Difference between TMIP-EMAT and EMA Workbench

The methodologies demonstrated in this toolset build on and extend the capabilities of the EMA Workbench, version 2. This document outlines some of the principal differences between these two projects.

1. TMIP-EMAT includes an automated meta-model generation capability.

   Many transportation planning models have exceptionally long computation times – requiring hours-to-days of computer time to generate a single model run. It is infeasible to run models like this enough times to conduct a thorough exploratory analysis directly.

2. TMIP-EMAT directly incorporates a database system for storing results.

   Although long term storage of results is not precluded when using the EMA workbench, persisting model results to long-term storage is left up to the user. This is important for transportation planning especially in light of point 1 above.

3. TMIP-EMAT simplifies the processing of outcome measures by using only scalar values.

   Although input measures in version 2 are processing in a pandas.DataFrame, outcomes generated using the EMA workbench are not currently processed in the same manner, to preserve the flexibility of outputs to include time series and array types. This may change in the future, as the capability of pandas to accommodate time series and array types as native cell types matures.

4. TMIP-EMAT provides documentation and guides with a transportation-planning focus.

   As it is designed to serve as a demonstration of the methodological approaches to exploratory modeling in transportation, the examples and guides provided may be more useful to transportation planners than the more general documentation available for the EMA Workbench. Moreover, the TMIP-EMAT includes an example built from a TransCAD model, to demonstrate the potential and provide a road map for integrating other bespoke transportation models.