Non Motorized Network Coding

The non-motorized network is managed in the VISUM network as well. The Bike and Walk transport systems are used for generating bike and walk network impedances and assigning Bike and Walk demand. The TransitWalk transport system is used for walk access to transit.

In order to code a link for walk, set the TSysSet to include Walk. The walk distance between MAZs is calculated using link length. Link walk time is calculated using the user defined walk speed in the properties file (Properties File - Input properties).

In order to code a link for bike, set the TSysSet to include Bike. The bike distance between MAZs is calculated using link length. Link bike time is calculated using the user defined bike speed in the properties file (Properties File - Input properties).

Walk access/egress to transit is modeled with the TransitWalk transport system, which is available to the Transit mode when generating skims and assigning trips. Since skimming and assignment is done from TAP to TAP, the actual walk access/egress transit connectors are quite short. Short little connectors are created from each TAP zone centroid, which started as a StopArea centroid, to each StopArea’s network access node. These connectors are automatically created by the skimming and assignment procedures and the travel time is calculated using the user defined walk speed.

An important reminder when creating biking and walking only paths:
Heavily used access paths are critical network features in properly determining the accessibility to activities and transit by Non-motorized modes. So care should be taken to ensure that all popular paths are included. Sources like Strava's Heat Map can be used to help identify keep paths off the vehicle network that need to be added. Sometimes these paths can be long between roadway connections through wooded parks or along rivers. So the network coder may be tempted to only draw one long path with two nodes; one at each road connection. However, when the MAZ connections to the network are created in the ABM run they can only connect to nodes. If a mile long path has been added that crosses 10 MAZs, only the edge MAZs will have access to that nice non-motorized path if nodes are only placed at the ends. Long paths need to be broken by nodes at each MAZ that has an access point to the path in order to properly represent accessibility to that path and the greater non-motorized network.