Software Development For Travel Modeling

# Challenges in Travel Model Software Development

Travel model development presents a unique set of challenges in software development, including:

the need to interface with other software like land use models, dynamic traffic assignment, air quality models, and simulation
reading and writing large matrix datasets
teams including members throughout government, consulting, and academia, located all over the world
the need to recode estimation variables into application code, often between two languages
various programming skills levels of developers and users
statistical models that cannot generally be understood without training by a generic software developer
run times must be fast to satisfy customer needs
results must be replicable and stable, even while involving random number generation

All these challenges reinforce the need for the field to adopt software development best practices.