A Traffic Forecasting Model for Pedestrians

While planners frequently use forecasting models to predict the impact of new developments on traffic, congestion, and road quality, no such model existed for assessing the effects of development on non-drivers. Now, reports Kea Wilson for Streetsblog, "Massachusetts Institute of Technology Researcher Andres Sevstuk has created a sophisticated new methodology for estimating changes in the volume of walkers on city streets at different times throughout the day in response to changes in the built environment, in much the same way that planners estimate how vehicle traffic will change after they break ground on a building or roadway redesign."

Similar traffic impact assessments (TIAs) are frequently used to evaluate the impact of projects. According to researcher Andres Sevstuk, "if the TIA forecast that a project would put more traffic onto city streets than the current road design can tolerate, then the developer typically has to pay to address that — maybe by building extra parking, or paying to widen a road, or paying to adjust traffic signal timing." Sevstuk argues that adding more infrastructure for counting pedestrians could have a "dramatic effect" on our understanding of how land use affects walking in cities.

Sevstuk's model, writes Wilson, "would be re-calibrated by each community using at least some local walking data, but even without those inputs, it can predict pedestrian volumes with roughly 70 to 80 percent accuracy." This information can help cities decide where to build amenities like parks or parking lots and serve as "a critical tool to identify where to prioritize pedestrian improvements that planners haven’t even considered yet." Further, "[o]verlaying projections with actual pedestrian crash data and data on corridors that have been historically disinvested could be even more helpful as leaders work towards ending traffic violence and making cities more equitable."