Origin–destination flow estimation from link count data only

Abstract

All established models in transportation engineering that estimate the numbers of trips between origins and destinations from vehicle counts use some form of a priori knowledge of the traffic. This paper, in contrast, presents a new origin–destination flow estimation model that uses only vehicle counts observed by traffic count sensors; it requires neither historical origin–destination trip data for the estimation nor any assumed distribution of flow. This approach utilises a method of statistical origin–destination flow estimation in computer networks, and transfers the principles to the domain of road traffic by applying transport-geographic constraints in order to keep traffic embedded in..