When using the GENERAL=T option, Analyst Drive can accept general text format input files generated by the user. This option allows user flexibility in performing a dynamic estimation, but also requires more work on behalf of the user. The files the user will have to provide in this scenario are the input OD matrix, route choice probability matrix and dynamic screenline count file. If following the format provided previously, the dynamic count and OD matrix files of Figure 13 and Figure 15 can be easily generated, but the route choice probability matrix file will need to be generated from the user from the output of a dynamic assignment program similar to Avenue. The option to use general format input files requires that the user supply the parameters INTRVLS, ZONES, SCREENS and/or TRNCNTS which provide the number of dynamic time intervals (D and T), IJ zone pairs, and the total number of screenlines K and/or turning counts respectively. In order to keep under the Cube block diagram limit of 80 input files, the general format files must be included in a special control file which is itself an input file to the program. This special control file must be supplied by the user explicitly as there is no GUI to generate it.

An example of the control file is provided below in Figure 16.

Figure 16: General-format input control file for use with GENERAL=T parameter. This additional control file must be user-supplied for general dynamic estimation, and contains all necessary general format input files. The user may note that the example control file names for input files represent those produced when using the KEEPFILES=T option for dynamic estimation.