MITO: Microscopic Transport Orchestrator

MITO (Microscopic Transportation Orchestrator) is a model to generate travel demand. It works as a microsimulation and generates travel demand individually for every household given by SILO’s synthetic population.

MITO consists of five modules that create travel demand.

1. First, Monte Carlo Sampling is used to microscopically select the number of trips for a given household. The method has been published by Moeckel et al. (2017).
2. Travel time budgets for every household are estimated based on the number of trips by purpose, household size, income, and other trip-relevant household variables. The estimation procedure was documented by Moreno and Moeckel (2016).
3. For destination choice, work and school locations are defined in the synthetic population. All other destinations are selected with a logit-based destination choice model that respects the available travel time budget.
4. A nested mode choice model selects the travel mode based on supply characteristics, trip characteristics and traveler attributes.
5. The preferred arrival time is chosen for work and education trips based on a arrival time distribution given by a survey. For non-mandatory trips, the preferred departure time is chosen instead.

The result of MITO is a individual list of trips that describe the travel demand of a study area. As MITO works microscopically, attributes of individual travelers, such as auto ownership, access to car sharing, disability, income or smartphone availability, may influence all travel decision.

References

Moeckel R, Kuehnel N, Llorca C, Moreno AT and Rayaprolu, H (2020) Agent-Based Simulation to Improve Policy Sensitivity of Trip-Based Models. Journal of Advanced Transportation, Aricle ID 1902162. https://doi.org/10.1155/2020/1902162

Moeckel R, Kuehnel N, Llorca C, Moreno A, Rayaprolu H (2019) Microscopic Travel Demand Modeling: Using the Agility of Agent-Based Modeling Without the Complexity of Activity-Based Models. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board, Washington, D.C., 15 January 2019.

Moeckel R, Huntsinger LF and Donnelly R. (2017) From Macro to Microscopic Trip Generation: Representing Heterogeneous Travel Behavior. The Open Transportation Journal 11: 31-43.

Moreno AT and Moeckel R. (2016) Microscopic Destination Choice: Incorporating Travel Time Budgets as Constraints. World Conference on Transport Research. Shanghai.