Organised by the Institute of Transport Studies, The University of Hong Kong

Civil Division, HKIE is one of the supporting organizations

Lecture Abstract

Integrated models of urban transportation and land use have evolved from the pioneering models of the 1960’s and 1970’s to operational implementation in many urban regions worldwide. They are not yet, however, in routine operational use in most cities, for a variety of reasons. This presentation briefly describes the current state of the art in integrated urban models and then discusses key issues and promising options for the development of the next generation of integrated models. As has been the case throughout the history of integrated urban modelling, key challenges remain data availability, computational requirements and technical expertise. Promising opportunities, however, include massive new digital datasets, cloud computing, agent-based microsimulation methods, ever-improving theory and the urgent need to provide design guidance in the “urban century” of continuing massive urban expansion. Recent advances in the Integrated Land-Use, Transportation, Environment (ILUTE) model system under development at the University of Toronto are used to illustrate the potential of such models, in particular with respect to the important issue of assessing land value changes due to transportation infrastructure investment.

About the Speaker

 Eric Miller has been a faculty member in the Department of Civil Engineering, University of Toronto since 1983, where he is currently Professor and Director of the University of Toronto Transportation Research Institute. He served as Acting Chair of the Department of Civil Engineering during 1998-99, 2003 and 2007 and was the inaugural Director of the University of Toronto Cities Centre (2008-2012). He is also Director of the University’s Data Management Group, University of Toronto, which is responsible for the largest travel survey data collection and management program in Canada, and Travel Modelling Group, which works closely with transportation agencies in the Toronto region in improving the operational state of travel demand modelling practice in the region. He is past-Chair of the U.S. Transportation Research Board (TRB) Committee on Travel Behavior and Values and past-Chair of the International Association for Travel Behaviour Research. He is past-Chair of the TRB Sub-Committee on Integrated Transportation – Land Use Modeling and Member Emeritus of the TRB Transportation Demand Forecasting Committee. He served on the TRB Task Force on Moving Activity-Based Approaches to Practice and the US National Academy of Sciences Committee for Determination of the State of the Practice in Metropolitan Area Travel Forecasting. He has chaired or been a member of numerous intercity travel demand modelling peer review panels throughout North America, including current membership on the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s Ridership Technical Advisory Panel. Professor Miller is the recipient of the 2009 Wilbur S. Smith Distinguished Educator Award from the Institute of Transportation Engineers and the inaugural winner of the University of British Columbia Margolese National Design for Living Award (2012). Professor Miller is the developer of GTAModel, a state-of-the-art activity-based microsimulation regional travel demand modeling system used by the Cities of Toronto and Mississauga to forecast travel demand in the Greater Toronto-Hamilton Area (GTHA) and ILUTE, an integrated land use – travel demand model system for the GTHA. He also was Principal Investigator for a major recent study by the Transportation Association of Canada “Changing Practices in Data Collection on the Movement of People”. His international experience includes transit planning in Cairo and travel demand model development in Mumbai and Hyderabad. He is co-author of the textbook Urban Transportation Planning: A Decision-Oriented Approach, the third edition of which was recently released in e-book format.

Please see the attached flyer for details.