Urban planners, traffic engineers, and transportation consultants frequently conduct Traffic Impact Studies (TIS)—also referred to as Traffic Impact Assessments (TIA)—to analyze how new developments will affect the surrounding transportation network. A critical component of these studies is understanding how trips generated by a proposed site will be distributed across the road network.
To support this process, we’ve built a Trip Distribution Tool that allows users to visually simulate trip distribution from a subject site to up to five origin/destination points using real-world travel time data.
🛠️ How the Trip Distribution Tool Works
This tool helps users simulate the trip distribution step of a traffic impact study. Here’s how to use it:
- Enter an Address or City: Use the search bar to locate the site of your development.
- Mark the Subject Site: Click the map to place a marker at the location of your proposed development.
- Mark up to Five Origin/Destination Points: These may represent key residential neighborhoods, employment hubs, transit terminals, or commercial centers.
- Click “Calculate Trip Distribution”: The tool calculates routes and estimates what percentage of trips will use each route based on inverse square travel time logic.
- View the Results: Trip percentages and estimated travel times are displayed on the map and in a results panel.
All routes are generated using OpenRouteService, which uses real road network data for travel time-based trip assignment.
Enter your site’s location above to zoom to the relevant area. Then click the map to mark the Subject Site and up to five Origin/Destination Points. Click “Calculate Trip Distribution” to view results.
📝 Disclaimer
This Tool is designed for preliminary analysis only. Results are indicative and should not be used as the sole basis for decision-making in traffic planning, development applications, or policy approvals.
For official traffic impact assessments and detailed simulation modeling, we recommend engaging professional transportation engineers.
🔍 Use Cases
This tool is helpfulfor:
- Transportation Planners and Engineers working on traffic impact studies.
- Developers and consultants seeking to estimate trip distribution without running full-scale modeling software.
- Municipal reviewers needing quick visual insights during the development approvals process.
- Academic projects and teaching applications.
📉 Limitations
While powerful as a conceptual and visual aid, this tool is not a substitute for full TIA modeling using software like TransCAD, VISUM, Synchro, or Cube. Specific limitations include:
- Assumes trip distribution is inversely proportional to the square of travel time.
- Does not account for populations, congestion, signal delays, or time-of-day variations. This is purely geometric.
- Maximum of 5 destination points for simplicity.
- Routes may overlap visually on the map, which can limit interpretability in dense urban areas.
📞 Need Help with a Traffic Impact Study?
We offer professional TIA/TIS services including:
- Trip generation and distribution
- Intersection analysis (Synchro/VISSIM)
- Parking demand forecasting
- Signal warrant analysis
- Pavement impact (ESAL) calculations
- Multi-modal planning
Contact us to discuss your development project or municipality needs.