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mrspeel edited this page Apr 23, 2020 · 5 revisions

==FUTURE: TARA merge with definitions page. Delete what is not used. This is a dump of shorter definition lists than the original definitions list. This also includes a more comprehensive list of terms to include, and possibly some add'l definitions.

VisionEval Definitions

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:

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

VisionEval Geography

  • Region (modelwide)
  • MArea (Metropolitan area)
  • Azones (optional)(group of Bzones, often counties or cities)
  • Bzones (often census tracts or block group size, group of travel model TAZs)

DEFINITIONS: 1. Household Synthesis & Land Use

DEFINITIONS: 2. Household Multi-modal Travel

  • Transit D. Weekday PM Peak Period visits by transit service within 0.25 miles.

  • Transit Service Modes. Transit Service is characterized by 8 modes. Demand responsive (DR), Vanpool (VP), Buses (standard motor bus MB, Rapid-Commuter RB), Rail (Monorail MG, Streetcar SR, Heavy-Light Rail HR).

  • Transit Vehicle Types. van (modes DR, VP), bus (modes MB, RB), and rail (modes MG, SR, HR).

  • Transit Revenue miles. In-service revenue miles, as defined by National Transit Database. VisionEval estimates dead-heading when not in service, which are added to cover all miles when estimating emissions and congestion.

  • Transit Bus equivalent-miles. Revenue miles are adjusted to bus-equivalent (i.e. mode MB) miles (e.g. ratio of , to better reflect the service level experienced by a transit rider (i.e., light rail attracts more riders per in-service mile than demand-responsive service)

  • Household DVMT by percentile. In addition to average day (7 days), VisionEval estimates DVMT for each 5% percentile (e.g. 5th percentile, 10th percentile, 15th percentile, etc.) as well as the 99th percentile. This is used to help identify whether an EV vehicle is feasible for this households typical travel 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.

  • SOV diversion qualifying SOV tours (i.e. round trip tours 20 miles or less in length). allows evaluating the potential for light-weight vehicles (e.g. bicycles, electric bikes, electric scooters) and infrastructure to support their use, in reducing SOV travel. Bikes represent this diversion in the outputs, but could be other light-weight vehicle modes.

  • `Travel Demand Management program participation - TDM/IMP

  • Household VMT - (auto and car share)

  • Value of Time

For TDM, Parking, PAYD?, Car Service inputs -- see Concept #1

DEFINITIONS: 3. Vehicles, Fuels & Emissions

  • Vehicle Groups. VisionEval contains the following vehicle groups. Light duty vehicles are further split by Vehicle Type
    • Household vehicles, including CarService vehicles are considered light duty (roughly less than XX lbs).
    • Commercial Service Vehicles represent local delivery within Metropolitan areas only, and are assumed to be light duty, but may contain some medium duty (roughly up to 26,000 lbs).
    • Heavy trucks, represent intercity long-haul freight, and are considered heavy duty (over 26,000 lbs).
    • Transit Buses are heavy duty, but transit vans are light duty.

Note: Fuel consumption and emissions from car services are calculated in conjunction with household vehicle emissions and are attributed to the household.

  • Vehicle Type. Light duty vehicles consist of a mix of Light trucks including pickup trucks, sport utility vehicles, vans, and any other vehicle not classified as a passenger car light truck. All others are automobiles. User inputs must be consistent with assumptions in default package data, which currrently uses this definition.

  • Vehicle Table. One record for each household of working age [or worker?]

    • “Owned” for access to vehicles owned or leased by a household, with attributes of vehicle type and average vehicle age.
    • Car Service Level. Either“LowCarSvc” or “HighCarSvc”, based on coverage in the home Azone, for workers without an owned vehicle.

  • time-to-access vehicle. Attribute of owned and CarService vehicles, representing the time to.....

  • Powertrains. Internal combustion engine vehicle (ICEV), hybrid electric vehicle (HEV), plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV), and battery electric vehicles (BEV).

  • fuel efficiency. Default inputs are in Miles per gallon (MPG) and Miles per kilowatt-hour (MPKWH) (or often more convenient gallons per mile (GPM) and kilowatt-hours per mile (KWHPM)), as well as calculations of Miles per gasoline gallon equivalent (MPGe).Statistics are also kept on the VMT powered by hydrocarbon fuel versus electricity.

  • fuel blend proportions (gasoline blended with ethanol, biodiesel blended with diesel, renewable natural gas is blended with natural gas)

  • carbon intensity of fuels (grams CO2e per megajoule) Note: Energy consumption is calculated in gas gallon equivalents (GGE) or kilowatt hours (KWH) (or both in the case of PHEV). Both are converted to equivalent megajoule (MJ) energy values.

DEFINITIONS: 4. Congestion

  • road class (freeway, arterial, other)
  • urbanized area -- define as used in CalculateRoadDvmt modulexxx
  • growth basis -- define, and give options
  • road class
  • Congestion Levels, -- VisionEval uses congestion levels defined in the 2009 Urban Mobility Study by the Texas Transportation Institute, Exhibit A-6. The 2009 report's data-relationships used in VE are provided here, and embodied in this chart.

DEFINITIONS: 5. Household Costs & Budget

NOT SURE WHERE FITS: ‘OwnCost’ is how much the household pays each year to own their vehicles. It is the sunk cost they ‘pay’ each year as opposed to the variable cost that they pay for each mile that they drive. The ‘OwnCostSavings’ (separate output) is the ownership cost that they saved by substituting the use of car services for owning a vehicle. The module documentation describes how the decision is made to drop (or no) one or more cars from a household inventory if car service costs are price competitive.

  • Vehicle Operating Cost. Vehicle operating costs include Out-of-pocket costs (used in household budget model) including....While composite operating costs add time-equivalent cost of travel: 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)), Parking charges, and car service fees. Some new terms include:

    • Access Time. 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, including Cost of Carbon and other social costs. Input identifies portion paid by drivers.
    • Electric Vehicle surcharge. Equivalent fuel tax paid per mile for vehicles that don't purchase fuel. Input identifies portion of EV [or PH/EV?] vehicle miles subject to the fee.

  • Vehicle ownership costs. Includes financing, depreciation, insurance--unless in PAYD program, annual registration fees, residential parking fees.

  • Car Service substitution probability. Average likelihood that an owner would substitute car services for a household vehicle (separate values by Vehicle Type. For example, if the user assumes that only a quarter of light truck owners would substitute car services for owning a light truck (e.g. because car services wouldn't enable them to use their light truck as they intend, such as towing a trailer), then the light truck substitution probability would be 0.25.

  • Passenger car equivalent (PCE) for heavy trucks. PCE indicates the number of light-duty vehicles a heavy truck is equivalent to in calculating road capacity.

======Move to Definitions

  • CO2eCost: Environmental and social cost of CO2e emissions per metric ton. in file [region_co2e_costs.csv]
  • PropClimateCostPaid: Proportion of climate change costs paid by users (i.e. ratio of carbon taxes to climate change costs).
  • PropOtherExtCostPaid: Proportion of other social costs paid by users.
  • RoadBaseModCost: Average base modernization cost per light-duty vehicle mile traveled (dollars per vehicle mile). Base modernization includes roadway improvements exclusive of addition of lanes.
  • RoadPresOpMaintCost: Average road preservation, operations, and maintenance cost per light-duty vehicle mile traveled (dollars per vehicle mile).
  • RoadOtherCost: Average other road cost (e.g. administration, planning, project development, safety) per light-duty vehicle mile traveled (dollars per vehicle mile).
  • FwyLnMiCost: Average cost to build one freeway lane-mile (dollars per lane-mile).
  • ArtLnMiCost: Average cost to build one arterial lane-mile (dollars per lane-mile).
  • HvyTrkPCE: Passenger car equivalent (PCE) for heavy trucks. PCE indicates the number of light-duty vehicles a heavy truck is equivalent to in calculating road capacity.
  • Access time includes the time to get from the origin to the vehicle (or in the case of taxi or TNC, the time for the vehicle to get to the traveler) and the time to get from the vehicle to the destination (including time to park the vehicle). Covers Owned and Car Service (high and low service levels) in units of minutes per trip.
  • PevSurchgTaxProp: Proportion of equivalent gas tax per mile paid by hydrocarbon fuel consuming vehicles to be charged to plug-in electric vehicles per mile of travel powered by electricity.
  • FuelCost: Retail cost of fuel per gas gallon equivalent in dollars.
  • PowerCost: Retail cost of electric power per kilowatt-hour in dollars.
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