CE 451/551 Lab 3: Introduction to TransCAD

TransCAD combines a fully functional GIS (geographic information system) with travel demand modeling software. You are provided two software user manuals/workbooks on loan this semester to help you learn how to use some of the functionality of the TransCAD software. The first (referred to as manual A) is the TransCAD GIS user’s manual. The second (referred to as manual B) is the Travel Demand Modeling with TransCAD 5.0 user’s manual. Unfortunately, they are both called “user’s manual” so let’s call them manual A and manual B to save time and confusion.

You can also make use of the TransCAD help (F1) function. Please try a combination of the manuals (which have good tables of contents and indexes), the help key (F1) and asking your instructor and fellow classmates for help. Learning how most effectively to use these types of resources is probably as important as anything else you’ll learn this semester.

Before beginning, make a copy of the C:\program files\transcad\tutorial folder and contents onto your personal drive space or flash drive. You can then work in that folder, where TransCAD will save your work. Make sure save your work. There are four basic kinds of files to save.

1) Database files – dbd files, usually, plus their auxiliary files (all these files will have the same first name, and the one TransCAD can open will have a little globe next to it.) When you open that files, TransCAD will also open the auxiliary files (have a look at these files on your folder using explorer (view details, sort by name). When you make a change to a database file, TransCAD automatically saves those changes immediately/

2) Database view files – this is simply a view to a database or to two or more joined databases. This is not data, simply a view to a database (for example, you may have sorted the rows or columns and like to return to this sorted view. These are saves as *.dbv.

3) Maps - *.map … this will save a copy of the map window with all the databases open to support the map.

4) Workspaces – IMPORTANT – if you have a bunch of maps and/’or database files open, and want to return to a TransCAD session that looks just like where you left off – save the workspace (file – save workspace).

IMPORTANT – know where your files are being saved. Make a copy of the tutorial folder to your personal space before beginning, and make sure all subsequent saving of files is done to this new folder. If you save a workspace that points to files saved on the C drive on a lab computer, they will not be there when you come back.

Instructions:

After reading Manual A, Chapter 1, move on to Chapter 2 (Quick Start). This chapter will take you through several of the GIS program menus and operations. Prepare a summary report to:

a) Identify the most interesting aspect of the models that you learned, including your assessment of how you think this would be useful in analyzing urban transportation issues. One or two paragraphs – no more than one page.

b) Identify the operation or process that gave you the most difficulty. (Have you resolved the apparent problem in using the software?) If you had no difficulty, just say so, but I am also interested in gauging the level of difficulty folks might be having. No more than one page.

c) Use database and other TransCAD tools to answer the following specific questions:

1) The estimated volume to capacity ratio (vehicle count to road capacity ratio) for Link ID 73279 on Lake Street (aka Henderson Rd.) is ________________________

2) The volume to capacity ratio for link 68971 on E Coldwater Rd (aka Genesee Avenue) is _____________________

Based on your interpretation of the above two ratios, what questions about the values come to mind (have a look at all the feature values for both of these records)? What might be the reason for any apparent discrepancies between the volume and the capacities at each location?

3) Determine the cumulative percent of all (regional) retail employment that is found in each of the three transit route bands examined in Project 2. E.g., sum the retail employment in the inner and middle bands to get the cumulative retail employment in the middle band, etc. Why would this be important information? What can you say about the accessibility to retail shopping via transit in the area? How could you compute the accessibility of shopping to the area’s population? (hint, you would need to compute yet another series of values).

4) Name two approaches to visualize data for a particular data set of interest.

5) A file ending with ".mvw" is a ________________________ file.

6) T or F, TransCAD will automatically create the necessary matrix to receive the results of matrix multiplication of two or more other matrices.

d) Produce an organized presentation layout (plot, to fit on an 8.5x11 page, color, landscape) that contains components from three different files, with an appropriate title block. Consider who might be using the plot and what they would want to see and not want to see. You can use print screen in TransCAD, then paste, crop and copy in Microsoft Paint, past into Power Point, then arrange, annotate, label … or any other method you choose to obtain your results.

e) Submit a printed report at the beginning of the next lab period (please do not print your labs off during the first few minutes of lab). Submit only one report for your team.