Regional Travel Demand Model (TDM) Development and Enhancements System

A request has been issued for services to develop and enhance the regional Travel Demand Model (TDM) for the Birmingham, Alabama area. The project involves transitioning the current TDM from the Cube Voyager platform to the TransCAD platform. In addition, the vendor will be required to review, compare, and improve the transit network representation within the TDM, including updates to the bus rapid transit system to ensure alignment with existing transit services.

The scope of work also includes the evaluation of various data sources—such as smartphone, GPS, and third-party probe data—to assess their potential to enhance data quality related to trip origins and destinations, trip generation, and trip purposes, while considering cost effectiveness. The vendor will assist in the technical transition and support the research and development of further model enhancements. Additional tasks include replacing the previous Cube and Voyager network files with a GIS-based highway network, potentially utilizing the ALDOT Linear Referencing System, developing a time-of-day model based on local 24-hour traffic distributions, gathering and converting existing AADT data to weekday traffic volumes, and balancing freeway traffic loads. The model must be calibrated and validated according to industry best practices.