A Survey on the Use of Computational Models for Ex Ante Analysis of Urban Transport Policy Instruments

This paper provides an analysis of the use of computational models for predicting the effects of different policy instruments on urban transport systems. We define a framework for describing and comparing current approaches that takes into account (i) what policy instruments are studied, (ii) what type of effects are predicted, (iii) which factors are modeled, (iv) the type of model used, and (v) what data sources are used. The main conclusions of the analysis are: (i) despite the recognized potential of agent-based modeling to study behavioural change of a population, it rarely has been used for ex-ante analysis of policy instruments using real-world data, (ii) some factors that influence travellers’ decisions, such as comfort and departure time, have not been considered much in the modeling, (iii) ex-ante analysis of economic instruments constitute the majority of studies, but informative instruments have been recently considered due to the increasing use of information technology in transportation.