Peter Brett Associates (PBA) is a multi-disciplinary engineering company with more than 300 staff, primarily based in the UK but also in offices overseas. With prestigious transport planning and modelling projects throughout the UK, Helen Bowkett, Associate, had long been on the lookout for a truly integrated multi-modal transport planning package to replace the tools currently in use.

When introduced to OmniTRANS in 2004, and after trying out the Matrix Estimation capabilities on a project in Brinsford, West Midlands (with help from Goudappel Coffeng) she was quick to purchase a licence and soon arranged training courses in the UK for both PBA staff and some external clients.

PBA’s first major project to be done using OmniTRANS is to build a multi-modal model of East Grinstead for West Sussex County Council. The objective is to measure the effects of significant housing development in designated parts of the town as well as the impact on junctions on the nearby M23 motorway.

The model was created using a Saturn Highway network, a TRIPS PT Rail network of SE England and zone boundary information from ArcView. To this was added link count data from multiple sourcesand local bus serviceswere coded directly into the new model.

"Although a lot of effort went into importing this data it was very worthwhile” said Helen, "It improved our understanding of the data and in turn the calibration of the model. For example, in terms of matrix data constructed from Road Side Interview Data we were able to handle easily complex and numerous datasets. By assigning each survey station its own matrix cube we were able to analyse the data for each site before aggregation into unified matrices for the study area".

Bus and Rail matrices received similar attention. Although the study area was extensively surveyed, there were the inevitable gaps in parts of the town centre where trips had not been observed. Matrix Estimation synthesised these missing trips.

Minnerva assisted PBA in this project

(Contact: Martin Bach)