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European Association of Activity-Based Modeling

What

Activity-based models provide a comprehensive description of the activities undertaken by individuals, specifying who performs them, when and where they occur, their duration, the people involved, and the travel choices made to reach these activities. Activity-based models are built upon a synthetic population that accurately represents the actual population of a region or an entire country. These models incorporate daily activity patterns that are customized to match each synthetic individual’s unique profile.

Such a comprehensive and temporally dynamic model enables researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to assess not only alternative transportation infrastructure and policy scenarios but also provides a foundation for expanding its use to other areas, such as analysing electricity demand.

Why

The insight that activity-based modelling approaches are better suited to address many existing transport, mobility, and wider behavioural modelling challenges and shape the future of activity patterns and lifestyles is well established among researchers.

However, despite a strong scientific foundation and the availability of software tools for implementing these models, they are still rarely used in European planning practices.

Round circle with tiny people: pedestrians in the street, a diverse collection of small hand drawn men and women walking through the city

Our vision

Activity-based modelling approaches are established in planning practice, teaching, and science as the state-of-the-art, credible, usable, and reproducible method to describe behaviours, including travel demand, and evaluate transport policies in Europe.

Professionals and the public are informed about the body of knowledge on activity-based demand modelling, particularly best practices, the abilities of this approach, but also its limitations, through the open, collaborative, and transparent exchange of ideas.

Our mission

Open and collaborative exchange

Through open and collaborative exchange between science, industry, and policymakers, the EAABM facilitates the development and application of planning tools that appropriately address transport, mobility, and broader behavioural challenges and opportunities of the 21st century.

Transparent information

The EAABM supports establishing activity-based demand models by transparently informing readers about the advantages, challenges, and experiences of such implementations in practical contexts.

Knowledge building

The EAABM serves as a platform to support knowledge building as part of academic curricula and continuing education and enables cooperation among university lecturers and practitioners.

Exchange between practice and research

The EAABM actively fosters collaboration between practitioners and academics by hosting dedicated workshops at various conferences and venues and maintaining strong connections with related organizations such as Zephyr and MATSim.