Common models for disease spread modelling are usually aggregated, with population heterogeneities ignored. These heterogeneities typically include:

• Spatial distributions of population size and density
• Population age structure
• Age-specific mixing
• Size and composition of households
• Travel and out-of-home activity participation patterns.

Household-based agent/activity-based microsimulation (ABM) models of daily out-of-home activity and travel such as the Travel/Activity Scheduler for Household Agents (TASHA) provide the potential to address all of these concerns.

In this study, a version of TASHA transferred to Sydney, Australia by researchers at the University of New South Wales is integrated with a SIR-style model of disease spread calibrated for the Sydney Greater Metropolitan Area (GMA) to investigate the likely efficacy of different control strategies for containing the spread of COVID-19.

This presentation describes the integrated model structure, discusses the calibration of the SIR model using methods for large model system calibration developed by the study team and then presents preliminary results from application of the calibrated model testing various control strategies in the Sydney GMA context.

Eric J. Miller is  Director of the University of Toronto Transportation Research Institute, Research Director of the Data Management and Travel Modelling Groups, and Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Toronto.

He is Past Chair of the U.S. Transportation Research Board (TRB) Committee on Travel Behavior and Values, Member Emeritus of the TRB Transportation Demand Forecasting Committee and Past Chair of the International Association for Travel Behaviour Research (IATBR). He served on the US National Academy of Sciences Committee for Determination of the State of the Practice in Metropolitan Area Travel Forecasting. He has chaired or been a member of numerous travel demand modelling peer review panels throughout North America.

He is the recipient of the 2009 Wilbur S. Smith Distinguished Educator Award from the Institute of Transportation Engineers, the inaugural winner of the University of British Columbia Margolese National Design for Living Award (2012) and recipient of the 2018 IATBR Lifetime Achievement Award.

Miller is the developer of GTAModel, an advanced regional travel demand modeling system used by municipalities in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) to forecast travel demand that is based on TASHA, a state-of-the-art agent-based microsimulation model of activity and travel, and ILUTE, an integrated land use-transportation model system for the GTA.

Join online via Bb Collaborate: https://ca.bbcollab.com/guest/8f518cadf81b4865b80abd9465cf23ba

Presented by University of Toronto ITE Student Chapter, UT-ITE. All welcome.