Development of an analysis capability for the National Transportation System

The purpose of this report is to examine the Department of Transportation`s (DOT) National Transportation System (NTS) initiative, to document what has been learned, and to outline a National Transportation Network Analysis Capability (NTNAC) based on a ``TRANSIMS-like`` approach. This study was conducted over a two month period at the end of FY1997. The scope of the effort was carefully defined to accommodate the short time horizon and to provide focus to a very large analytical problem. The objectives were to: (1) define the NTS and the NTS problem; (2) identify problem characteristics; (3) describe an analytical solution based on the TRANSIMS approach; (4) identify data requirements and availability; (5) develop criteria for a scenario to be used in a prototype demonstration; and (6) select a scenario for the prototype demonstration