The User Conference also served as a venue to train over 10 beta testers from local consulting firms, California Air Resources Board, and UC Davis’s Institute of Transportation Studies. These organizations tested the new model features and served as a valuable source of peer feedback to help with future model development.

The beta-test included a one-day training during January 2019 Model User Conference on SACSIM19, technical support as needed, and bi-weekly teleconferences calls to check in on testing progress and to address questions or issues experienced by the beta testers. Beta testers provided summary of findings from new features in SACSIM19 such as corridor and user fee pricing, AV/TNC mode share, and a new proximity buffering with respect to adjacent land uses. Beta-test group ended in March 2019 in preparation of April 2019 adoption of the 2020 MTP/SCS draft preferred scenario. The beta test group also served an initial pillar for ongoing SACSIM19 modeling technical support and building relationships within the local modeling community.