Handling Bias in Transportation Forecasting

The paper looks at the technical and institutional factors that lead to the poor transportation forecasts frequently used to justify public sector investments and policies. It assesses the magnitude of the problem, some of the causes and in particular assesses potential remedies. A number of practical possibilities exist to reduce the problem, none of which seem likely to alleviate forecasting error, or the misuse of forecasts, but which may well reduce some of the most serious distortions.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ADB40 Transportation Demand Forecasting
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Button, Kenneth
  • Benson, Brien
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 91st Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2012-1-22 to 2012-1-26
• Date: 2012

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: References; Tables;
• Pagination: 17p
• Monograph Title: TRB 91st Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers DVD

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Error analysis; Mathematical models; Statistical bias; Traffic forecasting
• Subject Areas: Planning and Forecasting; Transportation (General); I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01371494
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 12-2401
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: May 30 2012 3:02PM