Objective of the Presentation:
Many states and local metropolitan areas are pursuing P3 projects in order to overcome the funding challenges with the purpose of building new infrastructure or rebuilding decaying highways. A lot of documentation has been developed over last fifty years in how to do traffic forecast for toll-free facilities but not enough information has been disseminated about the process of doing traffic forecast for P3 projects.
This presentation will concentrate in describing and explaining the differences in the requirements and expectations for doing traffic and toll revenue forecast for P3 projects versus the traffic forecast process for MPOs.
The presentation will be divided in the following parts:
• Definition and Goals: This part will summarize the general goals and objectives of a P3 process as well as the transportation planning process and how they complement each other.
• Stakeholders: Traditional traffic forecast done for transportation planning within an MPO process has totally different stakeholders in comparison with traffic forecasts done for a P3 organization. For example, traffic forecast done within the MPO process should meet all the requirements of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and it should be accountable to state and regional decision makers. In the other hand traffic forecast done for P3 organizations need to meet the expectations of local or private boards, bond holders, underwriters, rating agencies, insurance companies, and public entities such as TIFIA.
• Forecasting process: This part will describe the differences in the forecasting process of elements such as:
o Time frame for the forecast development
o Forecast period (25, 50, 100 years)
o Demographics
o Based model evaluation
o Procedures (trip generation, trip distribution, mode choice, assignment)
o Validation
o Forecast years (short, medium and long term) requirements
o Post processing adjustments
o Revenue optimization
o Peer review
• Sensitivity Tests: The section will explain the most widespread sensitivity test required by P3 stakeholders such as rating agencies, equity investors, underwriters and public entities (TIFIA office).