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Linear and nonlinear estimators of the O-D matrix

University of British Columbia

The general objective of this work is to construct, test and apply a method of estimating a matrix of passenger trips between origins and destinations (0-D) from existing data and without recourse to a survey. This objective is attained in five steps. First, it is shown that existing 0-D survey methods are expensive, cumbersome and unreliable. Then, three families of models are hypothesized to estimate the 0-D matrix from the traffic volumes observed on highway links; these are nonlinear, linear and sequential models. The third step selects the nonlinear class of models, which are estimated and systematically tested on a variety of data, including data for Canada as a whole. Here it is shown that these estimates give good approximations of the 0-D matrix together with reasonable parameters. Given the construction of the first intercity car and bus 0-D matrices for Canada, a fourth step uses these data to estimate what seems to be the first complete intercity multimodal passenger travel demand model for the entire country. This model is shown to be a special case of a more general and "flexible" model, which is in turn estimated and analysed from several points of view. In the empirical parts of the work, likelihood ratio tests are used throughout and families of models are hierarchically nested, leading to a natural framework for the evaluation of successive restrictions on the most general formulations. Efficient algorithms are developed which permit the estimation of large and complex models on extensive datasets.

Text

2010-03-02

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/21314

Geography

University of British Columbia

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