Damian Stefanakis
Principal

Damian Stefanakis has 18 years experience in Transportation Planning and Travel Demand Forecast Modeling. Before joining Dowling Associates , he worked for consultants in the Bay Area on regional and national projects including model development, major investment studies, transit studies and planning projects. Prior to that he worked for consultants in South Africa and was involved in numerous transportation modeling and traffic projects, including metro rail studies for Johannesburg . He currently specializes in the development and application of travel demand models for highway and transit projects using many types of software, including EMME/2, TRANPLAN, UTPS, MINUTP and TP+/VIPER. He also has experience with application of the MTC Model for regional transit and highway studies, including the I-80 MIS, Fremont-South Bay Corridor and San Francisco Countywide Transportation Plan. Damian also provides model training to clients in the use of EMME/2 and TP+/Viper.

Professional Affiliations

Institute of Transportation Engineers Publications

Professional Experience

Travel Demand Forecasting/Planning

ACCMA I-880/10 th -16 th Avenue Ramps, Alameda County , CA : Mr Stefanakis was the project modeler for preparation of travel demand forecasts using the ACCMA Countywide Model for the PSR study. The model was validated in the immediate study area to recent counts and then after correcting land uses in the Port study area, 2025 forecasts were developed at key study intersections and mainline links for use in the operational analysis model.

State Route 238 / Foothill-Mission Boulevards Widening Study, Hayward , CA : Mr Stefanakis used the recently updated sub-area model for Hayward (a subset of the ACCMA model) to prepare 2025 forecasts in support of an operational analysis and engineering study.. During the forecasting effort, the model was updated to reflect the City of Hayward's most current roadway and land use plans, as well as to correct some erroneous inputs discovered during the work. Traffic forecasts were extracted at 24 study intersections along the 238 corridor for four alternative configurations including no-build, full widening, with and without I-580 flyover and a reduced right-of-way alternative.

ACCMA Model Update, Oakland , CA : Mr. Stefanakis was technical task leader for all phases of the Alameda Countywide model update, including network and zone disaggregation development, special generators, trip distribution and multinomial mode choice calibration, highway and transit validation and client training. The model was developed using the EMME/2 software with a 1990 base year and 2000 and 2010 forecasts.

MTC 2005 RTP Update, Alameda County , CA : Mr. Stefanakis is currently the project manager on this recent study to assist MTC with project evaluation, cost estimating and travel demand forecasts for the upcoming 2005 RTP update. Dowling Associates will be developing the project definitions and travel demand forecasts for three alternatives for the RTP using the current MTC Baycast Model with ABAG Projections 2003.

I-580 Bart To Livermore , Alameda County , CA : Mr. Stefanakis was project manager for Dowling Associates task to produce the travel forecasts for the BART extension to Livermore Study. Various alternatives were analyzed for 2020 conditions using an enhanced version of the ACCMA EMME/2 Countywide model, including BART extensions, tBART extensions and Express bus. The study required adding significant network and zonal detail from the CCTA Tri-Valley Model into the ACCMA Countywide Model to ensure adequate walk and drive connection. The proposed HOV lanes on I-580 were also added. An important element of the study was ensuring that the San Joaquin commute was adequately represented.

Livermore General Plan Model, Livermore, CA: Mr Stefanakis was the project manager for the development of a new travel model for the City using the TP+/Viper software in support of the General Plan update and the EIR. The model is directly based on the networks from the MTC BAYCAST model and the new CCTA Decennial Model, having detail from both model sets. The networks were converted to the UTM coordinate system and conflated to the City's road centerline file using ARCVIEW. The City was divided into 349 detailed traffic zones, developed using the City's parcel layer. The remainder of Tri-Valley and Contra Costa County is represented by the 2,500 zones from the CCTA Decennial Model, and the rest of the MTC region by the 1,099 MTC zones.

Kern Council of Governments Model Update, Bakersfield , CA : Mr. Stefanakis was project manager for the update of the Kern Council of Governments (COG) regional travel demand model. The model software used is TP+/Viper. The project entailed updating and validating to a new 1998 base year, the use of GIS to develop walk access for transit and mode choice and development of 2030 forecasts, with on-site training in both model and software usage. One of the project requirements was to convert the trip generation procedure from a Fortran based application directly in TP+.

Livermore Studies, Alameda County : Mr. Stefanakis was project engineer on numerous studies in the Livermore area using the Tri-Valley Model to develop 2005 & 2025 forecasts for the SR 84 PSR, Isabel Avenue Interchange PSR, North Livermore EIR, the Livermore Initiative, Livermore Impact Fee and Vasco/Laughlin EIR.

Southern California Ozone Study, California : For the California Air Resources Board, Mr. Stefanakis compiled a detailed travel model database for the entire Southern California study area and then developed inputs for DTIM3 and BURDEN Air Quality models. Project required the knowledge of multiple transportation software, including Tranplan, Minutp, System2, EMME/2 and the use of Arcview GIS.

Sonoma County/US 101 Variable Pricing Study, CA : Mr. Stefanakis served as project engineer on MTC study to investigate HOV/Toll lanes for SR 101 in Sonoma County . He developed and calibrated a PC-based version of the regional MTC UTPS model using the EMME/2 software. This project required the conversion of the MTC home-based work and non-work multinomial logit mode choice models into a nested logit application with the addition of a Toll/No-toll subnest for the auto modes. The nested logit models were applied using FORTRAN application programs that directly interacted with the EMME/2 databanks. The mode choice was first calibrated at the multinomial stage for the base year and then with the inclusion of calibrated nested logsum coefficients they were used to develop year 2005 and 2015 forecasts to test up to nine highway HOV/Toll alternatives, including a rail alternative.

I-80 Corridor MIS, Oakland, CA : Mr. Stefanakis was project engineer on major corridor study for I-80 from Dixon in Solano County to the Bay Bridge in Oakland. He coded and tested up to ten transit and highway alternatives using the MTC Regional Model using the UTPS software on the mainframe. The highway alternatives included HOV lanes, auxiliary lanes, ramp metering and TSM. The transit alternatives included express buses from Solano County and BART extensions to Western Contra Costa County and Vallejo . All alternatives included extensive feeder bus systems. Mr. Stefanakis also developed a procedure to export the post-mode choice trip tables into the MINUTP software to develop peak 3-hour highway assignments on the PC and develop performance measures for evaluation purposes.

Fremont Subarea Model Development, Fremont , CA : Mr. Stefanakis was project manager on the initial development of a citywide subarea model based on the Alameda CMA Countywide Model using the EMME/2 software.

NOACA Commuter Rail Study, Cleveland , Ohio : As project engineer, Mr. Stefanakis developed and expanded the Regional NOACA TRANPLAN models in Cleveland to include a commuter rail mode. This required the enhancement of the nested logit mode choice models with an added commuter rail nest. The TRANPLAN models and FORTRAN routines were expanded for testing of year 2020 alternatives. Mr. Stefanakis calibrated and tested various coefficients derived from recent commuter rail preference surveys and similar projects.

I-10 Katy MIS, Houston, Texas : Mr. Stefanakis was project engineer on travel demand modeling tasks to develop forecasts of various alternatives, including toll lanes, HOT lanes, express buses, rail and park and ride for the I-10 Katy Major Investment Study. He used the Houston-Galveston Area Council (HGAC) EMME/2 model on the client's UNIX system.

Education

Graduate Diploma, Transportation Engineering, University of Witwatersrand , Johannesburg , South Africa

Bachelor of Science, Civil Engineering, University of Witwatersrand , Johannesburg , South Africa