A vehicle drives parallel to a bicycle lane on a newly completed stretch of Valencia Road, part of the Valencia Road Corridor project that was completed in the fall.
A vehicle drives parallel to a bicycle lane on a newly completed stretch of Valencia Road, part of the Valencia Road Corridor project that was completed in the fall.
Rebecca Sasnett / Arizona Daily Star 2020
School staff meet students at their family’s cars and walk them into school at Copper View Elementary School in Sahuarita.
The Pima Association of Governments is working to better understand travel demands for motorists in the region.
The taxpayer-funded organization overseeing regional planning hopes use of the new model will help “predict how, when and where people travel in the greater Tucson region,” PAG said. It will lead to better plans for long-term transportation in the growing region of more than 1 million residents.
A major focus of the new model is collecting household activity data to ensure it correlates with the data officials are observing. Household surveys will be a key part in gathering this information.
This modeling, unlike past methods, could show how an entire household moves throughout a given region during a day.
“The activity-based model can represent 24-hour, daily activities of a family or household in ways that previous modeling methods cannot,” PAG said.
“Consider a family of four household members. The model can create activities and travel where, for example, one parent drops off and picks up two kids at schools on the way to work and coming back home, and the other parent leaves home for shopping and recreation activity at specific time and location. Then both come back home and then the family goes out to eat together.”
The organization will examine geographical data to help assess traffic congestion not only about the local jurisdictions, but also on Interstates 10 and 19.
“Information on how roadways are configured, such as the roadway network having 80% of arterial roads, is input to help assess traffic congestion,” PAG said.
Another goal is to use the model to better represent residents’ changing travel options and behaviors to ensure better regional transportation planning efforts.
The activity-based model can better forecast new mobility impacts, such as autonomous vehicles, ride-sharing and home delivery services, which have grown through online shopping. Some of these providers are companies such as TuSimple, Lyft, Uber or Amazon, PAG said.
“Autonomous vehicles might be a major transportation mode in 2045. The behavior of a family with autonomous vehicles would be different from another family without autonomous vehicles,” PAG said.
“A family could change the ownership of vehicles from two normal cars to one autonomous vehicle. This change would impact the daily activities of the family. This will affect the transportation demand on the network.”
An influx of these vehicles could be addressed by examining not only the daily activity changes but an impact to other transportation modes in the region.
The activity-based model will also be used to expand out of the region, said Paul Casertano, PAG’s transportation planning director in a statement.
The model “will support alignment with the greater Phoenix region and activity-based modeling done by Maricopa Association of Governments,” said Casertano. “This will allow us to improve how we prepare for and manage future growth and expanding transportation needs through the Sun Corridor mega region.”
Down the Road
Pima County road work extension: Shoulder repair work on North Hacienda del Sol Road between East River Road and East Sunrise Drive has been extended until Thursday, Jan. 21.
Crews will work between 6 a.m. and 4 p.m. each day.
Motorists should use caution and adhere to the reduced speeds and temporary closures as crews place materials starting at the south end of the project and work north to Sunrise Drive.