What is QRS II?
Version 7
Quick Response System II runs the four-step planning process – trip generation, trip distribution, mode split, traffic/transit assignment – for highway and transit forecasting. Networks and data are entered and edited graphically using the powerful General Network Editor.
The Windows environment, with its buttons, menus and dialog boxes, permits fast setup of simulations, retrieval of results and data transfer to many other Windows applications, such as spreadsheets, wordprocessors and graphic packages. An advanced version of GNE also is available.
QRS II is a state-of-the-art planning package, which can replace UTPS, Planpac, and other similarly outdated planning packages. It can provide traditional region-wide forecasting, as well as site impact analysis and corridor analysis.
Among its advanced capabilities, QRS II performs equilibrium traffic assignment and stochastic multipath transit trip assignment. Dynamic and/or multiclass equilibrium traffic assignment is also available for highway networks. It explicitly considers the effects of traffic-controlled intersections – signals and signs – following the 2000 Highway Capacity Manual. Traffic congestion is fully reflected in forecasts of patterns of travel, as well as the presence of conflicting and opposing traffic. Default parameters are supplied, but can be easily modified, either in dialog boxes or in text files. Although QRS II is not specifically a sketch-planning tool, it does support the highly popular sketch-planning procedures found in NCHRP Report #187 and #365. QRS II provides an extensive range of methods for refining forecasts from traffic counts.
City of Rifle transportation network model using QRS II
Transportation models, by definition, are representations of travel choices made by individuals across a geographic area, impacting physical structures such as roads, bridges, parking areas, and intersections. Each model should rely on sound behavioral theory of how individuals make travel choices, often referred to as “user equilibrium.” The structure of choice sequences suggested by the model and the variables used in the model should reflect a logical process of decision-making that provides a basis for judging the “reasonableness” of model estimation results.