CVEN 2401/2402 Workshop: Week 3

Queueing Theory and Trip Generation

In this workshop we review applications of queueing theory as well as the first step of the 4-step
planning process, Trip Generation.
Queueing Theory
As we learnt in the lecture, queueing theory is the mathematical study of queues (waiting in line). The
theory offers an opportunity to mathematically model a variety of scenarios which could be as simple
as depicting how people wait in a line to be served by a cashier at a supermarket or from a road
transport perspective, understanding how vehicles arrive and traverse through a signalised
intersection. Applications of queueing theory can provide estimates for the waiting times and lengths
of queues that manifest.
Question 1:
Deterministic Queueing: Arrival and departure Curves
Tickets for a major sporting event go on sale 10am. Purchasers begin to arrive at 9am. Between 9am
and 10am they arrive at a rate of 60 persons per hour. Between 10am and noon ticket purchasers
arrive at the rate of 180 persons per hour and from noon to 4pm when tickets are sold out, they arrive
at 120 persons per hour. Tickets are sold at the rate of 2 per minute from 10am to 4pm. At 4pm
anyone still waiting in line will be told that there are no more tickets available.
a) Sketch the cumulative arrival and departure curves of ticket purchasers.
b) When does the queue begin to form?
c) When is the best time to arrive in terms of the shortest wait time? What is the length of the
queue?
d) What is the maximum length of the queue? When does the maximum length queue occur?
e) Does the queue ever dissipate? Why or why not?
Solution
a)

b) 9am when first purchasers arrive

c) 10am queue is 60 people long

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 d)
= 60 + 2 180 2 120
= 180 & 4
e) Only when all tickets are sold at 4pm

Question 2:
Vehicles randomly arrive at a signalized intersection to turn left. The left turn bay has the capacity for
3 vehicles. If on average 2.5 left turning vehicles arrive during the red phase, what is the probability
that the through lane will be blocked by the left turning vehicles?

Solution
Assume T is the red phase
2.5
= /

( > 3) = 1 ( 3) = 1 (0) (1) (2) (3)
2.50 2.5
(0) = 0!
=0.082

(1) = 0.205
(2) = 0.257
(3) = 0.214
( > 3) = 1 0.758 = 0.242 24.2%

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 Land Use and Trip Generation
Land use refers to the management and modification of the environment into a built environment. In
simple terms, it is the planning and formation of townships and cities on un-utilised land. Therefore,
broadly land use management focuses on the designation of residential, commercial and industrial
areas, the placement of community facilities such as schools, hospitals and waste disposal areas and in
a transport planning context, identifying road and railway corridors.

Transportation and land use planning decisions interact as the use of land will determine the demands
of travel, the modes people use and ultimately guide the necessary infrastructure. It is the objective of
the transport planner to ensure that the transport network and management is integrated with the land
use to ensure that all members of the community have satisfactory accessibility to perform day to day
activities.

Land use is an indicator to how much traffic will be generated from a region of a city, the first step of
the four-step planning process (see figure 1). The focus of the trip generation step is to identify how
many trips will originate and terminate in each region and this is carried out by developing models
and relationships between the factors that generate trips and the number of trips being generated.

Figure 1. The 4-step transport planning model

In order to properly define the specifics of the traffic generation process, we first need to define the
scope and resolution of the problem:

TIME SCOPE: What time period are we focusing our study on?

SPATIAL SCOPE: What is our overall area of study?

SPATIAL RESOLUTION: What is the spatial resolution of our study? (i.e., what is the smallest
geographic unit we will consider?)

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Answering these questions is critical for developing an appropriate model, and are greatly dependent
upon the application under considered. Increasing the scope and resolution of the problem will result
in a better model, but limitations exist, namely the availability of data.

Trip generation models focus on using existing data to forecast the future number of trips. The model
developed will directly depend on the type/amount/quality of data at hand. Below we will go through
the process of developing two such models from scratch.

In the lecture we saw an example of a problem with two categorical variables:

Household location = {urban,suburban,rural}

Household size = {1,2-3,4,5}

You will notice that for the household size variable, we grouped all households of size 2 and 3
together. In general, this is done when the difference in trips between households of size 2 and 3 is
negligible. This method can also be used to deal with continuous variables, which will be illustrated in
the problem below.

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Question 3:
Trip generation using a cross-classification model with a continuous variable
Welcome back to Congestington! The town council was so impressed with your previous work that
they have decided to again employ you as an independent contractor. Congestington is preparing for
an increase in population and development as they are determining new ways of keeping the killer
bears under control. This time your job is to develop a four step planning model to forecast the travel
demand for Congestington and the surrounding regions. Begin with the first step, trip generation.
The town conducted a survey and provided you with the following raw data regarding the number of
trips taken between 8am and 8pm for each of a set of households:

Household Income # of
Index Trips
1 20000 5
2 30000 4
3 45000 3
E 15000 6
5 55000 2
6 40000 4
7 25000 3
8 70000 2
9 90000 4
10 12000 2
11 120000 3
12 45000 6
13 60000 4
14 70000 3
15 40000 2
16 50000 6
17 60000 4
18 20000 3
19 50000 6

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 a) Construct a cross classification table based on income households that are either below or
above $48,000.

Average Number of Trips between

8am to 8pm
Below 48000 1/10 (5+4+3+6+4+3+2+6+2+3)=3.8

Above 48000 1/9 (2+2+4+3+4+3+6+4+6)=3.7778

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 b) Construct a cross classification table based on income brackets
[0,27500,40000,60000,150000]

Average Number of Trips between

8am to 8pm
0-27500 (5+6+3+2+3)/5=3.8
27500-40000 (4+4+2)/3=3.33
40000-60000 (3+2+6+4+6+4+6)/7=4.41
60000-150000 (2+4+3+3)/4=3

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 c) Use the two cross-classification tables to predict the number of trips taken by the following
set of households:
Household Index Income # of Trips # of Trips
With CC With CC
from a) from b)
1 30000 3.8 3.3
2 35000 3.8 3.3
3 15000 3.8 3.8
4 45000 3.778 4.41
5 75000 3.778 3
6 45000 3.778 4.41
7 35000 3.8 3.3
8 100000 3.778 3
9 70000 3.778 3
10 18000 3.8 3.8
11 110000 3.778 3
12 55000 3.778 4.41
13 65000 3.778 3
14 75000 3.778 3
15 45000 3.778 4.41
16 45000 3.778 4.41
17 65000 3.778 3
18 25000 3.8 3.8
19 75000 3.778 3

d) Which approach is preferable?

Assuming there are only 2 income brackets (below and above 48k) assumed that people belong to
only two groups, and as such limits our ability to model the impact of income on the number of
trips each household makes.
By increasing the number of income brackets to 4, we see that each of the income brackets shows
a different value. Again, this gives us better information about the impact of income on the
number of trips per household.

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Question 4:
Trip generation using a linear regression model

Congestington has provided you with some additional data in order to potentially improve your trip
generation process. Use the following data to develop a linear regression model. Discuss the final
form of the linear regression model and the method for developing it; demonstrators will provide the
final solution.

Household Index Income Household Size Number of # of weekday trips

Vehicles between 8am and 8pm

1 20000 3 3 5
2 30000 2 2 4
3 45000 5 1 3
e 15000 4 2 6
5 55000 3 1 2
6 40000 4 2 4
7 25000 3 1 3
8 70000 2 3 2
9 90000 3 1 4
10 12000 2 1 2
11 120000 1 2 3
12 45000 1 3 6
13 60000 2 3 4
14 70000 3 2 3
15 40000 2 1 2
16 50000 3 3 6
17 60000 2 2 4
18 20000 1 1 3
19 50000 3 2 6

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 Results from regression (performed in Microsoft Excel)
Coefficients
Intercept 1.368311355
Income -9.58863E-06
Household Size 0.309321254
Number of Vehicles 1.101058786

Regression Equation:
1.368311355 0.00000958863 INCOME + 0.309321254 HH SIZE + 1.101058786
NUMBER OF VEHICLES
The sign of each of the coefficients gives us some intuition about the results:
- positive coefficients indicate that higher values of this variable imply more trips:
o More household members = more trips
- More vehicles in the household = more trips
- negative coefficients indicate that higher values result in less trips:
o Higher income = less trips
Do these results make sense? What would be some explanations for the sign of each of the
variables? Discuss this with the class. Here are some potential points to focus on:
Income:
- Households with higher incomes are more likely to live in comfortable homes, and may not
have as much of an incentive to make trips.
- Households with higher incomes are more likely to have 9-5 jobs which only require 2 trips
per day.
- Households with higher incomes may be more willing to pay fees associated with delivery of
goods (food, groceries, etc.)
Household size:
- More people = more activities = more trips
- Each household member will have a minimum required number of trips.
Number of Vehicles in Household:
- More vehicles in the household imply more freedom for members of the household to take
trips.

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Congestington has provided you with some data for five additional households. Predict the number
of trips generated for each household.
Number
Household Household of # of
Index Income Size Vehicles Trips
1 30000 1 2 3.59
2 50000 3 2 4.02
3 15000 2 1 2.94
4 25000 1 3 4.74
5 65000 3 1 2.77

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