The route analysis tools optimize delivery routes and minimize logistics costs. These tools ensure the flow of an efficient fleet to stay competitive. The routing manager and logistics features are also excellent tools. I've found it's as fun to complain about it as it is to learn something new about it, which is why I started this blog.3 Route Your Companies Fleet with TransModeler and TransCAD I'm good at sounding like an idiot when I talk about TransCAD and modeling cause I only kinda get what I am talking about. I once gave a presentation on the four step modeling process to a statewide group of TransCAD users and didn't include Trip Distribution as a step (It wasn't a joke either, I just didn't know what I was talking about) I often pace around the room when I'm waiting to see if a model will run successfully.
I've never built a model but I can appreciate an intuitive interface. I wouldn't call those five years of advanced practice however as I've wasted more time than I'd like to admit trying to figure out things like transposing and adding matrices or figuring our what REALLY the difference is between Production-Attraction and Origin-Destination.Ī couple other facts about me and TransCAD: I have been using TransCAD for about five years. We are all here to learn.and then bitch about how it doesn't work!Ī bit about me. It doesn't matter if you need help changing the colors on a line layer or if you can't figure out why your Vehicle Miles Travled tripled for no reason and you want some help trouble shooting.
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So feel free to blurt out anything you want at any time. Those who have been working with travel models and TransCAD for a long time have a tendency to forget what it was like when they were learning and how foreign this stuff can sound. When I say ask questions I mean REAL questions, any questions. Secondly, it's important that there is a place where users of vastly different levels of experience can share in a love/hate relationship with our friend, TransCAD.
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That is to be expected, though, when you combine a complicated proprietary software with extremely large and complex files and spread it across a variety of users ranging from programmers to planners and with vastly different levels of experience.įor one, we are here to have fun and share stories, vent, and if we get bored, even talk about work (but lets hope not). It is a powerful tool which provides valuable information to decision makers about the transportation system. TransCAD is a fully integrated travel modeling and GIS software widely used by transportation planners around the world. No wonder I was having so much trouble getting the routes to display where I wanted them.Įureka! Of course I have tomorrow off work in observance of Veteran's Day, and by the time Wednesday comes around I'll probably have forgotten the problem! Fuck! That would have made everything a heck of a lot easier. So, I think I was able to fix the stop problems but then I discovered that the additional part of the route that I'd inserted had this weird loop in it I couldn't get out no matter how I selected the route (shortest path or click segments) so that it.shit I think I just figured it out! My road network includes local roads for display purposes and when I created the. After 20 more minutes of staring at the screen I figured out that I could use the map editor to manually delete the points in the stop layer. Then I discover that the stop layer can't be opened with exclusive access so that the attributes can be changed. The bitch of it was when I saved the edits, I hadn't deleted the stop on the second pass which, for some reason, changed the pass count field in the stop layer to zero and created the evil. I was finally able to get most of the route altered by realigning nearly half of it.
While adding an entirely new route and deleting an entire existing route went off without a hitch I ran into a shit ton of errors when I tried to extend a portion of a route from a stop in the middle of the route along a perpendicular road and back. The transit route system updates were not nearly as enjoyable! I'm using TransCAD version 5.0 which I've found, in general, to be easier to work with route systems but I ran into some frustrating situations today. The road network edits were simple and straightforward, in fact, they didn't even involve any geography editing, just updating some attributes. Today I was editing both a road and transit network to reflect programmed projects in the Transportation Improvement Program.