Comparison of Microcomputer Packages for Network-Based Highway Planning

In an effort to meet the increasing requirement to perform transportation studies for a small geographic area within a major urban area, existing micro-computer software was evaluated for suitability to perform subarea analysis and its compatibility with the output from the Texas Travel Demand Package. The initial phase of the study included a detailed literature and software search. Eleven potential transportation software packages were identified and five packages were chosen for further in-depth evaluation. They are: TRANPLAN/NEDS (11 program diskettes and user's manual); MicroTRIPS (9 program diskettes and user's manual); MINUTP (5 demonstration diskettes and user's manual); MOTORS (11 diskettes and user's manual); and TransPro (2 demonstration diskettes and user's manual). Information was provided by each vendor in January 1987. TRANPLAN, MicroTRIPS, and MINUTP packages are the comprehensive software systems for transportation planning and parallel UTPS/PLANPAC in functional capability. However, MicroTRIPS and MINUTP are evaluated as being less compatible with the Texas Traffic Assignment Package and as having fewer capabilities than TRANPLAN. MOTORS package has limited network plotting capabilities and functional network building capabilities. TransPro package is too simple to be compatible with the network-based analysis used by the Texas Travel Demand Package. Finally, the TRANPLAN/NEDS packages were selected for suitability to perform subarea analysis and for compatibility with the output from the Texas Travel Demand Package.