The remainder of this document introduces and discusses a Travel Analysis Improvement program that is administered by an independent 501c3 organization.
Mission Statement
The organization advocates, facilitates, and supports the modernization of the travel analysis industry to be responsive to stakeholder needs.
Goals
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Serve as a clearinghouse of useful planning tools and methods and an incubator for development of innovative planning methods that can be applied in regions, cities, and neighborhoods across the country.
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Provide critical infrastructure (legal, funding, hosting) to support the development of travel analysis tools and methods.
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Guide research toward useful outcomes for stakeholders.
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Ensure tools developed under its guidance meet the most stringent software engineering and quality control standards.
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Encourage the use of open data standards and interoperability across planning tools and related products.
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Teach basic core competency in modern travel analysis skills, through workshops, online materials, and training.
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Convene an initial conference to launch the first tranche of supported initiatives, possibly in cooperation with related efforts (e.g., TRB).
Approach
Ultimately, travel modeling will advance through specific projects undertaken by a broad array of actors, including public agency staff, consulting firms, researchers, software vendors, and others. The organization anticipates playing two key roles in facilitating projects:
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Publishing projects -- Anyone may submit a project and ask for it to be reviewed for "publication". This review ensures that the project conforms to a basic standard of data recording and sharing, and reproducibility. An accepted project will be hosted and made available to our users.
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Incubating projects -- Incubating a project implies a higher level of involvement, where the project is actively developed to make it more broadly usable.
The remainder of this document provides specific organizational details, and describes each of these roles.