Efficient calibration techniques for large-scale traffic simulators

Chao Zhang, Carolina Osorio and Gunnar Flötteröd

Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, 2017, vol. 97, issue C, 214-239

Abstract: Road transportation simulators are increasingly used by transportation stakeholders around the world for the analysis of intricate transportation systems. Model calibration is a crucial prerequisite for transportation simulators to reliably reproduce and predict traffic conditions. This paper considers the calibration of transportation simulators. The methodology is suitable for a broad family of simulators. Its use is illustrated with stochastic and computationally costly simulators. The calibration problem is formulated as a simulation-based optimization (SO) problem. We propose a metamodel approach. The analytical metamodel combines information from the simulator with information from an analytical differentiable and tractable network model that relates the calibration parameters to the simulation-based objective function. The proposed algorithm is validated by considering synthetic experiments on a toy network. It is then used to address a calibration problem with real data for a large-scale network: the Berlin metropolitan network with over 24300 links and 11300 nodes. The performance of the proposed approach is compared to a traditional benchmark method. The proposed approach significantly improves the computational efficiency of the calibration algorithm with an average reduction in simulation runtime until convergence of more than 80%. The results illustrate the scalability of the approach and its suitability for the calibration of large-scale computationally inefficient network simulators.

Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191261516302831
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:transb:v:97:y:2017:i:c:p:214-239

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
https://shop.elsevie ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

DOI: 10.1016/j.trb.2016.12.005

Access Statistics for this article

Transportation Research Part B: Methodological is currently edited by Fred Mannering

More articles in Transportation Research Part B: Methodological from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().