We’re pleased to receive some great feedback from Juan de Dios Ortúzar (co-author of Transport Modelling (4th Edition) with Willumsen, L.G., 2011) on our longitudinal model of the redevelopment of Cardiff 2007-2010:
“I was well impressed by the work done, including – as you well said – the fairly unusual bonus of testing the estimated model in forecasting against observed data in the future. Congratulations.”
Cooper, C.H.V., Harvey, I., Orford, S. & Chiaradia, A.J. F. Using multiple hybrid spatial design network analysis to predict longitudinal effect of a major city centre redevelopment on pedestrian flows. Transportation (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11116-019-10072-0
Nobody found a counterexample, so I think this really is the first time a strategic pedestrian model had a proper forecast test: given pedestrian data prior to changes in urban layout, could we correctly predict what would happen to pedestrian flows after the change? Short answer – yes. Much like recent sDNA cycling models, this is based on a multiple hybrid sDNA approach. Although the above paper does not look at mode choice, we expect similar techniques to be applicable (watch this space).