Every fourth year the Transport Authorities in Norway present a National Transport Plan. The ambition is to include all types of transport in this plan, and the last plan focused on the period 2006-2015. Traditionally, infrastructure projects in different transport sectors are evaluated using different transport models, different methods for measuring the impacts of the projects, and different sets of base data. To be able to compare projects in the rail, road, air and sea sectors, the Ministry of Transport and Communications decided to develop a common tool for all transport sectors to be used for evaluation of projects and policies. Based on this the Institute of Transport Economics (TOI), together with Molde Research Institute, were asked to develop a model system for travel demand in Norway. The clients of the work have been the Norwegian National Public Road Administration, the Norwegian National Rail Administration, AVINOR (AVIation NORway) and the Norwegian Coastal Administration. The Ministry of Transport and Communications has provided supplementary funding. A national long distance model (for trips longer than 100 km one way) has earlier been developed in Norway, and the last version, with 1400 zones nationwide, was completed and implemented in 2002. The newly developed regional model system covers trips shorter than 100 km one way. In the next National Transport Plan it will be mandatory for all the transport authorities to use the model, with common base data and assumptions. This will give a far better foundation for assigning priorities between projects in the different transport sectors in future Transport Plans than in the previous ones. This paper gives an introduction to the basic elements in the new regional model system in Norway. Some of the paper is based on a paper written in Norwegian by Jens Rekdal (Molde Research Intitute) and Anne Madslien (TOI) for the conference Trafikdage på Aalborg Universitet 2004. (Author/publisher)
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