Puget Sound UrbanSim Application

The UrbanSim model is currently being applied to the Puget Sound region, through a partnership between the University of Washington and the Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC).  The work is being coordinated as a partnership through the new Center for Urban Simulation and Policy Analysis. 

• Phase 1 of the project was structured from January - June, 2003, and focused on compiling the base-year database for the model application.  
• Phase 2 ran from July, 2003 - June, 2004, and focused on making the model operational within the region.  
• Phase 3 runs from July, 2004 - June, 2005, and and is focused on delivering a production-quality system for running multiple scenarios of UrbanSim with PSRC's travel model.  This work includes (a) running UrbanSim in connection with PSRC's travel demand model, (b) testing the model's sensitivity with a number of "sledgehammer" scenarios, (c) improving the models and base-year data, and (d) simulating a number of realistic scenarios to inform PSRC's Vision 2020 study.  

The documentation here describes the work done to date on this project, and will be updated as work proceeds.

Funding for this project was provided by the Puget Sound Regional Council and by the National Science Foundation.  Numerous people are involved in this project.  The people involved from the Center for Urban Simulation and Policy Analysis include Peter Caballero, Robert Duisberg, Joel Franklin, Jack Kim, Sungyop Kim, Chris Peak, Kapena Pflum, David Socha, Gudmundur Freyr Ulfarsson, Paul Waddell, and Liming Wang.  Personnel from the PSRC involved in this project include Larry Blain, Jeff Frkonja, Jerry Harless, Kristen Koch, Carol Naito, Andy Norton, and Mark Simonson.

Phase I: Database Development

The overall data preparation process is described in the General Documentation of Data Preparation Process for Applying UrbanSim.  The PSRC data preparation process is described in UrbanSim: Database Development for the Puget Sound Region.  The following is a description of how these steps were carried out for the Puget Sound region.  Only processes and material that were not described in the general documentation and were unique to the Puget Sound UrbanSim application process are included here.  The following steps describe the specific assumptions, procedures, inputs and outputs of the processing for the Puget Sound Region.

• Step 1: Define Study Area
• Step 2: Generate Grid Over Study Area
• Step 3: Assemble and Standardize Parcel Data
• Step 4: Impute Missing Data on Parcels
• Step 5: Assemble Employment Data
• Step 6: Assign Employment to Parcels
• Step 7: Convert Parcel Data to Grid
• Step 8: Convert Other GIS Layers to Grid
• Step 9: Assign Development Types
• Step 10: Synthesize Household Database
• Step 11: Diagnose Data Quality and Make Refinements

Phase II: Estimation

The estimation process and results are described in the documentation of our automated Estimation project.