Quick estimates of travel time reliability: Analytical and numerical results

Research output: Contribution to book/conference proceedings/anthology/reportConference contributionContributedpeer-review

Contributors

  • Manwo Ng - , University of Texas at Austin (Author)
  • W. Y. Szeto - , National University of Singapore (Author)
  • S. Travis Waller - , University of Texas at Austin (Author)

Abstract

An assumption that pervades the current transportation system reliability assessment literature is that probability distributions of the sources of uncertainty (i.e. road capacities and travel demand) are known explicitly. However, this distribution may be unavailable (inaccurate) in reality as we may have no (insufficient) data to calibrate the distribution. We relax this assumption and present a method to assess travel time reliability that is distribution-free, i.e. the methodology only requires that the mean values of capacity and demand are known and that they reside in a bounded and known interval. Moreover, the proposed methodology eliminates the need to specify the dependence structure among the random variables. Instead of deriving exact probabilities on travel times exceeding certain thresholds via computationally intensive methods, we develop analytical probability inequalities to quickly obtain bounds on the desired probability. Numerical experiments demonstrate that the derived bounds are nontrivial for the most interesting cases.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 14th HKSTS International Conference
Pages337-346
Number of pages10
Publication statusPublished - 2009
Peer-reviewedYes
Externally publishedYes

Publication series

SeriesProceedings of the HKSTS International Conference: Transportation and Geography
Volume1

Conference

Title14th HKSTS International Conference: Transportation and Geography
Duration10 - 12 December 2009
CityKowloon
CountryHong Kong

External IDs

ORCID /0000-0002-2939-2090/work/141543850

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas