Total 615 words used.
Introduction About STEAM+ :
Transport investments generally require a large amount of government funds. In order to make more informed, objective and data-driven decisions, the Integrated Transport Centre (ITC) built a tool (STEAM+) that simulates and helps plan for the future of Transport in Abu Dhabi Emirate.
The ITC’s Strategic Transportation Evaluation and Assessment Model (STEAM +) is a sophisticated multi-modal travel demand tool that uses AI and Big Data analytics to support the decision-making process in the Emirate. The model uses demographic and economic information in addition to numerous sources of data from traffic systems and external stakeholders.
In general, people and their travel data are captured in one place to create a complex mathematical model that reflects the current conditions and forecasts future travel patterns.
STEAM+ is the tool to support the decisions making about land use development, the transportation system and transport policy changes. It can model travel demand patterns across the transportation system for any combination of scenarios in the forecast horizon years (2025,2030 & 2040).
STEAM+ is used by many internal and external stakeholders in Emirates of Abu Dhabi to study infrastructure requirements. This tool has been successfully used to test over Billion’s worth of schemes, policies and initiatives (e.g. whether and when to expand a road, build a tunnel, implement a toll, or build a metro).
The model comprises of over 140,000 lines of code and is built using a variety of statistical models (Logit, Linear Regression, and constrained convex optimization algorithms). These algorithms require many parameters that are obtained from processing large data sets from multiple providers and in multiple formats.
2. The objectives of developing the STEAM+ model include:
- Understand the impact of various transport policies and help the decision makers formulate future strategic policies to best utilize the transport infrastructure. To provide the leadership with understanding of the impact of implementing tolls, increasing parking fees, congestion pricing, applying new emission standards or vehicle age restrictions, supported by objective assessment.
- Evaluate the need of transport infrastructure schemes and develop a phasing plan. Transport planners rely on this tool to continuously evaluate various road schemes and confirm the requirements prior to implementation, whether it is for a new by-pass road, a bridge or a tunnel, or land widening across a freeway, or a new access road into a development.
- Assess and support the decisions about future land use changes. Travel patterns vary as land use changes occur in the future, so the tool helps the city planners understand the impact and requirements of a new residential community, an employment hub or an entertainment zone.
- Official tool that consistently and fairly evaluates the impact of developer’s proposals and helps in review and approval of the Master Plans.
- The objectives of the tool are also to see the overall impact of population growth across the Emirate as well as surrounding Emirates and cross-border traffic.
- The model is also built with an objective to be flexible to incorporate new modes of transport technology that may surface in the future, understand their feasibility and effectiveness.
- Ability to undertake economic analysis and feasibility studies to formulate scheme prioritization and provide overall cost effectiveness indicators to decision makers.
The STEAM+ included the development of Fully integrated modeling framework, consisting of:
- Development of the Big Data Warehouse: utilizing Big Data at ITC & its stakeholders including new innovative sources such as mobile phones data & water/electricity consumption data to understand mobility patterns and the transport network needs.
- Hybrid Transport Model: Developing a multi-tier transport model (Strategic, Meso, Micro) for better testing of transport solutions.
- Development of the Birdseye electronic interface: a visualization engine (Birdseye) for easier access of the data & better analysis.
Nomination Title: STEAM+ : The Strategic Transportation Evaluation and Assessment Model
