Dr. John Abraham to speak about PECAS land use and transportation modeling, March 7

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Software developer and economic modeler Dr. John E. Abraham will explore the PECAS model of Atlanta during a special talk on Thursday, March 7 at 11:00 a.m.

Sponsored by the National Center for Transportation Systems Productivity and Management (NCTSPM), the talk is free and open to the public. It will be held at the Instructional Center, Room 109.

The PECAS model is a a spatial economic forecasting model for the 20-county region. It forecasts development patterns, home and business locations, economic interactions and economic performance into the future

Dr. Abraham's presentation will cover the theory behind the PECAS modeling framework, the development of the PECAS model for Atlanta, the data used in the Atlanta region, the software implementation of the model, and the application of the model for the regional transportation plan. Examples from other PECAS models (such as San Diego, Baltimore, Sacramento, Oregon etc.) will provide additional context.

The PECAS model has attracted much interest because it is is policy-sensitive to transportation infrastructure, transportation services, land use regulations, taxes and environmental policy.

Dr. Abraham is the principal software developer of the PECAS system  and the co-author of the theoretical formulation. Dr. Abraham has 20 years of experience in developing and calibrating spatial economic and travel demand models. He has developed and calibrated models to provide computer simulations that are both accurate and practical for analyzing policy and scenarios. He is an expert on survey techniques for understanding preferences, measuring trade off rates, and predicting behavior.