TMIP News - August 25, 2009

Technical Synthesis on Feedback Loops

TMIP recently completed a Technical Synthesis of the contributions and responses regarding feedback loops for travel demand models. Approaches noted by contributors as well as potential considerations and criteria for measuring convergence are also reviewed. This synthesis represents contributions to the TMIP-L e-mail list that were initially made in 2005, briefly revisited in 2006 and addressed again in February, 2009 when the subject of convergence criteria for large urban area models was discussed. Additional contributions were augmented by the discussion of determining Braess’ paradox.

Travel Demand Forecasting CD-ROM Available for Download

One of the most popular requests from the TMIP Clearinghouse continues to be the Introduction to Travel Demand Forecasting Self-Instructional CD-ROM. You can now download an ISO image file of the CD and create your own installation disk. The ISO file is not a self-executing installation file, so you will need software that can burn an ISO image to a CD in order to take advantage of the download. There are many freeware and shareware programs available on-line to accomplish this task. The CD-ROM is great for the classroom to give students a basic understanding of travel demand forecasting. It can also be of benefit to new hires not familiar with modeling.

Fred Ducca to Retire from FHWA

Dr. Fred Ducca will be retiring from the Federal Highway Administration at the end of August. TMIP thanks Fred for all of the time and effort invested and all the support and guidance given to the program over the past fifteen years. We wish him the best of luck in his new endeavors as he prepares to educate the future members of our profession at the University of Maryland.

Recommended Reading List Sought

Last month we put out a call for a "Recommended Reading" list for those that are new to the discipline. Thanks to those of you that have already responded with your suggestions. We are still compiling the list, so if you haven’t yet responded, please tell us what books, texts, or reports you would recommend to a novice transportation planner. Once we have compiled the list, we will post it on the TMIP Web site on a permanent page. To submit your recommendation(s), go to the feedback page on the Web site and select "Recommended Reading" from the drop down menu.

TMIP Email Lists

Last year TMIP set up a new email list TMIP-News. The intent was to use this list to distribute news about the program (such as webinar announcements) and leave TMIP-L strictly for the discussion of travel modeling issues. In the interim period, we’ve been posting TMIP announcement to both lists. We realize this means that some of you get double messages. However, the TMIP-News list has less than 300 subscribers compared to the over 1,200 subscribers to TMIP-L. Therefore, before we stop sending news to TMIP-L, we encourage you again to sign up for TMIP-News. It’s very easy and only takes a minute. Just send go to this web page, enter your name and email address, and click the "Join TMIP-News" button. Or you can send an email to listserv@listserv.tamu.edu. Leave the subject line blank and enter "subscribe TMIP-L firstname lastname" in the body of the email.

Please note that this is the last issue of TMIP-News that will be sent to both lists. After August 31, we will no longer post news announcements to TMIP-L.