Dynamic OD estimation in congested networks: theoretical findings and implications in practice

In this study we analyse the impact of congestion in dynamic origin–destination (OD) estimation. This problem is typically expressed using a bi-level formulation. When solving this problem the relationship between OD flows and link flows is linearised. In this article the effect of using two types of linear relationship on the estimation process is analysed. It is shown that one type of linearisation implicitly assumes separability of the link flows, which can lead to biased results when dealing with congested networks. Advantages and disadvantages of adopting non-separable relationships are discussed. Another important source of error attributable to congestion dynamics is the presence of local minima in the objective function. It is illustrated that these local minima are the result of an incorrect interpretation of the information from the detectors. The theoretical findings are cast into a new methodology, which is successfully tested in a proof of concept