Estimation of Link Choice Probabilities Using Monte Carlo Simulation and Maximum Likelihood Estimation Method

Studying the uncertainty of traffic flow takes significant importance for the transport planners because of the variation and fluctuation of temporal traffic flow on all links of the transport network. Uncertainty analysis of traffic flow requires identifying and characterizing two sets of parameters. The first set is the link choice set, which involves the Origin-Destination pairs using this link. The second set is the link choice probabilities set, which includes proportions of the travel demand for the Origin-Destination pairs in the link choice set. For this study, we developed a new methodology based on Monte Carlo simulation for link choice set and link choice probabilities in the context of route choice modeling. This methodology consists of two algorithms: In the first algorithm, we used the sensitivity analysis technique the variance-based method to identify the set of Origin-Destination pairs in each link. In the second algorithm, we used a Gaussian process based on the Maximum Likelihood framework to estimate the link choice probabilities. Furthermore, we applied the proposed methodology in a case study over multiple scenarios representing different traffic flow conditions. The results of this case study show high precision results with low errors' variances. The key contributions of this paper: First, the link choice set can be detected by using sensitivity analysis. Second, the link choice probabilities can be determined by solving an optimization problem in the Maximum likelihood framework. Finally, the prediction errors' parameters of traffic assignment model can be modeled as a Gaussian process.