White-box flight simulator built with system dynamics to support urban transportation decision-making and address induced travel demand

Abstract

Induced Travel Demand is a phenomenon (ITD) wherein building new road infrastructure increases private car use. ITD has been measured and corroborated through econometric models that give an account of how much travel demand can be induced after road construction. The latter without claims of causality in their inner structure (black-box approach). Beyond the contributions of black-box models, it is still needed to explain structurally ITD for understanding and identifying its causes. Thus, this approach allows policy-makers to design comprehensive policies to deal with ITD in urban context wherein new roads are still needed to guarantee connectivity. In this paper, we present a white-box flight simulator based on a System Dynamics model to support urban transportation decision-making and address ITD. Through the simulator developed, it is possible to improve the causal understanding of ITD. Besides, although the considered policies to intervene in this phenomenon have a conceptual connotation, the simulator is a means to acquire knowledge of structural complexity underlying the interaction between the policies and ITD.