VE Definitions UNDER CONSTRUCTION

FUTURE: Add links to example input .csv files, such as this for azone_hh_pop_by_age.csv

VisionEval Inputs

This page summarizes VisionEval definitions by Concept, Explaining basic terminology used in VisionEval. Terms may apply to multiple concepts, so searching the page may if you can't find it where you expect.

This page organizes VisionEval Definitions by the following VE Concepts:

• Household Synthesis & Land Use
• Household Multi-modal Travel
• Vehicles, Fuels & Emissions
• Congestion
• Household Costs & Budgets*

Other useful information: A conceptual discussion of VisionEval is here.

VisionEval Geography

==Something like slide 11 of VE Training Slides. Or Inputs by geo doc pictures of region-azone-bzones..

• Region: The model area such as metropolitan planning area or state
• Azone: Large-scale zones such as cities, counties, or PUMAs; geography of most inputs.
• Bzone: Subdivisions of Azones representing neighborhoods such as census block groups; land use geography for VE-RSPM.
• Marea: “Urbanized” portion of a select set of Azones that are associated with a common urbanized area; often separate models are applied for Mareas, making use of information on road, transit and urban-mixed use variables only present in the Marea. Mareas are typically equivalent to a “census urbanized area”.

Not geographic areas, but related:

• Location Type: Defines whether households are located in an Urban (i.e. urbanized area), Town, or Rural area. MORE ON URBANIZED Vs. MArea
• Place Type: Defines the level of urbanization (area type) and the mixing of jobs and housing (development type); Used most frequently in VE-State to synthesize Bzones from more aggregate inputs.
• (NOT USED CURRENTLY) Czone: Subdivisions of Bzones representing developments.

1. Household Synthesis

VERSPM Packages: (VESimHouseholds, VELandUse) + VEHouseholdVehicles-AssignDrivers?

DEFINITIONS

• Age groups (for persons and workers): 0-14, 15-19, 20-29, 30-54, 55-64, 65+

• Lifecycle (aggregated NHTS definition) – used in multi-modal travel module

  • 01: one adult, no children
  • 02: 2+ adults, no children
  • 03: one adult, children (corresponds to NHTS 03, 05, and 07)
  • 04: 2+ adults, children (corresponds to NHTS 04, 06, and 08)
  • 09: one adult, retired, no children
  • 10: 2+ adults, retired, no children

• Annual income???

• Types of househoSomething like slide 39 of VE Training Slides. lds:

  • Regular households - related and unrelated persons living in the same dwelling unit
  • Group quarters households - persons living in non-institutional group quarters such as college dorm (household size =1)

• Types of dwelling Units:

  • Single-family (SF)
  • Multifamily (MF)
  • Group Quarters (GQ)

• Home and Work Location Types:

  • Urban - located within an urbanized area <MORE HERE...vs. "urbanized">
  • Town - located in a smaller urban area that does not have enough population to qualify as an urbanized area
  • Rural - located in an area characterized by low density dispersed development

• Bzone-level Built Form “D” variables, based on EPA Smart Location Database definitions

  • DENSITY
    • Population density (EPA SLD D1B)
    • Employment density (D1C)
    • Activity density (employment + households) (D1D)
  • DIVERSITY
    • ratio of jobs to households (D2A_JPHH)
    • ratio of workers living in the zone to jobs located in the zone (D2A_WRKEMP).
    • entropy measure calculated from the number of jobs by sector and number of households (D2A_EPHHM)
  • Destination ACCESSIBILITY measure (D5), harmonic mean of jobs within 2 miles and population within 5 miles of the Bzone centroid
  • Pedestrian-oriented network **DESIGN **measure. Count of pedestrian-oriented intersections per land area is a common indicator of walkability. Pedestrian-oriented intersections are defined here as intersections having four or more legs of low-speed roads (<= 30 MPH) which permit pedestrian travel and other pedestrian paths [similar to EPA SLD D3bpo4 measure]
  • Bzone-level Urban MIXED USE measure. Based on the 2001 National Household Travel Survey measure of the block group level urban/rural indicator. This measure developed by Claritas uses the density of the tract and surrounding tracts to identify the urban/rural context of the tract and identified 4 categories: urban, suburban, second city, town and rural. The urban category roughly corresponds to the inner portions of urbanized areas that are generally characterized by more urban and mixed-use development.

• Policy Levers (Bzone-level Programs)

  • Worker parking cash-out program.xxx
  • Car services include taxis, car sharing services (e.g. Car-To-Go, Zipcar), and future automated taxi services. A high car service level is one that has vehicle access times (time to walk between car and origin or final destination) that are competitive with private car use. High level of car service is considered to increase household car availability similar to owning a car. Low level car service, approximates current taxi service does not have competitive access time and is not considered as increasing household car availability.
  • Travel Demand Management Programs. These programs provide information and incentives to facilitate reductions in VMT. VisionEval includes the following program that household participants can be enrolled in:
  • Workplace employee commute options (ECO) programs
  • Household-based individualized marketing program (IMP) CAUTION: The model assumes high-caliber TDM programs are in place that produce significant VMT savings. Inputs should reflect this.

2. Vehicles & Fuels

(VEHouseholdVehicles, VEPowerTrainsAndFuels, VETravelPerformance-Opcosts&Fee2coverRdcosts)+workers get auto own vs. car svc & own adjustment. AssignDrivers?, veh type, age, costs (own, op)

3. Congestion, freight, and emissions

• road class (freeway, arterial, other)

• urbanized area -- define as used in CalculateRoadDvmt

• growth basis -- define, and give options

• Speed smoothing. Policies & programs that reduce fuel consumption by reducing acceleration and deceleration losses. Adjustments are only made to ICE powertrains, as electric motors are more efficient in acceleration and recover energy when decelerating. Lower speeds have greater potential for improving fuel economy with speed smoothing.

• ITS-Speed smoothing programs through active traffic management on freeways and/or arterials.

• [Eco-driving] is the practice of driving in ways that increase fuel economy and reduce carbon emissions. This can occur via changes to driver behavior, e.g. as in marketing programs or commercial vehicle training programs, or by increased vehicle automation. VisionEval allows for LDV and Hvy Truck eco-driving inputs.

Note: Eco-driving as modeled, does not account for non-speed related improvements to fuel economy, e.g., proper tire inflation, regular maintenance, and reduced vehicle payload.

• Fuel Efficiency. used in the context of electric vehicles means the energy efficiency of the electric vehicle (i.e. miles per kilowatt-hour).

4. Household Travel, Costs & Budgets

• Transit D: Weekday PM Peak Period visits by transit service within 0.25 miles."EPA analyzed GTFS data to calculate the frequency of service for each transit route between 4:00 and 7:00 PM on a weekday. Then, for each block group, EPA identified transit routes with service that stops within 0.4 km (0.25 miles). Finally EPA summed total aggregate service frequency by block group. Values for this metric are expressed as service frequency per hour of service."

• Transit Service Modes: Transit Service is characterized by 8 modes (as defined in the National Transit Database)

  • VP = Vanpool and similar
  • MB = Standard motor bus
  • RB = Bus rapid transit and commuter bus
  • MG = Monorail/automated guideway
  • SR = Streetcar/trolley bus/inclined plane
  • HR = Heavy Rail/Light Rail
  • CR = Commuter Rail/Hybrid Rail/Cable Car/Aerial Tramway

• more Transit D: within metropolitan areas the aggregate peak period transit service by Bzone and model run year. This measure is the aggregate frequency of transit service within 0.25 miles of the Bzone boundary per hour during evening peak period consistent with the EPA Smart Location Database.

• more Transit Vehicle Types: For estimating emissions and congestion, transit service is simplified into 3 vehicle types (Van, Bus, Rail). Transit modes DR and VP are assumed to be served by vans, the MB and RB modes by buses, and the MG, SR, HR, and CR modes by rail.van (modes DR, VP), bus (modes MB, RB), and rail (modes MG, SR, HR).

• more Transit Bus equivalent-miles: Bus equivalent factors for each of the 8 modes is calculated on the basis of the average productivity of each mode as measured by the ratio of passenger miles to revenue miles. The bus-equivalency factor of each mode is the ratio of the average productivity of the mode to the average productivity of the bus (MB) mode.

VMT NOTE: This module estimates household vehicle travel regardless of where is occurs (i.e. outside the model region as well as inside the model region). The calculations of DVMT on roadways within urbanized areas, for the purpose of calculating congestion and its effects, are carried out by the CalculateRoadDvmt module in the VETravelPerformance package. Household vehicle travel includes travel using car services.

Vehicle Operating Cost. Vehicle operating costs used in household budget limitations include the following components: * In Owned Vehicles (owned or leased by the household): Fuel (energy), Veh operations (Maintenance, tires and repairs, Pay-as-you-drive insurance mileage fee), per mile fees (Gas and Road use taxes, Pollution taxes (e.g. carbon tax)) and Parking charges. * In CarService Vehicles (owned or leased by the household): Car Service mileage fee, Fuel (energy), per mile fees (Gas and Road use taxes, Pollution taxes (e.g. carbon tax)).

AccessTime is the average amount of time spent on each end of the vehicle trip (owned or Car Service) to get from the origin to the vehicle and from the vehicle to the destination Social costs are costs borne by present and future generations due to the impacts of transportation. VisonEval uses a 2011 ODOT white paper that identifies values for various social costs, such as transportation emissions increase the incidence of asthma and other lung diseases and impose costs to affected individuals in terms of reduced life expectancy, reduced quality of life (noise and safety), increased medical treatments, and national security. Typically drivers do not compensate society for these vehicle costs, but increasingly economists and others interested in transportation policy are proposing that social costs be included in vehicle pricing to reduce unwanted outcomes. For example, carbon pricing has been proposed at the state and federal level to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions which are increasing global temperatures and causing increased damages from extreme weather, flooding, drought, etc. As such, VisionEval distinguishes climate change separate from other social costs.

• Climate Change Cost: VisionEval estimates default climate change costs by year are based on a 3% discount rate per Interagency Working Group on Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases, August 2016 report. Users can also override the default with optional inputs.
• Other Social Coat: Values for other social costs are derived from an white paper prepared for the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) to support the development of ODOT's statewide transportation strategy for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector. This paper is included as the 'STS_White_Paper_on_External_Costs_9-21-2011.pdf' file in the 'inst/extdata/sources' directory of this package. The included social cost categories are air pollution, other resource pollution, energy security, safety, and noise.

Maintenance, Tire, and Repair (MRT) Cost

• Electric vehicle surcharge tax proportion From the input gas tax per mile paid by fuel-consuming vehicles, an equivalent per mile surcharge tax rate (average MPG of all vehicles) is calculated. The user can identify what proportion of the PH/EV [both?] vehicles pay this per mile surcharge (0 to 1=100%).

5. Local policy actions

(various), MArea attributes (VETransportSupply), rds, transit,res pkg restrictions, TDM/IMP, CarSvc?, ITS & Fuel economy/ecodrive adj?

6. Setup & Validation

(VETravelPerformance/LoadDefaultRoadDmtValues)