Destination and Mode Choice Models for Nonmotorized Travel

Until recently, few work programs of metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) included planning for pedestrians and bicycles. This situation is changing as MPOs respond to the availability of federal funding for pedestrian and bicycle facilities, the efforts of bicycle and quality-of-life advocacy groups, and air quality conformity requirements that limit growth in vehicle trips. Walking and cycling cannot be introduced easily into MPO travel forecasting models due to the different scales of nonmotorized and vehicle trips. Analysis zones and coded networks for forecasting vehicle travel are typically too coarse for the trips of pedestrians and cyclists. Vehicle models also are based on certain theories of travel behavior that seem inappropriate for nonmotorized travel. Models for nonmotorized destination choice and vehicle versus nonmotorized mode choice have been calibrated and applied at the Chicago Area Transportation Study as part of a regional model. The two nonmotorized models feature a different zone system than the vehicle models and measure the difficulty of nonmotorized travel without a coded network. How these nonmotorized models were calibrated and implemented in the regional model is shown. Model estimates of walking and cycling trips are presented and compared against census work-trip data and a recent household travel survey.