Transport Modellers Forum Meeting, November 2024

DARe Hub team member David Alvarez Castro shares his thoughts after attending the 50th Transport Modellers Forum (TMF) Meeting, hosted at the Transport for West Midlands offices in Birmingham. 

In October, I attended the 50th Transport Modellers Forum (TMF) Meeting. The TMF is a group of transport modellers, ranging from national government and government agencies, regional/local government, and consultants, to software providers, academics, and research and individual members. The group seeks to provide a forum for the exchange of transport modelling ideas and experience, continuous professional development, and a link to other modellers and appraisers.

The event, held at the Transport for West Midlands (TfWM) offices, West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA), Birmingham, brought together presentations on the theme of “Modelling the Un-Modellable”. TfWM showcased a project focusing on networks of mobility hubs (Building Mobility Hub Networks); Amey gave a presentation on modelling accompanied travels (Modelling of Escort Travel); the Alan Turing Institute showed a set of tools for analysing active travel and real-time data (Data analytics for active travel and real time use cases); and Old Chase Consulting Ltd discussed the challenges facing modelling (NEOM: How to model something that isn’t there). 

At the forum I presented findings from my PhD project, ‘An Agent-Based Model framework to simulate active travel-focused transport policy scenarios’, which explored the implementation of mobility policies in favour of active modes like walking and cycling in the Tyne and Wear region. After providing the audience with an overview of the methodology followed to build the model (synthetic travel demand, transport network and model calibration and validation) with a special focus on cycling, I shared and discussed some of the results obtained.  

The results of the model show that policies that modify the built environment in favour of active modes, like the implementation of cycle paths, are less efficient in shifting people towards these modes than policies that affect car users, for example, economic penalties when driving. This is an example of ‘push’ (policies affecting car users) achieving ‘pull’ results (policies in favour of active mode users).  

However, policies that economically reward the use of active modes (e.g., paying a specific amount per kilometre walked or cycled), achieve better results than the push/pull policy implementation. Additionally, a combination of policies in favour of active modes (e.g., cycle paths implementation alongside economic rewards) with those penalising the use of private cars (e.g., low traffic neighbourhoods combined with economic penalties) boosts the use of active modes, as the increase in users is greater than when results obtained from the individual policies are added together.  

Lastly, an important factor to be considered is the dispute between public transport and active users. Policies that economically reward the use of active modes may attract public transport users. If people using public modes (bus, tram, ferry) opt to move to active modes due to this economic reward, then less people will be using them, which could be an undesirable outcome and an issue for the public transport sector. If less revenue is generated from public transport modes, this could affect the quality and frequency of services provided. 

This event was a fantastic opportunity to share knowledge and experience with other professionals and researchers in the use and development of different transport models. At DARe, we look forward to meeting again soon and presenting some of the results we are producing in terms of transport decarbonisation and resilience.