The principal objectives of Trip Generation Handbook (or the Handbook) are:

• to provide guidance in the proper techniques for estimating trip generation, both person and vehicle, for potential development sites in urban, suburban, and rural settings; The techniques use data presented in Trip Generation Manual (or the Manual) and in appendices of this Handbook. The Manual presents the data; the Handbook recommends how to use and interpret the data.
• to encourage the standardization of trip generation data collection efforts; This Handbook is intended to facilitate the submission of data to enable further refinements of the recommended approaches as well as a more robust database. to encourage, support, and facilitate analyst ethics and objectivity in the use of Trip Generation Manual data. Although study preparers and reviewers may have different objectives and perspectives, all parties involved in the development of trip generation estimates should conduct analyses and reviews objectively, accurately, and professionally, and adhere to established professional ethics similar to the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) Canons of Engineering Ethics.

The instruction and guidance contained in the Handbook represent an ITE recommended practice. The guidance provided in this Handbook is structured to meet the following fundamental criteria:

• The recommended methods are compatible with existing traffic and multimodal impact analysis methods. They enable the analyst to estimate vehicle or person trip generation of individual land use types by direction, inbound and outbound, and estimate peak hour vehicle or person trip generation using commonly available independent variables.
• The recommended methods can be used now for all land uses and contexts utilizing current typical levels of effort for transportation impact analyses for projects needing custom trip generation data.
• All computations are intuitive to users (both analysts and reviewers) and transparent by way of documentation.
• The estimation methods can be applied wherever Trip Generation Manual data are used. Input data needed to apply recommended methods are readily available or the ease and cost of collecting and applying the data are reasonable.