2013 Session: 418

• Experiment in Mega-Regional Road Pricing Using Advanced Commuter Behavior Analysis
  Abstract: Worsening highway congestion is a challenge to mega-regional competitiveness; and changing regional geographies and development location decisions, among other factors, demand that public policy responses go beyond traditional demand management approaches. Congestion pricing has been suggested as a remedy. In this article, we analyze the outcomes of multiple congestion pricing approaches for the Capital Mega-region that spans the following five Metropolitan Planning Organization regions: Washington (DC-MD-VA), Baltimore (MD), Wilmington (DE), Fredericksburg (VA), and Frederick (MD) and counties in adjoining states of NJ, PA and WV. Using a mega-regional travel demand model, we incorporate different values-of-time for travelers under different conditions. However, our value-of-time estimates are not limited to income categories. Our estimates also include trip purposes across a number of scenarios. We demonstrate that adding trip-purpose to congestion price determination leads to different outcomes at the mega-regional level and also for individual sub-regions. We conclude with implications for adopting this approach and ideas for implementing them in a complex institutional set-up.Keywords: value of time, elasticity, commuter travel, congestion pricing, megaregion
  Authors: Mishra, Sabyasachee; Welch, Timothy F.; Chakraborty, Arnab
  Authors: Mishra, Sabyasachee; Welch, Timothy F.; Chakraborty, Arnab
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Paper
  Subject: Planning and Forecasting
  Session: 418
  Paper Number: 13-0156
• Planning for Sustainable Transport and Land Use in Polycentric Mega-Regions: Comparing Regional Rail Development and Governance in the Rhein-Ruhr and Los Angeles Metro Areas
  Abstract: As urban areas across the world continue to expand, ”megaregions”, i.e. large, continuously urbanized areas with more than ten million inhabitants, emerge as key sites of future global economic production and consumption. The densely sprawling character of such megaregions holds vast challenges for the successful development of efficient transport infrastructures. This paper explores the particular challenges of rail-based transport development in two pivotal polycentric megaregions in Europe and the U.S. It is organized into two main parts. The first part, focused on analytical foundations, presents an overall analytical model for rail infrastructure governance at the megaregional level. Megaregions are then established as key units of analysis in re-directing human settlements towards more sustainable forms. The first part concludes with a brief review of the larger policy trends that have led to a renaissance of rail infrastructure investment over the last couple of decades, both at the regional and at the supra-regional scale. In particular, this concerns the contemporary policy shift towards sustainable transport, smart growth and low carbon cities, and the role rail transport is expected to play in moving towards more sustainable systems. The second major section roots the paper’s analytical considerations in two concrete local experiences, comparing rail infrastructure development and governance in the Rhein-Ruhr region in Germany and the LA metro area in the U.S. A final section provides concluding remarks and suggestions for further study.
  Authors: Peters, Deike
  Authors: Peters, Deike
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Paper
  Subject: Planning and Forecasting
  Session: 418
  Paper Number: 13-1954
• Mega-Region Network Simulation for Evacuation Analysis
  Abstract: This paper describes a project to develop a micro-level traffic simulation for a megaregion. To accomplish this, a mass evacuation event was modeled using a traffic demand generation process that created a spatial and temporal distribution of departure times, origins, and destinations based on past hurricane scenarios. A megaregion-scale simulation was required to assess this event because only at this level can traffic from multiple cities, over several days, with route assignments in multiple and overlapping directions be analyzed. Among the findings of the research was that it is possible to scale-up and adapt existing models to reflect a simultaneous multi-city evacuation covering a megaregion. The movements generated by the demand and operational models were both logical and meaningful and they were able to capture the key elements of the system, including the traffic progression over vast spaces and long time durations. They were also adequate to demonstrate benefits of proactive traffic management strategies and the effect of increased and decreased advanced warning times. The project also revealed numerous limitations of existing modeling and computational processing capabilities. The knowledge and results gained from this research can be adaptable and transferable for the evaluation of other locations with different road networks, populations, transportation resources, and hazard threats. Models such as this can also be modified to represent future anticipated growth and development within other large regions and can be used to evaluate the performance, varying conditions, and interrelationships between behavioral response and regional transportation management strategies.
  Authors: Wolshon, Brian; Zhang, Zhao; Spansel, Katherine
  Authors: Wolshon, Brian; Zhang, Zhao; Spansel, Katherine
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Paper
  Subject: Planning and Forecasting
  Session: 418
  Paper Number: 13-4317
• Identifying Resiliency Performance Measures for Mega-Regional Planning: Case Study of BosWash Transportation Corridor
  Abstract: Transportation corridors in megaregions present a unique challenge for planners due to the high concentrations of development, the complex interjurisdictional issues and the history of independent development of the core urban centers. The concept of resilience, as applied to megaregions, can be used to better understand the peformance of these corridors. Resiliency is the “ability to recover from or adjust easily to change”. Resiliency performance measures can be expanded on for application to megaregions throughout the United States. When applied to transportation corridors in megaregions, and represented by performance measures such as redundancy, continuity, connectivity, and travel time reliability, the concept of resiliency captures the spatial and temporal relationships among the attributes of a corridor, network, and neighboring facilities over time, at both the regional and local level. This paper focuses on the development of performance measurements to evaluate corridor resiliency as well as a plan for implementing analysis methods at the jursidictional level. The BosWash corridor is used as a case study in order to represent the applicability of these measures to megaregions throughout the country.
  Authors: Oswald, Michelle Renee; McNeil, Sue; Ames, David; Gayley, Rebekah
  Authors: Oswald, Michelle Renee; McNeil, Sue; Ames, David; Gayley, Rebekah
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Paper
  Subject: Planning and Forecasting
  Session: 418
  Paper Number: 13-1198
  Practice-Ready: Yes
• Exercising Mega-Region Analysis Framework in Chesapeake Bay Area
  Abstract: Megaregions are a new geography that may well form the “nation’s operative regions when competing in the future global economy,” according to the March 2010 FHWA Strategic Plan. To assess the impact of policies and scenarios, a hypothetical Megaregion governing board, responsible for the broad welfare and economic competitiveness of an interacting region, will need to employ a broader set of tools than is typically used in typical Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) or State Department of Transportation (DOT) models. The analysis framework, resulting from a Federal Highway Administration’s Exploratory Advanced Research Program project, suggests an integrated model including travel driven by economic and land use decisions, and capturing effects on the environment, as well as enhancing the travel component to include long distance truck and person travel, the former driven by economic commodity flows. The paper discusses how this analysis framework was exercised in a proof-of-concept High Energy Price scenario for the Chesapeake Bay megaregion.
  Authors: Ducca, Fred; Weidner, Tara J.; Moeckel, Rolf; Mishra, Sabyasachee
  Authors: Ducca, Fred; Weidner, Tara J.; Moeckel, Rolf; Mishra, Sabyasachee
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Paper
  Subject: Planning and Forecasting
  Session: 418
  Paper Number: 13-2236
  Practice-Ready: Yes
• Experiment in Mega-Regional Road Pricing Using Advanced Commuter Behavior Analysis
  Authors: Welch, Timothy
  Authors: Welch, Timothy
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Presentation; Poster
  Subject: Planning and Forecasting
  Session: 418
  Paper Number: 13-0156
• Mega-Region Network Simulation for Evacuation Analysis
  Authors: Spansel, Katherine
  Authors: Spansel, Katherine
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Presentation; Poster
  Subject: Planning and Forecasting
  Session: 418
  Paper Number: 13-4317
• Identifying Resiliency Performance Measures for Mega-Regional Planning: Case Study of BosWash Transportation Corridor
  Authors: Oswald, Michelle
  Authors: Oswald, Michelle
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Presentation; Poster
  Subject: Planning and Forecasting
  Session: 418
  Paper Number: 13-1198