Research
Research Interests
Microsimulation of Urban Transportation - Land-Use Systems
My main area of research is the development of a comprehensive, integrated, microsimulation-based software environment for modelling urban transportation and land-use systems. Development of the Integrated Land Use, Transportation, Environment (ILUTE) modelling system is a multi-year, multi-university undertaking, involving researchers from Calgary, Laval and McMaster Universities, led by our research team at the University of Toronto. Microsimulation involves the modelling of the behaviour of individual "actors" within the urban system (persons, households, firms, vehicles, etc.). Overall system behaviour (population and employment distributions, transportation flows by mode, etc.) is then the sum of the behaviours of all the individuals within the system. While computationally intensive, microsimulation holds the promise of providing more accurate, more policy sensitive estimates of travel demand than current conventional modelling techniques.
Development of the ILUTE modelling system involves state-of-the-art object-oriented programming methods, development and implementation of a wide variety of behavioural sub-models, use of a variety of novel data collection procedures to obtain the dynamic, micro-level behavioural data required to develop these sub-models, and a wide variety of other individual research projects suitable for student involvement at the bachelor's, master's and Ph.D. levels.
Sustainability of Urban Transportation Systems
In parallel with my more formal modelling efforts, I also am involved in the empirical analysis of the relationship between urban form, transportation system configuration and the energy efficiency/environmental sustainability of urban transportation systems. This work involves the statistical analysis of both observed and modelled travel behaviour, as well as the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for the analysis and display of spatial data.
Improvements in Conventional Travel Demand Models
Over the past number of years I have developed GTAMODEL, a multimodal, regional transportation modelling system for the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). This four-stage modelling system is used by the Ontario Ministry of Transportation and other GTA planning agencies to analyze and forecast travel demands in the GTA. On-going evolutionary development of this EMME/2-based modelling system provides the opportunity for student research topics in a variety of areas including trip generation, distribution and mode choice modelling, for both work and non-work purposes.