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Long-range transportation plans, with horizons of 10 years or greater, often are viewed as a process for enabling decisionmakers to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of various transportation alternatives. This article addresses the reliability of forecasting transportation trends, using a project called Vtrans2025 as a model for discussion. Vtrans2025 is the state of Virginia's multimodal long-range transportation plan, begun in 2000 and scheduled for completion in 2005. Staff from various model agencies in Virginia were asked to identify key socioeconomic trends likely to affect transportation demand in 2025. The support information was expected to identify trends in four areas: historical and projected socioeconomic trends; relevant changes in public policy, legislation, and technology; freight projections and changes in market share; and passenger travel trends. The author discusses the types of data that forecast to 2025, rules of thumb for forecasting, a specific case study in mode choice, and using historical information to consider accuracy (from 1925 to 1950). The author concludes by focusing on the challenges to accurate predictions and by stressing the need to regularly update long-range plans as new information becomes available.
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