TransCAD is a specialized Geographic Information System (GIS) software designed for transportation professionals, providing a unified platform for modeling, analyzing, and managing transportation systems. It supports multimodal transportation planning, including both passenger and freight, and operates at any geographic scale—from local to global. TransCAD integrates advanced transportation modeling methods with robust GIS capabilities, allowing users to perform demand forecasting, network analysis, routing, scheduling, logistics, and facility location. The software is widely used by government agencies, consultants, and researchers for travel demand modeling, scenario analysis, and decision support in transportation planning.

Key Features

Comprehensive Transportation Modeling Supports all major transportation demand models, including aggregate, macroscopic, disaggregate, activity-based, and agent-based models.

• Trip generation, distribution, mode split, and traffic assignment
• Market analysis, logistics planning, routing, scheduling, and facility location

Integrated GIS Platform Combines full GIS functionality with transportation modeling in a single software environment.

• Object-oriented, geo-relational data structure
• Native support for Esri Geodatabases, Access, Excel, Oracle, SQL Server, and Google Earth

Advanced Analytical Tools Provides specialized tools for multimodal network analysis and scenario management.

• Flowchart-based model manager for scenario creation and management
• Built-in relational database for large datasets and efficient geographic search

Programmability and Extensibility Fully programmable with Caliper GISDK scripting language and Python integration.

• Over 500 macro functions for modeling and GIS calculations
• Supports programming in Python, C++, C#, and other .NET languages

Parallel Processing and Performance Optimized for high performance with multi-threading and parallel processing support.

• Efficient processing of large models without practical limits on zones or network size

User-Friendly Interfaces Interactive and intuitive user interfaces for both technical and non-technical users.

• Flowchart interface for model development and application
• Scenario manager for streamlined scenario analysis

Public Transit and Freight Modeling Specialized modules for realistic transit system representation and freight demand modeling.

• Schedule-based transit analysis and assignment
• Commodity flow and truck movement modeling

Benefits

Unified GIS and Transportation Modeling Enables accurate, efficient, and integrated transportation planning and analysis.

• Reduces data preparation time and error risk
• Enhances understanding and communication of model results

Scalable and Flexible Handles projects of any size and complexity, from local studies to national models.

• No additional costs for large networks or datasets
• Suitable for a wide range of transportation applications

Enhanced Decision Support Facilitates scenario analysis and forecasting for informed decision-making.

• Supports evaluation of alternative future scenarios
• Provides transparent and reproducible modeling processes

Customizable and Extensible Adapts to specific user needs through scripting and integration with external tools.

• Enables creation of custom applications and user interfaces
• Leverages Python libraries for machine learning and AI