Capacity Expansion in the Twin Cities: The Roads-Transit Balance

"What would it take to build our way out of congestion in the Twin Cities?" was the question posed by researchers five years ago. This previous study solved a roads-only network design problem (NDP) for the Twin Cities of Minnesota. Building on that work, another network design problem is examined for the Twin Cities metropolitan area of 3 million, to examine the tradeoff between demand side reductions and the limited access capacity expansion necessary to achieve desired levels of service. The problem is simplified by pre-determining a mode split, which allows for incorporating decreasing demand directly as an input rather than in the model formulation. The problem is solved using Sequential Linear Expansion (SLIE), a modified method of successive averages (MSA). Computation time for the large network is decreased to a reasonable length using another modification, the MSA with decreasing re-initialization (MSADR). A typical personal computer can solve this large-sized problem within 24 hours. For forecasted travel demand for 2030, it was found that if the number of trips were reduced by 20%, lane-miles needed to achieve LOS D decreases by up to 43%.

• Record URL:
  http://www.lrrb.org/PDF/200644.pdf
• Record URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/37412
• Corporate Authors:

  University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

  Department of Civil Engineering, 500 Pillsbury Drive, SE
  Minneapolis, MN  United States  55455

  Minnesota Department of Transportation

  Transportation Building, 395 John Ireland Boulevard
  St Paul, MN  United States  55155
• Authors:
  • Davis, Gary A
  • Sanderson, Kate
  • Tao, HunWen
• Publication Date: 2006-12

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Edition: Final Report
• Features: Appendices; Figures; Maps; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 60p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Highway capacity; Level of service; Modal split; Traffic congestion; Travel demand
• Uncontrolled Terms: Computation time; Sequential linear expansion; Transit network design
• Geographic Terms: Twin Cities Metropolitan Area (Minnesota)
• Subject Areas: Highways; Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01045503
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: MN/RC-2006-44
• Contract Numbers: (C) 81655 (WO) 113
• Files: NTL, TRIS, STATEDOT
• Created Date: Mar 21 2007 8:09PM