Generate Highway Files Tool

For a specified set of scenarios and output directory, this tool exports all of the necessary information out of the MHN coverage into scenario network highway files, which can then be imported into Emme for travel demand modeling. (The Generate Transit Files tool must also be run prior to any modeling, but is dependent on certain files created by this tool — as well as some other files generated from the Master Rail Network (MRN) in a separate procedure.)

The program coding_overlap.sas is called (via sasrun.bat) to verify that multiple projects do not reference the same link with conflicting coding regarding the number of through-lanes.

The program generate_highway_files_2.sas is called (via sasrun.bat) to apply all of the MHN's highway project coding and format the final files for Emme. The list file (generate_highway_files_2.lst, in the output highway folder) must be reviewed after the programs complete to ensure no coding errors were encountered. (These errors will not prevent this program from running.) This SAS program looks for the following coding issues:

• Replace links (ACTION = 2) without a corresponding link to draw its attributes from
• Links missing required attributes

A scenario-specific file of vertex coordinates (highway.linkshape) is also created by this tool, which can be imported into Emme to display true network geometry instead of simply straight lines.