TRESIS: Application of transport and environmental strategic impact simulator to Sydney, Australia

An integrated microsimulation urban passenger transport model system, THESIS (Transport and Environmental Strategic Impact Simulator), for evaluating the impact of a large number of interrelated policy instruments on urban travel behavior and the environment is presented. The model system has four integrated modules defining household location and automobile choices, commuter workplace and commuting travel choices, noncommuting travel activity, and worker-distributed work practices. The demand model system, estimated as a set of discrete and continuous choice models, is combined with a set of equilibrating criteria in each of the location, automobile, and commuting markets to predict overall demand for passenger travel in various socioeconomic segments, automobile classes, and geographic locations. The current version was developed to operate at a high level of aggregation for the Sydney, Australia, region, including a 14-zone system with a spiderweb network, and is designed to explore the impacts of broad strategic directions. The model system is embedded within a decision support system to make it an attractive suite of tools for practitioners. The usefulness of TRESIS is illustrated by its application to a major investment option in Northeast Sydney to replace a bottleneck created by the raising of a bridge either with bridge improvements together with improvements to a number of intersections on the roads serving the region or with several possible tunnel options, including different levels of tolls for the tunnels. The application of TRESIS to this case was considered a success: TRESIS provided a comprehensive regional view of the likely outcomes of the alternatives.