Developing an integrated land-use/transportation model for small to medium-sized cities: case study of Montgomery, Alabama

Many large cities and regions are currently developing integrated land-use and transportation models for the first time. They are doing so in response to needs expressed by their constituents and to shifts in national policy that require consistency between local land-use plans and regional transportation plans. In addition, these models offer the ability to conduct a wide variety of scenario testing for both infrastructure and policy alternatives. The magnitude of commitment in both human and financial resources to develop these integrated models has typically been large, which has hitherto limited the application of these models to larger cities and regions. The purpose of this paper is to present the integrated land-use and transport model development project being undertaken by the Montgomery, Alabama, Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO, regional pop. ~300,000) as a case study for other small to medium-sized MPOs interested in developing one of these modeling systems. Several items of broad interest are presented, including the model selection process and criteria, a description of an ‘Agile’ iterative development process, a set of data requirements and how these data were obtained, a description of the model calibration process, and conclusions and recommendations for other cities and regions seeking to replicate this process.