Forecasting Travel on Regional Highway Network

This study attempts to develop an appropriate predictive technique for estimating traffic on a regional highway network without resorting to a regionwide origin-destination survey. Models for the trip generation and distribution phases of the traffic estimation procedure were synthesized for a four-county region in the Piedmont Crescent of North Carolina. The fabricated distribution of traffic was then assigned to the network and volumes on appropriate links were compared with actual traffic volumes. Based upon the percent root-mean-square error for different volume groups, the accuracy with which existing travel patterns was duplicated appears to be very promising for purposes of regional thoroughfare planning.