IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cdl/itsdav/qt2nr6q5rc.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Induced Travel Calculator and Its Applications

Author

Listed:
  • Volker, Jamey M.B. PhD
  • Handy, Susan L PhD

Abstract

The National Center for Sustainable Transportation’s Induced Travel Calculator (Calculator) has generated substantial interest in the professional community as a method for estimating the additional vehicle miles traveled (VMT) induced by expanding the capacity of major roadways. The Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Davis (ITS-Davis) initiated a technical assistance project to support Caltrans and others in applying the Calculator. This report: (1) provides an overview of the Calculator and the induced vehicle travel effect, (2) summarizes the results from an earlier study comparing the Calculator’s estimates with other induced travel analyses, (3) describes the technical assistance efforts and outcomes, and (4) discusses plans for future improvements to the Calculator. During the project, ITS-Davis advised Caltrans as it developed its Transportation Analysis Framework to guide transportation impact analysis for projects on the State Highway System. Caltrans published the final document in September 2020, in which it recommends that the Calculator be used where possible to estimate induced VMT. ITS-Davis also advised on efforts to apply the Calculator’s elasticity-based method to estimate induced VMT from out-of-state highway capacity expansion projects, including projects in Portland, Oregon, Washington, D.C., Kenya, and China. In a follow-up project, ITS-Davis will work with Caltrans to improve the Calculator documentation to answer questions raised by Caltrans and others, explore possible technical improvements to the Calculator, and explore opportunities for assessing the validity of the Calculator’s induced VMT estimates.

Suggested Citation

  • Volker, Jamey M.B. PhD & Handy, Susan L PhD, 2021. "The Induced Travel Calculator and Its Applications," Institute of Transportation Studies, Working Paper Series qt2nr6q5rc, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Davis.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdl:itsdav:qt2nr6q5rc
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/2nr6q5rc.pdf;origin=repeccitec
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gilles Duranton & Matthew A. Turner, 2011. "The Fundamental Law of Road Congestion: Evidence from US Cities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(6), pages 2616-2652, October.
    2. Hsu, Wen-Tai & Zhang, Hongliang, 2014. "The fundamental law of highway congestion revisited: Evidence from national expressways in Japan," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 65-76.
    3. Handy, Susan, 2015. "Increasing Highway Capacity Unlikely to Relieve Traffic Congestion," Institute of Transportation Studies, Working Paper Series qt58x8436d, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Davis.
    4. Daniel J. Graham & Emma J. McCoy & David A. Stephens, 2014. "Quantifying Causal Effects of Road Network Capacity Expansions on Traffic Volume and Density via a Mixed Model Propensity Score Estimator," Journal of the American Statistical Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 109(508), pages 1440-1449, December.
    5. Robert Cervero & Mark Hansen, 2002. "Induced Travel Demand and Induced Road Investment: A Simultaneous Equation Analysis," Journal of Transport Economics and Policy, University of Bath, vol. 36(3), pages 469-490, September.
    6. Hymel, Kent, 2019. "If you build it, they will drive: Measuring induced demand for vehicle travel in urban areas," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 57-66.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jovet, Yoann & Lefèvre, Frédéric & Laurent, Alexis & Clausse, Marc, 2022. "Combined energetic, economic and climate change assessment of heat pumps for industrial waste heat recovery," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 313(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hymel, Kent, 2019. "If you build it, they will drive: Measuring induced demand for vehicle travel in urban areas," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 57-66.
    2. Miquel-Àngel Garcia-López & Ilias Pasidis & Elisabet Viladecans-Marsal, 2022. "Congestion in highways when tolls and railroads matter: evidence from European cities [The congestion relief benefit of public transit: evidence from Rome]," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 22(5), pages 931-960.
    3. Volker, Jamey M. B. & Handy, Susan L., 2022. "Updating the Induced Travel Calculator," Institute of Transportation Studies, Working Paper Series qt1hh9b9mf, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Davis.
    4. Ioulia V Ossokina & Jos van Ommeren & Henk van Mourik, 2023. "Do highway widenings reduce congestion?," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 23(4), pages 871-900.
    5. Angarita-Zapata Juan S. & Andrade-Sosa Hugo H. & Parra-Valencia Jorge A., 2016. "Understanding the Structural Complexity of Induced Travel Demand in Decision-Making: A System Dynamics Approach," Organizacija, Sciendo, vol. 49(3), pages 129-143, August.
    6. Ioulia V Ossokina & Jos van Ommeren & Henk van Mourik, 2023. "Do highway widenings reduce congestion?," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 23(4), pages 871-900.
    7. Kim, Jinwon, 2022. "Does roadwork improve road speed? Evidence from urban freeways in California," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    8. Nathaniel Baum-Snow & Matthew A. Turner, 2017. "Transport Infrastructure and the Decentralization of Cities in the People's Republic of China," Asian Development Review, MIT Press, vol. 34(2), pages 25-50, September.
    9. Chuantao Cui & Leona Shao-Zhi Li, 2019. "High-speed rail and inventory reduction: firm-level evidence from China," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(25), pages 2715-2730, May.
    10. Gong, Zhenwei & Zhang, Fangni & Liu, Wei & Graham, Daniel J., 2023. "On the effects of airport capacity expansion under responsive airlines and elastic passenger demand," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 48-76.
    11. Gilles Duranton & Matthew A. Turner, 2011. "The Fundamental Law of Road Congestion: Evidence from US Cities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(6), pages 2616-2652, October.
    12. Frondel, Manuel, 2019. "Straßennutzungsgebühren: Eine Lösung zur Vermeidung von Staus?," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 20(3), pages 218-225.
    13. Yi Fan & Ho Pin Teo & Wayne X. Wan, 2021. "Public transport, noise complaints, and housing: Evidence from sentiment analysis in Singapore," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(3), pages 570-596, June.
    14. Zhi (Aaron) Cheng & Min-Seok Pang & Paul A. Pavlou, 2020. "Mitigating Traffic Congestion: The Role of Intelligent Transportation Systems," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 31(3), pages 653-674, September.
    15. Redding, Stephen, 2020. "Trade and Geography," CEPR Discussion Papers 15268, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    16. Ballo, Lukas & de Freitas, Lucas Meyer & Meister, Adrian & Axhausen, Kay W., 2023. "The E-Bike City as a radical shift toward zero-emission transport: Sustainable? Equitable? Desirable?," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    17. Nathaniel Baum-Snow & Loren Brandt & J. Vernon Henderson & Matthew A. Turner & Qinghua Zhang, 2017. "Roads, Railroads, and Decentralization of Chinese Cities," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 99(3), pages 435-448, July.
    18. Miquel-Àngel Garcia-López & Camille Hémet & Elisabet Viladecans-Marsal, 2017. "How does transportation shape intrametropolitan growth? An answer from the Regional Express Rail," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(5), pages 758-780, November.
    19. Hsu, Wen-Tai & Zhang, Hongliang, 2014. "The fundamental law of highway congestion revisited: Evidence from national expressways in Japan," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 65-76.
    20. Philip Heidt & M. Taha Kasim, 2020. "The effects of highways on school segregation," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 99(5), pages 1261-1280, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Engineering; Vehicle miles of travel; travel demand; road construction; traffic; traffic forecasting; calculators; mathematical models;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cdl:itsdav:qt2nr6q5rc. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Lisa Schiff (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/itucdus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.