Application of Trip Generation Models for Urban Transport Planning In a Data Scarce Developing Country City: The Case of Dar es Salaam

Abstract

With the increase in travel demand and traffic management problems in many developingcountries cities, travel demand forecasting models are being employed increasingly tomake informed decisions about the operational improvements to the existing transportationsystem and the design and performance of future transportation systems. The mainadvantage of using travel demand forecasting models for such purposes is that they arecapable of capturing the interactive effects of different components of the system understudy. However, for some time now there have been concerns about the application oftransport planning models in developing countries. The concerns have been mainly inrelation to the variables, coefficients and models borrowed from developed countries. Thispaper first discusses the characteristics of transport problems in developing cities andprovides a review of trip generation modelling approaches. Then, the discussion extendsfurther to cover available data for urban transport planning and trip generation modelsthat have found application in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The paper concludes byhighlighting how available data sources and trip generation modelling approach can beimproved to cope with the dynamic conditions in Dar es Salaam.