Examining the quality of synthetic origin-destination trip table estimated by path flow estimator

Path flow estimator (PFE) is a one-stage network observer proposed in the transportation literature to estimate path flows and path travel times from traffic counts in a transportation network. The estimated path flows can further be aggregated to obtain the origin-destination (O-D) flows, which are usually required in many transportation applications. In this paper, we examine the capability of PFE in capturing the total demand of the study network as well as individual O-D demands. Numerical examples are provided to show the effects of the number and locations of traffic counts on the quality of O-D estimates. The results indicate that PFE has the potential to correctly estimate the total demand when proper observations, in terms of the number and their locations, are provided. In general, the spatial distribution of O-D demands is difficult to estimate even when traffic counts are available on all network links.