A review of current Australian traffic generation practice with suggestions on future research

An important aspect of planning for new developments is to predict the amount of generated traffic. This is a necessary input both for traffic design and traffic planning activities. In this report conceptual problems in measuring traffic generation are outlined, then examples given of estimates currently used in Australia. While many of these examples are obtained from work done for the NSW traffic authority on traffic generation, a number of other published and unpublished sources are also drawn upon. The conclusion from this review of current Australian traffic generation practice is that a number of serious weaknesses are evident, both in methodological approach and in the data bases used to derive estimates. These weaknesses are highlighted in the second half of the report. This section of the report also contains a number of suggestions on how current practice may be improved. These suggestions range from how to use existing transport survey data sets to derive traffic generation estimates to formulation of an entirely new approach based on economic individual choice theory (a).