Regional transport model: linking research, teaching and practice Research agreement between TU Braunschweig and the Regional Association of Greater Braunschweig

How must mobility services be planned when, for example, residential and business locations change? What are the effects of major construction projects such as the building of cycle paths, adjustments to public transport services or changes in mobility behaviour such as working from home? In order to be able to run through such scenarios, the Greater Braunschweig Regional Association has commissioned the development of a regional transport model. Technische Universität Braunschweig will now be involved in the project, but will also be able to use the model for teaching and research purposes. This has now been agreed between the partners.

Researchers and students at the Institute of Transport and Urban Planning at Technische Universität Braunschweig will use the traffic model to calculate further planning cases and future scenarios, focusing in particular on scientific aspects. The results of the research will be made available to the association. On the one hand, the regional association wants to further develop the transport services for the region in a sustainable way and, at the same time, support the TU in acquiring research projects in the region.

The institute is to identify new methodological approaches and evaluate the data from the transport model. TU Braunschweig’s own data collection will be used to continuously refine the transport model.

“We make our data available to researchers, and students can learn how to apply their work in practice. At the same time, we hope to gain new insights from the research, which in turn will be incorporated into our planning,” says association director Ralf Sygusch.

The TU Braunschweig, in turn, sees a high gain in scientific knowledge. “We would like to thank the regional association for supporting our application-oriented research and teaching,” says Institute Director Professor Bernhard Friedrich. He points out that, among other things, the research cooperation has made it possible to establish a position that is partly financed by the Regional Association.

About the transport model

The regional transport model can be used to map and calculate future scenarios based on current structural and transport data. It includes all modes of transport for the whole region, such as car and bicycle traffic as well as public transport and commercial traffic. It enables analysis and forecasting for various transport planning issues. It also serves as a common data base and planning tool for analyses, expertises and assessments on mobility in the entire region.