The New Mexico Department of Transportation (NMDOT) sought RSG’s expertise to update their statewide travel demand model. We are collaborating with NMDOT on this update to implement an incremental data-driven framework. This framework will leverage passively collected data (“big data”) from both smartphone and truck GPS data sources. This approach is increasingly popular at both the state and metropolitan level due to the wider availability of big data. 

Using this updated framework, the NMDOT model will be used to predict growth. This growth will then be added to observed travel patterns in the base year rather than using the model to predict total travel. This approach allows the model system’s forecasts to reflect details of observed travel patterns no model can reproduce while limiting changes to the rational behavior predicted by the model. The updated NMDOT model will also link non-home-based trips to home-based trips; this provides greater consistency between the location and modes of these trips. NMDOT will use the updated model to support statewide planning.