Report on Modelling the Concept and Origins of Transport Modelling

REPORT ON MODELING THE CONCEPT AND ORIGINS OF TRANSPORT MODELING
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Report On Modelling the Concept and Origins of Transport Modelling
Introduction
The art of representing a real-life situation in an abstracted manner is what is referred to as modelling. Modelling is ideally a world of view through which people tend to represent and conceptualize situations in order to solve specific life problems. Considering the foregoing about modelling, transportation models are simply the views that aid in the conceptualization of transportation ideas into a reality, aimed at solving a transport problem (Saelens, Sallis and Frank 2003). Transport model's main role is to optimize the movement of commodities and services from one point to another, at the lowest cost possible. In business, transport models aid in the optimal movement of goods from the supply origins where they are produced to the demand centres for consumption or storage.
The main objective of transport modelling is to ensure satisfactory destination requirements fulfilment in a stipulated budget and capacity constraint (Sallis, Bauman, and Pratt 1998). The resultant objectivity of the transport modelling is to ensure profitability. Transport issues come about from all quotas and the role of the management of people placed in charge of transportation have to ascertain the quantity of goods being transported, when and at what cost. The transport model applied in a certain business situation also has to keep into consideration the issue of time, safety and waiting time on the side of the demand centres, besides cutting down on waiting time and warehouse charges.
The Concept and Origin of Transport Modelling
A good number of traffic and transportation phenomena keep emerging from time to time in daily business undertakings. Some of the transport phenomena cannot be solved with the aid of pure analytical models, thus leading to the rise of tailor-made models and simulations suitable for solving the specific traffic and transportation problems. Transport modelling is an agent-based modelling concept that is founded on the idea that a whole system is comprised of individually separable agents. As per the transport model concept, each separable agent interacts with the other agents in accordance with some localized form of knowledge. The agent-based concept in transport modelling entails a bottom-up concept of modelling, in which some special types of simulated agents are involved (Saelens, Sallis, and Frank 2003).
The simulated agents originally were conceptualized from social insects, which included bees and termites as well as ants alongside ants and wasps. What inspired the models concerning the social insects is their natural behaviour, which is characterized by self-organization and autonomy as well as distributed functioning capability. The concept of transport modelling was inspired by the simple colonies of the social insects, which come together to perform tremendous tasks. The traditional engineering models in conjunction with special algorithms relied on centralization and control. From the principles of swarm intelligence, the concept of transport modelling was derived, thus solving large and complex transportation issues (Teodorovic 2003).
Transport Modelling Use in Transport Planning and Provision
With the increasing levels of urbanization in the modern world, metropolitan areas are increasingly coming under so much pressure. The challenge that metropolitan areas are facing is the need to respond appropriately to the challenges to do with the management of the adverse effects stemming from population growth. The challenges that the transport models are aimed at solving in the metropolitan areas include sprawl issues, congestion, as well as affordability of housing and the loss of open space. Initially, the models used to address these issues did not provide adequate solutions to the problems and as such led to a gap existence in the ability of the respective city planners to address the actual challenges facing the cities (Saelens, Sallis, and Frank 2003).
Below is a diagram indicating the traditional transport model approach against the integrated land use transport model.

Source: (Tfresource.org 2016)
According to research, transport systems greatly influence the land use as well as land-based decisions. Transport models also determine the allocation of socio-economic information. When land use is added to a transport demand modelling, many different sets of land use policy situations can thus be tested. Systems where land use has been integrated with the transport modeling, tend to influence the development and implementation of land use policies in many areas (Facanha and Horvath 2007).
Transport Modelling and Land-Use Planning
There is a very close interaction between land use and the land use systems and transportation. To illustrate the relationship of the land use and transport modelling is a land use against transport feedback cycle below.


Source: (Tfresource.org 2016)
From the bottom of the cycle above, land use will always be the greatest indicator of the activities. For instance, the population as well as employment locations are known to be the determinants of most of the trips people make from one place to another, hence the need for a transport model. The travel model is therefore what leads to the activities part of the transport modelling and land use cycle. The modelling of the transport system is therefore what allows for the calculation of accessibilities that describes the accessibility of an area from other areas of activities. Therefore, transport modelling leads to accessibility patterns of areas and determines the use of land as people and business entities traverse the land in search of a location that is accessible and usable. When land use is added to the travel demand model, the resultant effect is a land use and related policy scenarios. With the aid of similar models, it has become possible to model the land use policy impact (Facanha and Horvath 2007).
Factors to consider evaluating, assessing and designing transport infrastructure
In the process of designing transport infrastructure, many considerations have to be put into account. As early as 1985, engineers, as well as engineering regulatory authorities, considered the highway capacity manual as a guideline in designing and constructing transport infrastructure. Issues such as environmental factors that are likely to contribute to walking experiences as well as the perceived service levels. Issues such as comfort, safety, convenience as well as the security and attractiveness of the transport infrastructure are important to consider in designing and coming up with the transport infrastructure. Pedestrian transport facilities have no specific and o...