Information-Based Traffic Assignment for the Analysis of Geopolitical Equity

The uneven spatial distribution of transport costs and benefits within an urban agglomeration generates important inequities among the various cities of which it is composed. As a result, the problem of equitable resource allocation for the provision of road transport infrastructure becomes highly geopolitical. This paper demonstrates method for analyzing geopolitical equity based on the bridge-usage patterns revealed by auto-drivers in a large-scale travel survey conducted in the Greater Montreal Area. A traffic assignment algorithm is applied to a validated sample of trips to construct complete itineraries from this partial path information. The itineraries are used to calculate the amount of road transport supplied and consumed by each of the numerous geopolitical entities that make up the urban region. Road transport benefits are assumed to be derived from consumption while costs are associated with supply. The comparison of benefits and costs assigned to each territory confirms that the central city of Montreal is burdened with most of the costs while the distant suburbs incur the greatest benefits from major bridge and freeway infrastructure. At present, the local government of the central city is not compensated for this inequity which can be attributed to the spillover effects of the major infrastructure provided by the provincial and federal levels of government. The paper proposes a solution to address the imbalance.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • The DVD lists the title of this paper as: Information-Based Traffic Assignment for Analysis of Geopolitical Equity.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Spurr, Timothy
  • Chapleau, Robert
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 90th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2011-1-23 to 2011-1-27
• Date: 2011

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: DVD
• Features: Figures; Maps; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 16p
• Monograph Title: TRB 90th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers DVD

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Benefit cost analysis; Highway bridges; Highway traffic; Infrastructure; Resource allocation; Traffic assignment; Travel surveys; Urban areas
• Uncontrolled Terms: Agglomeration economies; Geopolitics
• Geographic Terms: Montreal (Canada)
• Subject Areas: Economics; Highways; Planning and Forecasting; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01340252
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 11-1620
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: May 18 2011 11:21AM