Abstract:This dissertation will attempt to provide methods for reasonable use by regional governments of travel and emission models that may contain multiple sources of error by regional governments. It will illustrate how methods of uncertainty analysis can be applied to regional travel and emissions models to gauge the effect of model error on the results of different policy alternatives. In addition, it will also answer key policy questions raised by the use of travel and emissions models to address current legislative and regulatory requirements. The dissertation will also demonstrate how uncertainty analyses can be used to identify the greatest sources of uncertainty in models and to instruct model improvement programs.

The Sacramento region will be used as the case study. This region is particularly interesting because it is an air quality nonattainment region and has a state-of-the-practice travel demand model.

Three areas of uncertainty in the region's travel and emission models will be examined: socioeconomic projections, the land use and transportation interaction, and induced travel. Methods of uncertainty analysis will be applied to the Sacramento region's travel and emission models to set confidence intervals on results and to determine whether the rank ordering of policy scenarios is altered when the effect of uncertainty is taken into account.

Note:Ph.D. Dissertation