Sensitivity-Based Linear Approximation Method to Estimate Time-Dependent Origin-Destination Demand in Congested Networks

Abstract

This paper presents a bi-level optimization problem to estimate offine time-dependent origin-destination (time-dependent O-D) demand on the basis of link flows and historical O-D matrices. The upper-level problem aimed to minimize the summation of errors in both traffic counts and O-D demand. Conventionally, O-D flows are linearly mapped to link flows with the assignment matrix proportions obtained from the dynamic traffic assignment, which is typically formulated as the lower-level problem. However, the linear relationship may be invalid when congestion builds up in the network, and a nonlinear relation between O-D flows and link flows may result. The nonlinearity may lead to a converged so..