The Transportation Authority is home to SF-CHAMP, the official travel forecasting tool for San Francisco. SF-CHAMP is a state-of-the-art, activity-based model that predicts future travel patterns for the city. This tool is used for many Transportation Authority planning studies and projects.
The SF-CHAMP model is one of several analysis tools the Transportation Authority uses. You can find out more about other tools on their respective webpages including:
- The citywide Dynamic Traffic Assignment model (DTA), which gives planners a more fine-grained view of transportation system performance as well as a better understanding of the how-and-why of traffic routing itself around San Francisco. DTA is an intermediate-scale simulation of both autos and transit vehicles
- Cycletracks, our iPhone and Android apps for recording and mapping real-time bicycle trip routes.
The Model Service Bureau webpage has information about using Transportation Authority models or data in studies or research.
This page contains information about:
ABOUT THE SF-CHAMP MODEL
The San Francisco Chained Activity Modeling Process (known as SF-CHAMP) is a regional travel demand model that is used to assess the impacts of land use, socioeconomic, and transportation system changes on the performance of the local transportation system. SF-CHAMP was developed to reflect San Francisco’s unique transportation system and socioeconomic and land use characteristics. It uses San Francisco residents’ observed travel patterns, detailed representations of San Francisco’s transportation system, population and employment characteristics, transit line boardings, roadway volumes, and the number of vehicles available to San Francisco households to produce measures relevant to transportation and land use planning. Using future year transportation, land use, and socioeconomic inputs, the model forecasts future travel demand.
The SF-CHAMP Model incorporates a state of the art approach to forecasting travel demand. This activity-based model is more sensitive than traditional four-step models to a broader array of conditions that influence travelers’ choices. One of the fundamental differences between the San Francisco Model and traditional models is that it is tour-based not trip-based. A tour is a chain of trips made by an individual that begins and ends at home without any intermediate stops at home, whereas a trip is a single movement from an origin to a destination. As such, the model structure is more complex than the traditional four-step modeling approach.
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from San Francisco County Transportation Authority Technology Data + Analysis
MODEL DOCUMENTATION
- Executive Summary (PDF) of original model design & development, circa 2000
- Model development documentation (5.5 Mb zipped PDF's), circa 2000
PUBLICATIONS AND PRESENTATIONS
- "Using Google’s Aggregated and Anonymized Trip Data to Support Freeway Corridor Management Planning in San Francisco"
- "Incorporating user based based perspective of livability projects in SF-CHAMP mode choice models"
- "Trip Rates and Accessibility"
- "Achieving Goals of San Francisco, California, for Greenhouse Gas Reductions in Transportation Sector"
- "Inclusion of Regional Transit Emissions in Local Greenhouse Gas Inventories"
- "Incorporating crowding into the San Francisco activity-based travel model"
- "Development of Microsimulation Activity-Based Model for San Francisco: Destination and Mode Choice Models"
- "A GPS-based bicycle route choice model for San Francisco, California" (PDF)
- "Bicycle Route Choice Data Collection Using GPS-Enabled Smartphones" (PDF)
- "Exploring Parking Pricing for Congestion Management using the SFCTA Activity-based regional pricing model" (PDF)
- "Evaluating Regional Pricing Strategies in San Francisco-Appliciation of the SFCTA Activity-based regional pricing model" (PDF)
- "Application of a Travel Demand Microsimulation Model for Equity Analysis" (PDF)
- "The San Francisco Model in Practice" (PDF)
- "Systematic Investigation of Variability due to Random Simulation Error in an Activity-Based Microsimulation Forecasting Model" (PDF)
- "Analysis of New Starts Project by Using Tour-Based Model of San Francisco, California" (PDF)
- "Modeling Time-of-Day Choice in Context of Tour- and Activity-Based"
- "Development of Microsimulation Activity-Based Model for San Francisco: Destination and Mode Choice Models"
SF-CHAMP has also been profiled in "Modeling Time-of-Day Choice in Context of Tour- and Activity-Based Models" from the National Cooperative Highway Research Program's Synthesis 406: Advanced Practices in Travel Forecasting. (PDF)
Transportation Research Board (TRB) Conference Presentations
- "Implementing VMT as the LOS Replacement Metric in San Francisco" 2017 TRB National Transportation Planning Applications Conference
- "Using Google’s Aggregated and Anonymized Trip Data to Estimate Dynamic Origin-Destination Matrices for San Francisco" 2017 TRB National Transportation Planning Applications Conference
- "Forecasting Weekend Travel Demand Using an Activity-Based Model System" 2017 TRB National Transportation Planning Applications Conference
- "Identifying High Capacity Transit Corridors with the Emergent Network Modeling Framework" 2017 TRB National Transportation Planning Applications Conference
- "Using Google’s Aggregated and Anonymized Trip Data to Support Freeway Corridor Management Planning in San Francisco" 2017 TRB Annual Meeting
- "Developing Validation Standards for San Francisco's Citywide Dynamic Traffic Assignment Model" 2016 TRB Innovations in Travel Modeling
- "Transportation Network Management with Multiple Network Types" 2016 TRB Innovations in Travel Modeling
- "GTFS-Plus - Data Standard for Dynamic Transit Assignment" 2016 TRB Innovations in Travel Modeling
- "Forecasting the Operational Impacts of Bus Rapid Transit Projects - A Survey of Current Practices in North America" 2015 TRB National Transportation Planning Applications Conference
- "Assessing the Stability of Transportation Choices - An Investigation of Changing Travel Behavior over 20 Years of San Francisco Bay Area Travel Surveys" 2015 TRB National Transportation Planning Applications Conference
- "Quantifying the Effects of Modal Conflicts on Transit Reliability" 2014 TRB Annual Meeting
- "Creating CountDracula: an Open Source Counts Management Tool" 2014 TRB Annual Meeting
- "Measuring Impossible Behavior – How Do System Performance Metrics Need to Change When Using Modeling Tools with Hard Capacity Limitations" 2013 TRB National Transportation Planning Applications Conference
- "Modeling Every Hill, Bus, Traffic Signal, and Car - How San Francisco Collaboratively Built a Citywide Dynamic Traffic Assignment Model" 2013 TRB National Transportation Planning Applications Conference
- "Estimating the Traffic Flow Impact of Pedestrians With Limited Data" 2013 TRB National Transportation Planning Applications Conference
- "The Codebase IS the Deliverable: Collaborative Software Development for Modelers" 2013 TRB National Transportation Planning Applications Conference
- "Sharing is Caring: Creating an Open Source Counts Management Tool" 2013 TRB National Transportation Planning Applications Conference
- "Measuring Route-Level Accessibility - Applications to San Francisco Network" 2013 TRB National Transportation Planning Applications Conference
- "Analyzing Travel Demand Management Strategies: the Promise of Activity-Based Travel Demand Models" 2013 TRB Annual Meeting
- "Building the Technology Pot for the Stone Soup Method of Data Collection: Facilitating Cooperation in the Face of Scarcity" 2013 TRB Annual Meeting
- "Incorporating User Based Perspective of Livability Projects in SF-CHAMP Mode Choice Models" 2012 TRB Innovations in Travel Modeling (PDF)
- "Completing the Cycle" 2012 TRB Innovations in Travel Modeling
- "Modeling for Planners" 2011 TRB Annual Meeting
- "Exploring Parking Pricing for Congestion Management using SFCTA Activity-Based Regional Pricing Model" 2011 TRB Annual Meeting
- "Integrating the Land Use and Travel Model in San Francisco County" 2011 TRB Annual Meeting (PDF)
- "Incorporating Discrete Characteristics and Network Relationships of Parking into the SF-CHAMP Travel Model" 2010, TRB Innovations in Travel Modeling
- "A GPS-based Bicycle Route Choice Model for San Francisco, California" 2010, TRB Innovations in Travel Modeling
- "Evaluating Regional Pricing Strategies in San Francisco - Application of the SFCTA Activity-Based Regional Pricing Model" 2010, TRB Innovations in Travel Modeling
- "Bringing Activity-Based Models to Maturity: the San Francisco Experience" handout 2007, TRB Annual Meeting
- "The San Francisco Model in Practice" paperslidesvalidation 2006, TRB Annual Meeting
RESEARCH
We benefit from a wealth of basic and applied research in a wide range of fields such as travel behavior, decision science, behavioral economics, econometrics, computer science, traffic engineering, and network modeling. To the extent that we have an overlap of interests and available time, we would like to help any research projects along by sharing our perspectives and expertise as bleeding-edge practitioners, sharing models and data, and being a test-bed for applied research.
If you have something in mind that you think we would be interested in, please let us know: email data@sfcta.org. To see previous examples, feel free to browse our publications listed above.
INTERNSHIPS
We post modeling and Technology, Data, and Analysis internship opportunities to the Transportation Authority's jobs webpage. Internships generally coincide with school semesters and summer breaks.