Estimating Path Choice Models through Floating Car Data

The path choice models play a key role in transportation engineering, especially when coupled with an assignment procedure allowing link flows to be obtained. Their implementation could be complex and resource-consuming. In particular, such a task consists of several stages, including (1) the collection of a large set of data from surveys to infer users’ path choices and (2) the definition of a model able to reproduce users’ choice behaviors. Nowadays, stage (1) can be improved using floating car data (FCD), which allow one to obtain a reliable dataset of paths. In relation to stage (2), different structures of models are available; however, a compromise has to be found between the model’s ability to reproduce the observed paths (including the ability to forecast the future path choices) and its applicability in real contexts (in addition to guaranteeing the robustness of the assignment procedure). Therefore, the aim of this paper is to explore the opportunities offered by FCD to calibrate a path/route choice model to be included in a general procedure for scenario assessment. The proposed methodology is applied to passenger and freight transport case studies. Significant results are obtained showing the opportunities offered by FCD in supporting path choice simulation. Moreover, the characteristics of the model make it easily applicable and exportable to other contexts.