Transportation Modeling & Freight Planning
In response to the request of the Maltese Government to develop the National Transport Strategy (NTS) and Transport Master Plan (TMP), the Integrated Transport Strategy Directorate is to analyze all transport sub-sectors (land transport, public transport, maritime transport, and aviation) with respect to both domestic and international components.
The project will look closely at the needs of the country (including both Malta and Gozo islands), identifying problems and solutions to the mobility patterns for the short, medium, and long terms. Through the NTS, the Ministry of Transport of Malta will develop an overarching vision aimed at depicting where Malta is willing to be in the long term.
This exercise will consist of a first, fully comprehensive, and holistic look at all transport modes, including inter-modality of both freight and passenger transport solutions.
For these purposes, a National Transport Model (NTM) will be implemented to inform the strategic transport policy and provide an integrated transport assessment. The transport model will represent a well-structured update of the original TRIPS transport model developed by Malta in the late 1980s and early 1990s to support the Structure Plan (1992), an analytical platform that is currently obsolete.
The enhanced model will be used to test and appraise transport scenarios as well as provide transport forecasts which will be used to refine the NTS and develop the TMP for Malta. The model will inform Transport Malta’s strategic plans by delivering all needed outputs to inform more detailed/local or project-based models as input into the engineering design process, economic and financial analysis, and environmental assessment, including the monitoring process of current and future projects.
Transportation Simulation Solution
The complexity of the model, together with a large amount of data available, required a tool flexible and powerful to perform transport analysis at the highest level.
For this reason, CUBE was selected as the most-suitable simulation suite, given the robustness of its algorithms, the flexibility in customizing the model’s structure, and the reliability of the outcomes.
Save Time with CUBE
Thanks to CUBE, the time needed to calibrate the existing situation and prepare the model to perform forecasting analysis was 20% less than a BUA approach. Using CUBE, Systematica managed to customize the model’s structure, process data efficiently, and produce meaningful model outputs to inform project stakeholders. The model outputs were also used for the preparation of the Environmental Report and the Appropriate Assessment for the NTS and TMP.
CUBE Transportation Modeling & Simulation Software
Systematica used Bentley’s CUBE software to implement both road and public transport networks to Malta’s National Transport Model. Systematica used CUBE also for simulating the base year, while its partner INECO used it to develop a number of future years to generate short and medium-term metrics that enabled the selection of measures at individual and scenario grouped levels.
