ILUTE: An Operational Prototype of a Comprehensive Microsimulation Model of Urban Systems

Abstract

This paper describes the development of an operational prototype for a comprehensive microsimulation model of urban systems. It examines several important design advances that emerged during the transition from a conceptual framework to operational code. ILUTE (Integrated Land Use, Transportation, Environment) simulates the evolution of an integrated urban system over an extended period of time. This model is intended to replace conventional models for the analysis of a broad range of transportation, housing and other urban policies. An overview of the ILUTE framework was presented at the 9th IATBR conference (Miller and Salvini, 2001). Since then, considerable progress has been made on the overall model and its component sub-models. At present, an operational prototype is being tested using data from the Greater Toronto Area. Disaggregate information for the model is synthesized from census data, travel survey data, activity data, and randomly generated proxy data. ILUTE is based on the “ideal model” described in the final report of the Transit Cooperative Research Program’s (TCRP) Project H-12, “Integrated Urban Models for Simulation of Transit and Land-Use Policies” (Miller et al., 1998).