Implementation of Transport Data in to the Transport Forecasting in Slovakia

Abstract

The transport forecast is the unconditional part of every transport studies, LOS capacity calculations or town transport plans. It is processed for several time horizons or time intervals.The basic purpose of transportation planning and management is to match transportation supply with travel demand, which represents ‘need’. A thorough understanding of existing travel pattern is necessary for identifying and analyzing existing traffic related problems. Detailed data on current travel pattern and traffic volumes are needed also for developing travel forecasting/prediction models. The prediction of future travel demand is an essential task of the long-range transportation planning process for determining strategies for accommodating future needs.Further sustainable mobility in Slovak cities, their competitiveness, economy as well as living conditions of inhabitants are depend also on the way of transport planning, development of transport infrastructure and services.Generally the calculation of the interzonal transport relations (number of trips) is a challenge. The practical application of the transport forecast theory is not easy. Some steps are hardly implemented to the practice for various reasons. The discrepancy between needed data and available data is one of the common problem. The traffic modelers must often study the method of data gathering which use an institutions possessing of demanded data. The discrepancies are showed on different levels (for examples the borders of urban zone and statistic area units are different in principle). One of the problematic issue is the definition of work trips or business trips. The origin and destination is defined at office address. The mobility survey contains data characterized one household, people not admit usual mentioned trips. The official company address are different as transport department. The ratio of these trips in traffic flow is not negligible. The article is aimed to brief description of the transport forecast process calculation. The main part of the article describes outputs from mobility surveys of some regions of Slovakia and them implementation in transport forecast calculation process. This methodically tool is intended for traffic analysis, planned solutions and arrangements verification of problem situations solutions.The University of Žilina processed several mobility surveys. The sample covers different regions with different gravity areas. The database was detailed evaluated and compared. Two Slovak regions were modeled in the Visum software (PTV Vision). Output data were used for town transport plans. Other mobility surveys were made for analysis of interstate transport relations (Slovak republic – Hungary).