About

About the TF Resource

The Travel Forecasting Resource (TF Resource) will eventually provide a “one-stop shop” for research and practical experience on travel forecasting. This project came about due to a TRB research project designed to examine the state-of the practice in metropolitan travel forecasting. In the final report, Metropolitan Travel Forecasting: Current Practice and Future Direction, the committee identified many recommendations to improve travel demand forecasting, including:

  • A national travel forecasting handbook be developed and kept current to provide salient information to those practicing travel demand forecasting;

This suggestion was taken up by the forecasting community and this TF Resource will eventually be that handbook. There is much more information on this research project and the genesis of this web site in the Project Background section. 

Several transportation organizations have come together to guide the development of the web site and TRB is serving as the “secretariat” for the site. This means providing staffing, support to the volunteer, and contracting with the experts needed to develop the site.  A TRB standing committee was also appointed to provide the technical expertise to develop the website, including completely developing the first topic pages. Future topics will be developed with additional support from volunteers in the forecasting community. More information on the groups developing this Resource may be found on the Volunteers page.

We plan on achieving the goals by creating a one-stop shop for research on travel forecasting and related topics. With the support of the community we will go well beyond the library role. The site will eventually contain introductions to all aspects of travel forecasting prepared by the leading experts in the field, sample graphic, boiler plate descriptions of the modeling steps, case studies, and other very practical assistance.  Through the social media aspects of this site we will also provide a place for the community to share experiences, ask questions, and explore potential improvements to the forecasting processes. Our goal is to have a site and a community that will help you figure out if your model is dequate, what improvements you might need to make, how much they will cost, what is the value of making the improvements, and how your organization can approach improvements.

As the standing committee and staff were learning about the strategies necesaary to develop a site of this magnitude, we were given an analogy which has been part of our discussion since that day. Our development strategy is start with a cupcake, this version of the site, and then to progress through a birthday cake and eventually arrive at the wedding cake version. Megan Ellinger will go down in history for this very helpful analogy! This cup cake version has been developed solely by the standing committee, but future versions will be developed in concert with the larger community. The current and future development strategies are described in the Development Process page.

The development, vibrancy, and usefulness of this site are all reliant on the engagement of the travel forecasting community. There is a role for forecaster with all levels of experience, form all types of employers and all parts of the world. More information on getting involved may be found on Getting Involved page, big surprise.  An unfortunate fact of life is that an enterprise of this magnitude must have rules. We are trying to keep them simple and obvious. The intent is to provide a productive environment that respects many opinions and provides a great experience for the contributors and users. Our rules may be found on the Rules page (another obvious location.)

We have benefit from the many community based webpages that have been developed before ours. The references below were used in all aspects of the website development.

  • Wikipedia Introduction to policies and guidelines, Five Pillars, Policies and Guidelines, List of Policies, List of Guidelines, WikiProject Council/Guide, WikiProject Council/Directory, To-do List, web resources examined 9/9/2010 and later dates
  • Office SharePoint 2007 – Checklist Guide, Tips and Info
  • BBC governance
  • Citizendium, the Citizens’ Compendium charter, welcome, FAQ, Why Citizendium?, Fundamentals, Personnel, Request Account, Proposals, Article Mechanics, web resources examined 9/9/2010
  • Open Source Software Advisory Service, www.oss-watch.ac.uk, How to build an open source community, The Community Source Development Model, Community source vs. open source, The Projects, Why does a project need a governance model?, web resources examined 9/9/2010
  • The Wikipedia review, wikipediareview.com, general information on governance and posting issues on Wikipedia
  • Firstmonday, Peer-Reviewed Journal on the Internet, firstmonday.org, Vol. 15, Number 3, March 1, 2010, Identifying and Understanding the problems of Wikipedia’s peer governance: The case of inclusionists versus deletionists, Vasilis Kostakis
  • The Apache software Foundation, www.apache.org, How the ASF works, www.apache.org/foundation/how-it-works.html, 9/9/2010
  • Ubuntu, Code of Conduct and about Ubuntu Governance, www.ubuntu.com, 9/9/2010
  • CrisisCommons Wiki, Volunteer Starter Kit and Toronto – Thoughts for Infrastructure and Governance wiki.scrisiscommons.org/wiki, 9/9/2010
  • Helma Project Bylaws, helma.orgwiki/Helma+Project+Bylaws, 9/9/2010
  • OpenDS Governance Model, opends.deve.java.net/public/docs/OpenDS-Governance.html
  • Is something fundamentally wrong with Wikipedia governance process? Michel Bauwns, January 7, 2008, P2P Foundation, Blog.p2pfoundation.net/is-something-fundamentally-wrong-with-wikipedia-governance, 9/9/2010
  • Scaling Consensus: Increasing Decentralization in Wikipedia Governance, Andrea Forte and Amy Bruckman, Georgia Institute of Technology, Digital Library of the Commons, Indiana University, 9/9/2010
  • NASA Modeling Guru Posting Policy, modleingguru.nasa.gov/docs/DOC-1083
  • Digital Universe Project, FAQ, examined 11/11/2010

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