An activity-based land use and transportation optimization model

This paper investigates the joint optimization problem of land use development and transportation network improvement. A novel bi-level model is proposed to solve this problem. The upper level is to determine residential/employment developments and road link capacity expansions with a budget so that the maximal population (residents/ employees) is accommodated while satisfying user utility (in terms of level of service) requirement. The accommodated population distribution by residential/employment locations and user utility are obtained by the lower level. The lower level is the combined network user equilibrium model. It models user location choice, activity pattern choice and path choice behaviors under the determined land use development and transportation network improvement in the upper level. A heuristic solution algorithm is designed for solving the proposed bi-level programming problem. A numerical example is presented to illustrate the applications and merits of the proposed model and solution algorithm.