transportation planning Archives

Complementing ITE Trip Generation with TripChain

I’d like to personally commend the ITE’s leadership in discussing the future of trip generation data and encouragement to gathering urban trip person data moving forward. I hope this is a fruitful endeavour and I hope that the ITE doesn’t lose sight of other technological opportunities during this process, such as the TripChain project.

This article is a response to the ITE Statement on the Future Direction of Trip Generation and Advances in Urban Trip Generation articles presented in the recent ITE Journal, July 2016, p. 16-19. More specifically, this response is to the “Steps Forward” section of the latter article and discusses how the TripChain project is positioned to contribute to accomplishing those steps forward in the industry.

Introducing TripChain for Trip Generation

August 9, 2016 / Jon / 0 Comments

I’m pleased to announce a project I have been working on called TripChain. TripChain is an open-source framework used for the derivation of trip generation rates for application in transportation planning and analysis.

Like many of us, I’ve worked with ITE trip generation rates throughout my career and at times questioned their relevancy in the context sensitive to a specific land use development. The ITE rates are a “tried and true” source of data, however they are not always the most applicable without additional data and/or local adjustment to best plan for transportation infrastructure. This is important both to transportation network planning and ensuring that development charges are appropriately levied.

Being an advocate of big data and open data, I believe these approaches are the best means to provide insight into real world situations. When a larger community is engaged to contribute more data, more easily, everyone wins – especially when that data can be easily shared in a manner that also ensures its integrity.

Improving Public Health Through Active Transportation

July 13, 2015 / Jon / 0 Comments

When I walk or ride my bike to work each day, I don’t typically think about this action’s relationship to my health. To me, it is an enjoyable part of my day and a utilitarian activity I need to perform in order to get from A to B. In my blissful ignorance, I don’t always consider how choosing active transportation is impacting my health, nor how my surrounding environment entices me to choose active transportation as my means of travel.

Recently, I had the opportunity to volunteer as an independent panelist at the AGM of a major Ontario political party on the subject of Active Transportation and Health alongside their transportation critic and a registered nurse. It also allowed me to interact with the public to hear their questions and concerns regarding the topic. Both the preparation and the experience had the effect of making me further consider my role as a transportation engineer. Continue reading