VEHICULAR TRIP DISTRIBUTION BY SUCCESSIVE APPROXIMATIONS

Abstract

Motorists in following their normal pursuits travel in traffic patterns that can be easily measured. The highway planning engineer uses these patterns to predict future traffic patterns and to design highway networks to meet future needs. The article describes a method for predicting future interzonal traffic volumes by successive approximations. The method is based on the premise that if the character and growth conditions of traffic zones are known, or can be predicted, it is possible to estimate with equal dependability the total trips that will be made to and from each zone, and the distribution of those trips in interzonal travel. By this method, the anticipated traffic of each zone is assigned to the desire lines of that zone according to the apparent relative importance of each desire line. The distribution of trips for all zones will produce two tentative values for each interzonal movement. These pairs of tentative values are averaged to obtain the first approximation of the interzonal volumes. Successive approximations are calculated as described in the article.