TRESIS: A Transportation, Land Use and Environmental Strategy Impact Simulator for Urban Areas

The Institute of Transport Studies has recently developed a Transportation and EnvironmentStrategy Impact Simulator (TRESIS) as a decision support system to assist planners to predictthe impact of transport strategies and to make recommendations based on those predictions. Akey focus of the simulator is the richness of policy instruments such as new public transport,new toll roads, congestion pricing, gas guzzler taxes, changing residential densities,introducing designated bus lanes, implementing fare changes, altering parking policy,introducing more flexible work practices, and the introduction of more fuel efficient vehicles.The appropriateness of mixtures of policy instruments is gauged in terms of a series ofperformance indicators such as impacts on greenhouse gas emissions, accessibility, equity, airquality and household consumer surplus. In this paper we introduce TRESIS for the first timeto the research community, focussing on the structure of the system and the diversity ofapplications. Applications are presented to illustrate the diversity and richness of TRESIS as apolicy advisory tool.