To support the development of a "Long term Transit Strategy" for Durham Region Transit, the agency embarked on an effort to assess benefits, costs and economic development impacts associated with development of rapid transit alternatives. Five types of solutions, and alternatives combinations, were considered: They were: (1) conventional transit, (2) enhanced transit, (3) bus rapid transit (BRT), (4) light rail transit (LRT) and (5) Transportation Demand Management.

All of these alternatives were specifically viewed as different ways of providing connectivity and access between the Region's municipalities and neighboring municipalities, including the adjacent Toronto area.  To address these issues, HDR/iTrans and its team used TREDIS in conjunction with other modeling tools to assess differences in economic benefits and economic impacts among the scenarios.

The multi-modal aspect of TREDIS (covering bus, rail and roadway car/tuck traffic) were used to examine productivity and income effects associated with long-term changes in overall worker job access, goods movement, road congestion reduction and mobility enhancement, as well as the business case analysis required for Canadian Transportation Investments.