Short Biography of Alan Joel Horowitz
Education
B.S. Engineering (Magna Cum Laude), University of California, Los
Angeles, 1970
M.S. Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, 1970
Ph.D. Urban Planning, University of California, Los Angeles,
1974
Research Background
Professor Alan Joel Horowitz is a transportation engineer and an urban planner.
His research spans the areas of travel forecasting, transportation benefits,
and social and environmental impacts of transportation policy. His
research has been widely disseminated in national and international journals
and has been presented at numerous professional society meetings.
Prior to completing his doctorate, he was a member of the staff of Technology
Service Corporation where he participated in air quality studies for the
Environmental Protection Agency and the Federal Highway Administration.
In December of 1974, Professor Horowitz joined the staff of General Motors
Research Laboratories. While there he served as principal investigator
of the "Transportation Systems Measure" project and acted as the co-principal
investigator of the "Automobile and Cities" project. His research
included analyses of transportation impacts on residential location, development
of procedures for psychological scaling of time spent in travel, and fuel
efficiency of automobiles.
Since coming to the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee in January 1979,
Professor Horowitz has been continuing his research into values of travel
time, and conducting new research about urban trip tours, land-use impact
assessment, single-route ridership forecasting, trip assignment, subarea
focusing, ride quality of highways, intermodal passenger transfer facilities,
transportation benefits, freight planning, applications of GIS to transportation
networks, hazardous materials routing, and travel forecasting methodology.
Some of his more recent projects are listed below.
Quick Response System II
The Quick Response System II (QRS II), a popular travel forecasting model,
was created by Professor Horowitz under a contract with the Federal Highway
Administration. Enhancements and maintenance have been supported
through user fees. It is now in its 7th major revision, running under
the Windows operating environments. A 5-zone demo edition of QRS II can be obtained by
clicking here.
The General Network Editor
The General Network Editor, written by Professor Horowitz, is now in its
6th major revision, running under the Windows operating environments. GNE is the principal user interface for QRS
II . It includes
many concepts from GIS, such as layering, polygons, and link shape.
Particularly unique aspects of GNE’s data structure were communicated in
articles published in Transportation Quarterly, Transportation Research
Record, and Transportation Planning and Technology. A 100-link demo
edition of GNE can be obtained by clicking here.
Evaluation of Intermodal Passenger Transfer Facilities
This report, written for FHWA, is a distillation of opinion from a large
number of transit system users, transportation planners, and authors.
The report presents a cafeteria of methods for preliminary design, location
and evaluation of intermodal passenger transfer facilities. In some
cases methods were adapted from previous station, terminal or airport studies.
In other cases methods were adapted from multimodal transportation planning.
The full text and graphics of this report can be obtained by clicking here.
Quick Response Freight Manual
UWM (under Professor Horowitz’s direction) teamed with Cambridge Systematics
to produce the Quick Response Freight Manual (QRFM) for FHWA. The
QRFM outlines a methodology to permit MPO’s to add a freight component
to regionwide forecasts. The QRFM provides default parameters, model
steps, calibration procedures, example applications, and sources of additional
information on freight data and planning. UWM also developed a training
program on freight forecasting, which was expanded under a separate FHWA
contract.
Statewide Transportation Planning Guidebooks
Professor Horowitz led a project for the FHWA that involved writing two
guidebooks related to statewide transportation planning. One guidebook
concerns methods of statewide travel forecasting. The second guidebook
concerns means by which land and economic development factors may be integrated
into statewide transportation plans. In addition, he developed a
short course on statewide travel forecasting.
Highway Capacity Concepts in Travel Forecasting Models
Professor Horowitz has pursued a line of research over several years on
means to better integrate the Highway Capacity Manual into travel forecasting
models. This research was initially supported by FHWA. This
research has included topics relating to (1) all-way stop controlled intersections;
(2) traffic assignment algorithms when HCM concepts are included in models;
and (3) critiques of the HCM from the standpoint of travel forecasting.
Research results have been published principally in the Transportation
Research Record. Professor Horowitz is participating as a consultant
to the 2000 HCM.
Measurement of Transit Benefits
FTA funded a recent project at UWM (led by Professors Beimborn and Horowitz)
to look at benefits of public transit in a broad way and to gain a better
understanding of how their measurement can be used to assist decision making.
Results have also been published in the Transportation Research Record.
Alan J. Horowitz's Web Page