RFI for accessibility forecasting tools

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Tim Reardon
RFI for accessibility forecasting tools

The Metropolitan Area Planning Council, the regional planning agency for Metro Boston, has issued a Request for Information ("RFI") soliciting information about availa?ble tools and services designed to forecast non-auto accessibility to jobs, labor, housing, healthcare, and other opportunities under a range of different potential development futures. MAPC seeks to acquire an understanding of what accessibility-oriented tools and scenario modeling strategies are available in transportation-land use research and practice. Relevant products must implement an accessibility framework to assess the relative effectiveness of infrastructure and transportation alternatives under a set of different land use scenarios and transportation networks. The goal of this effort is to develop lighter-weight scenario modeling tools that can complement the detailed forecasts produced by the regional travel demand model operated by our partner agency, the Central Transportation Planning Staff.

Accessibility, herein, is defined as the ease and speed in which residents, employees, and visitors can reach necessary jobs, activities, services, and goods, by a variety of travel modes. Unlike conventional mobility-focused metrics such as speed and delay, accessibility metrics also incorporate information about land use. Accordingly, to measure accessibility, MAPC seeks to develop a robust quantitative scenario modeling tool for comparing how various alternatives (both infrastructure and development) change access to important destinations like jobs and housing by changing travel times between origins and destinations. A desired tool would be sensitive to land use scenarios that vary in terms of the amount, mix, location, and timing of development within a defined study area as well an ability to study broad conceptualizations of future transportation infrastructure alternatives.

This RFI will inform an RFP to be issued later in the year as part of a fully funded effort to examine land use and transit alternatives surrounding a major redevelopment site in Boston.

For full details, visit https://www.commbuys.com/bso/external/bidDetail.sdo?docId=BD-19-1217-MAP...

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