Variational Bayes Method for Estimating Transit Route OD Flows Using APC Data

Route-level Origin-Destination (OD) flow matrices provide useful information for ridership forecasting, service planning, and control strategies development. Since directly observing OD flows via on-board surveys is time consuming and costly, many methodologies have been proposed to estimate route-level OD matrices from boarding and alighting counts. Passenger boarding and alighting counts are relatively easier and less costly to collect than OD flow data. Moreover, many transit agencies are now collecting large quantities of boarding and alighting counts on a routine basis via Automatic Passenger Count (APC) technologies, thus, providing the opportunity to estimate up-to-date OD flows on an ongoing basis. The focus of this study is on the use of large quantities of APC data to estimate OD flows for transit bus routes. Since most OD flow estimation methodologies based on boarding and alighting counts were developed before the prevalence of APC technologies, the value of large quantities of APC boarding and alighting data are not effectively utilized in previously developed estimation methodologies. In this study, a computationally efficient variational Bayes method that approximates the posterior distribution of the probability OD flow matrix is developed. In addition, a data-inspired simulation based evaluation is conducted to show that the estimates obtained are as accurate or more accurate than those obtained from competing methods when a single underlying OD flow matrix is assumed.

Language

  • English

Media Info

  • Media Type: Digital/other
  • Edition: Final Report
  • Features: Figures; References;
  • Pagination: 10p

Subject/Index Terms

Filing Info

  • Accession Number: 01641070
  • Record Type: Publication
  • Report/Paper Numbers: NEXTRANS Project No. 125OSUY2.1
  • Contract Numbers: DTRT12-G-UTC05
  • Files: UTC, NTL, TRIS, ATRI, USDOT
  • Created Date: Jul 17 2017 9:32AM