system (GPS)-level data offers the potential to improve the accuracy of this step. However, VDOT staff are finding some discrepancies between route choice as currently represented in demand models and route choice as observed by GPS data—and it is not immediately clear how to resolve this discrepancy. This research effort will determine the best way to use the GPS data to enhance model accuracy. Note that a substantial amount of effort needed to make this determination has already been completed through an earlier research effort, and thus, this new study adds additional work to address this trip assignment step.

    Language

    • English

    Project

    • Status: Active
    • Funding: $71,000.00
    • Contract Numbers:

      127473

    • Sponsor Organizations:

      Virginia Transportation Research Council

      530 Edgemont Road
      Charlottesville, VA  United States  22903
    • Managing Organizations:

      Virginia Transportation Research Council

      530 Edgemont Road
      Charlottesville, VA  United States  22903
    • Project Managers:

      Miller, John

    • Performing Organizations:

      George Mason University

      School of Engineering
      CEIE Dept., MSN-6C1
      Faifax, VA  United States  22030

      Villanova University

      Villanova, Pennsylvania  United States 
    • Principal Investigators:

      Zhu, Shanjiang

      Xiong, Chenfeng

    • Start Date: 20250522
    • Expected Completion Date: 20270331
    • Actual Completion Date: 0

    Subject/Index Terms

    Filing Info

    • Accession Number: 01955038
    • Record Type: Research project
    • Source Agency: Virginia Department of Transportation
    • Contract Numbers: 127473
    • Files: RIP, STATEDOT
    • Created Date: May 15 2025 9:16AM