Activity-Based Model with Dynamic Traffic Assignment and Consideration of Heterogeneous User Preferences and Reliability Valuation

Abstract

To forecast the impact of congestion pricing schemes, it is essential to capture user responses to these schemes and the resulting dynamics of traffic flow on the network. The responses of users must include route, departure time, and mode choices. To capture the effects of these decisions, this paper lays out a framework for the integration of the relevant elements of an activity-based model (ABM) with a dynamic traffic assignment (DTA) model and a simulation framework to support the analysis and evaluation of various pricing schemes. In this paper, a multicriterion dynamic user equilibrium traffic assignment model is used; the model explicitly considers heterogeneous users who seek to minimize travel time, out-of-pocket cost, and travel time reliability in the underlying route choice framework. In addition to the methodological developments, various demand and supply parameters are estimated and calibrated for the selected application network (the Greater Chicago, Illinois, network). This paper showcases the integration of ABM components and a DTA in one coherent modeling framework for the implementation and evaluation of congestion pricing in an actual large-scale network.