Stefano Manzo

DTU Transport, Technical University of Denmark,

E-mail address: [email protected]

Investigating uncertainty in BPR formula parameters:

a case study

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ABSTRACT

Transport models are subject to uncertainty, which refers to the impossibility of modelling
with a deterministic approach. If not properly quantified, the uncertainty inherent in transport
models makes analyses based on their output highly unreliable.

Within traffic assignment models, the relationship between travel time and traffic flows is
commonly described by the BPR formula. Usually, the values for the BPR formula
parameters are pre-defined based on assumptions and practice. The study described in this
paper investigated uncertainty in the BPR parameters. Two dataset related to the Danish road
network, namely Mastra and Hastrid, were analysed to estimate parameter values from
observed data for three different types of roadways: highway, urban roads and local roads.
BPR formula parameter distributions were generated by combining non-linear regressions
with re-sampling Bootstrap technique. Latin hypercube sampling was then implemented on
the results of this procedure and the generated parameter vectors were used to implement
sensitivity tests on the four-stage model of the Danish town of Næstved.

The results clearly highlight the importance for modelling purposes of taking into account
BPR formula parameters uncertainty, expressed as distribution of values, rather than assumed
point values. Indeed, the model output demonstrates a high sensitivity to different parameter
values and type of distribution. This proved true for all the three types of roadways analysed,
highway, urban roads and local roads. However, different levels of parameters uncertainty,
i.e. different levels of spread around the mean values, were observed for the different roadway
classes.

Keywords: BPR formula, uncertainty, bootstrap, four-stage model

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1 INTRODUCTION

By modelling complex systems, transport models are subject to uncertainty that can affect all
model components (i.e. context, model structure and methodology, inputs and parameters) to
finally propagate to the model output. The main consequence of this inherent uncertainty is
that transport models do not provide reliable point estimates of modelled traffic flows and
derived measures. Instead, modelled traffic flows are better expressed as a central estimate
and an overall range of uncertainty margins articulated in terms of (output) values and
likelihood of occurrence, as suggested by Boyce (1999). Uncertainty analysis relates to how
uncertainty in each model component propagates to the model output and how to express the
model output as a distribution, so reflecting the overall uncertainty present in the model.

Within traffic assignment models, the relationship between travel time and traffic flows is
commonly described by the US Bureau of Public Roads (BPR) formula. The BPR formula
works as a link performance function; given free flow travel time, observed flow and link
capacity, it uses parameters to represent different relationships according to various types of
roadways and circumstances. Usually, the values for the parameters are pre-defined, based on
assumptions and practice. However, as for any other components of the assignment model,
the BPR formula parameters have inherent uncertainty. With respect to BPR formula
parameters, uncertainty originates from both the ignorance of the modeller of the true value of
the parameters (epistemic uncertainty) and the stochastic behaviour of the (true) parameters
itself (ontological uncertainty), which potentially vary by drivers behaviour, time of the day,
weather conditions, link characteristics, etc.

In transport modelling uncertainty literature a common way to quantify model uncertainty is

to run sensitivity tests on the model output by using inputs and parameter distributions, output
of stochastic sampling procedures. For this purpose, with respect to model parameters
uncertainty, random re-sampling techniques have been used, such as Jack knife in Armoogum
(2003) and Bootstrap in Brundell-Freij (2000), Hugosson (2005), De Jong et al. (2007), Matas
et al. (2011) and Petrik et al. (2012). The main advantage of these sampling approaches, as
compared to the more frequently used Monte Carlo simulation, is that they do not require
modellers’ knowledge or assumptions on the parameter distributions shape. As argued in
Hugusson, Bootstrap despite requiring more computations is likely to be a more efficient
sampling method than Jack knife, if only because, unlike Jack knife, it does not assume the
linearity of the parameter investigated. Bootstrap defines the parameter distributions by
recalibrating the model parameters for a number of model samples, also called Bootstrap
samples, which are generated from the original one by sampling with replacement.

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On the top of our knowledge, no attempt has been made so far to estimate uncertainty in the
BPR formula parameters from the analysis of observed data. For this purpose, we used
observations from two datasets, Mastra and Hastrid, which refer to the Danish road network.
Non-linear regression analyses, allowing calibrating the values of the BPR formula
parameters simultaneously, were implemented and BPR formula parameters were estimated
for three different road classes: Highway, urban roads and local roads. Parameters were
repeatedly calibrated on 999 Bootstrap samples, as in Hugosson (2005) and Petrik et al.
(2012), to generate parameter distributions. Latin Hypercube Sampling (LHS) procedure was
then applied to create parameter vectors of 100 draws each which were used to run sensitivity
tests on the transport model of the Danish town of Næstved. The use of LHS was required to
reduce the number of model runs for the sensitivity tests, due to time constraints.

The following section provides the reader a description of the methodology applied to
estimate the parameter distributions, including a description of the datasets used for the
research and of the Bootstrap sampling technique. The section 3, after a brief description of
the Næstved model, illustrates and discusses the results from the sensitivity tests run. The
conclusions from this research are included in the last section of the paper.

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2 METHODOLOGY

2.1 Speed-flow relationships

In transport assignment models the common way to describe the relationship between travel
time and traffic flows is the BPR formula, as follows:

 Flowr    Flowr'   



Tr  TFr  1      
  Capacityr  


where Tr is the total travel time on link r, TFr is the is the free flow time on link r, Flowr and
Capacityr refer to the traffic volume and the capacity of link r, Flow’r refers to the traffic
volume on the opposite direction of link r (relevant only in case of no separated lines), α and
β are the traffic/delay parameters, and γ represents the effect on speed reduction due to
opposite traffic in non-separated lane roads.

Suggested values for the formula parameters α and β vary according to the characteristics of
the network object of the modelling exercise. The traditional values for α and β are 0.15 and 4
although higher values, respectively 0.84 and 5.5, have been suggested (Zhao and Kockelman
2001). For Danish road system, values for α have been observed between 0.8 and 1.2 and for
β between 1.5 and 4, the larger the road the larger the β value (Nielsen and Jørgensen, 2008).
Hansen (2011) still referring to the Danish road system suggests a broader range of values,
between 0.5 and 2 for α, 1.4 and 11 for β and 0.05 and 0.2 for γ.

The available datasets, which will be illustrated in the section 2.2, do not include information
about travel time. Thus, the BPR formula was modified to express the relationship between
speed (instead that travel time) and flow/capacity ratio, such as in Nielsen and Jørgensen
(2008) and Fagnant and Kockelman (2012), as follows:

SFr
Sr 
 Flowr    Flowr'  


1    
 Capacityr 

where Sr is the observed average speed on link r and SFr is the velocity in free flow condition
in the link r. This transformed formula was used as specification for a non-linear regression
model implemented to calibrate the BPR parameters using the statistical software SAS.

It is important to stress that this approach has two drawbacks. First, it implies an
approximation. In fact, the speed is measured by local detectors so it does not reflect precisely

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the link travel time, which is instead expression of the overall link conditions. On the top of
our knowledge no attempt has been done so far to quantify this discrepancy. Second, the BPR
formula proves to be correct to model travel time only when the traffic flow is below capacity.
Indeed, when traffic flow reaches the capacity, in the figure 1 the point corresponding to flow
at capacity (FC) and related speed at capacity (SC) the BPR formula curve takes the shape of
the dotted curve on the right of FC. Instead, the observed traffic behaviour is tendentially
close to the pattern described by the bold line. However, in static assignment models BPR
formula is commonly used and accepted for practical reasons, among the others that in this
way the speed flow relationship curve is “continuous even beyond capacity and
differentiable” (Nielsen and Jørgensen, 2008).

Fig. 1: Assumed relationship between speed and flow

2.2 Mastra and Hastri dataset

In this study we used two datasets, namely Mastra and Hastrid, both referring to the Danish
road network. Mastra contains observed link capacity, flows and average speed by time
intervals of 15 minutes, referring to three different types of roadways: highway, urban roads
and local roads. Hastrid contains the same kind of observations but for highway network only.
Table 1 summarises the main characteristics of the two datasets while figures 2, 3 and 4
graphically show average speed plotted against traffic flow observations by link type.

Table 1: Mastra and Hastrid datasets description

Links Observations Capacity (average per hour)

Highway Urban Local Highway Urban Local Highway Urban Local
Mastra 22 6 6 12672 95520 3744 4275 1217 1576
Hastrid 11 3742 5443

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As can be seen from figures 2, 3 and 4, the datasets do not include many observations related
to traffic in congestion conditions. Besides, especially with respect to urban and local roads,
the datasets do not provide any observation for high flow traffic conditions. This, of course,
proved to be a relevant problem with respect to the estimation of the BPR formula parameters.
In fact, the parameters calibrated using the observations pooled by road class, summarised in
table 2, resulted not always consistent with what expected, especially for highway and urban
roads networks.

Table 2: BPR parameters (observations pooled by road class)

Parameter Estimate StdErr tValue pValue

alpha 0.067 0.001 91.206 0.000
Highway
beta 0.019 0.005 3.502 0.000
alpha 0.003 0.013 0.230 0.818
Urban beta 0.285 0.005 55.490 0.000
gamma 343,389 5,254,340 0.065 0.948
alpha 0.238 0.014 17.260 0.000
Local beta 1.262 0.032 38.978 0.000
gamma 0.189 0.055 3.468 0.001

For this reason for highway and urban roads it was implemented an analysis by link, to select
the links providing results, in terms of calibrated parameters, within the range of values from
the existing studies. Based on the results of this analysis, 7 and 3 links were selected for,
respectively, highway and urban roads; a new calibration was then implemented on these
restricted datasets providing the values summarised in table 3.

Table 3: BPR parameters (selected Highway and urban road links)

Parameter Estimate StdErr tValue pValue

alpha 0.672 0.053 12.755 0.000
Highway
beta 5.510 0.269 20.504 0.000
alpha 0.166 0.005 35.661 0.000
Urban beta 0.585 0.008 77.571 0.000
gamma 0.646 0.076 8.469 0.000

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Fig. 2: Mastra and Hastrid highway speed-flow observations

Fig. 3: Mastra urban roads speed-flow observations

Fig. 4: Mastra local roads speed-flow observations

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2.3 Bootstrap analysis
In order to produce BPR parameter distributions, the re-sampling technique Bootstrap was
used. Bootstrap method investigates the accuracy of an estimator θ starting from the initial
assumption of considering the original sample, originating θ, as the population. Bootstrap
consists in a three steps procedure. First, from the original sample of n observations a number
of samples are generated through (re)sampling with replacement, all samples containing n
observations as the original one. The replacement approach guarantees that each observation
in the original sample has a constant probability 1/n to be drawn and placed in the new
generated samples so that these, also called Bootstrap samples, differ from each other.
Second, the estimator θ is calculated for each of the new generated samples. Finally, the new
θ values obtained are analysed to infer on the accuracy of the estimator by using one of the
numerous uncertainty measures available from the literature (e.g. variance, standard
deviation, confidence intervals or percentiles).

It is important to notice that the Bootstrap method has two downsides. First, there is no rule
defining the correct number of Bootstrap samples to generate, although the number should be
large and in theory tendentially infinite. Second, the results are constrained by the quality of
the original sample, given that the Bootstrap samples do not increase the amount of
information there contained.

Using as original samples the selected link samples for Highway and urban roads and the full
sample for local roads, 999 Bootstrap samples were created and the calibration process was
repeatedly implemented for each of them. The resulting parameter statistics and fitted
distributions, based on Kolmogorov-Smirnov (K-S) test, are summarised in table 4. Also
Coefficient of Variation (CV) are reported and henceforward used as measure of uncertainty.
As can be noticed, the highest level of uncertainty is related to the values of the gamma
parameter, for both urban and local roads. Also the alpha parameter for the Highway network
shows a high level of CV. Interestingly, different parameters of different road classes resulted
to have different distributions.

Table 4: Bootstrap parameters statistics

Parameter Estimate StDev Min Max CV K-S

alpha 0.675 0.079 0.450 0.984 0.118 Lognormal
Highway
beta 5.510 0.385 4.246 6.796 0.065 Normal
alpha 0.166 0.006 0.149 0.183 0.035 Normal
Urban beta 0.585 0.007 0.564 0.610 0.012 BetaGeneral
gamma 0.651 0.093 0.418 0.970 0.144 Lognormal
alpha 0.237 0.011 0.205 0.284 0.046 Normal
Local beta 1.261 0.015 1.212 1.311 0.012 InvGauss
gamma 0.193 0.038 0.081 0.328 0.197 Gamma

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3 CASE STUDY

3.1 The Næstved model

The uncertainty analysis was implemented on a four-stage transport model of the Danish town
of Næstved. The four-stage transport model is an analytical framework that combines trip
generation, trip distribution, mode choice and trip assignment (see, e.g., Ortuzar and
Willumsen, 2011). Each model output is used as input for the model that follows, and the link
flows from the trip assignment are used as feedback for the previous stages of the framework.
The model is solved with an iterative procedures that concludes when the link flows reach
equilibrium, which usually corresponds to either the deterministic or the stochastic user
equilibrium state (for details see, e.g., Ortuzar and Willumsen, 2011). Given the wide use of
the four-stage transport model framework, results from this study are straightforward to
interpret and to compare with other literature and project results.

Næstved is a Danish town located in the southern part of Zealand, with a population of around
42,000 increasing to around 80,000 when considering the entire municipality, which has a
total surface of around 681km. The total number of trips over a 24h time interval is estimated
of around 88,500, 10% of which made by public transport through a network of buses
connecting Næstved to its urban area, as well as all major surrounding towns. In the Næstved
model, the area of interest is divided in 106 zones. The network is composed by links
classified as “highway”, “urban” and “local” which represent respectively around 3%, 5% and
92% of the total number of links. The traffic, modelled over a single 24 hour time interval, is
divided in two modes, private and public transport, and in two categories, home/work and
business. The model final output is based on 3 model’s iterations which only involve trip
distribution, mode choice and trip assignment stages; in other words the trip generation output
is kept constant and is not influenced by the travel impedance of the network. Due to the
small size of the town of Næstved, the network is characterized by low levels of congestion.

For this study trip generation, trip distribution and mode choice were considered uncertainty
free, whilst instead the focus was on the assignment model that is a link-based model solved
by the Method of Successive Averages (MSA) to reach Stochastic User Equilibrium (SUE).
The chosen route to travel by mode k between zones i and j is the one that minimizes the cost
of travelling, estimated at the link level and calculated as:

cijkr   l Lijkr   tf TFijkr   tcTC ijkr   ijkr

where cijkr is the cost of travelling by mode k from zone i to zone j using link r, Lijkr is the
length of the link r by mode k from zone i to zone j, TFijkr is the free flow travel time, TCijkr is
the extra travel time due to congestion, εijkr is the vector of residuals, and the ω’s are the

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parameters associated to the respective variable. The travel time/flow relationship is based on
the BPR formula.

To investigate on model output sensitivity to BPR parameters uncertainty, in order to reduce

the number of model runs due to time constraints, LHS procedure was applied on the
(Bootstrap) parameter distributions to create parameter vectors of 100 draws. Each of 100
draws parameter combinations was then used to run sensitivity tests on the Næstved model.
Table 5 below summarises the results from the LHS, so providing information about the BPR
formula parameter values variation domain used in the sensitivity tests.

Table 5: LHS statistics

Parameter Mean StDev Min Max CV

alpha 0.675 0.081 0.457 0.928 0.120
Highway
beta 5.508 0.357 4.529 6.353 0.065
alpha 0.166 0.006 0.153 0.182 0.035
Urban beta 0.585 0.007 0.565 0.606 0.012
gamma 0.651 0.093 0.459 0.916 0.143
alpha 0.237 0.011 0.209 0.267 0.046
Local beta 1.261 0.015 1.223 1.303 0.012
gamma 0.193 0.037 0.111 0.290 0.194

3.2 Results and discussion

The results from the sensitivity tests run on the Næstved model are summarised in tables 5, 6
and 7.

Table 6: Vehicle-kilometre (link)

CV
Total 0.127
Highway 0.040
Urban 0.249
Local 0.122

Results shown in table 5, which refer to the average vehicle-kilometer CV calculated at link
level for the overall network and by road class, demonstrate a relevant sensitivity of the model
output to the BPR parameters uncertainty, with a CV for all the links of 0.127. It is worth to
notice that, by running the model with the SUE approach but assuming no uncertainty in the
BPR parameters, the model uncertainty is equal to 0.059. Urban road links show the highest
level of uncertainty, followed by local links, probably due to the higher number of route
choice alternatives that both networks offer as compared to the highway network.

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Table 7: Vehicle-kilometre

Mean St Dev CV Distribution

Total 2,737,578 2,415 0.001 Gamma
Highway 694,335 15,320 0.022 Logistic
Urban 411,553 11,469 0.028 Loglogistic
Local 1,631,690 8,832 0.005 Logistic

Table 8: Network travel resistance

Mean St Dev CV
Free time 2,754,855 4,391 0.001
Cong time 37,048 4,818 0.130

As shown in table 6, the uncertainty related to the overall amount of vehicle-kilometre output
is small, with a CV of 0.001. This is probably due to the low levels of congestion in the
network. In fact, if in one hand a small variation of number of trips may cause a noticeable
change in vehicle-kilometre at link based level, as discussed above, on the other hand in terms
of total amount of traffic it does not. However, also in this case different road classes have
different sensitivity to BPR parameters uncertainty, with urban roads and highway showing a
similar and higher CV as compared to local roads. The sensitivity tests also demonstrated a
relevant sensitivity of the model in terms of modelled congested time whose CV, as shown in
table 7, was equal to 0.130.

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4 CONCLUSIONS

The model output analyzed were (i) vehicle-kilometre on single links and overall network and
(ii) travel resistance within the network. The results clearly highlight the importance for
modelling purposes of taking into account BPR formula parameters uncertainty, expressed as
distribution of values, rather than assumed point values. Indeed, the model output
demonstrates a high sensitivity to different parameter values and type of distribution.

Moreover, different road classes have shown different sensitivity to BPR parameters
uncertainty. This seems to suggest the possibility of developing a class reference approach for
uncertainty analyses of such kind, so advising further research on the topic.

The speed-flow data analysis produced different parameter distributions with respect to the
three different road classes. These is a result of relevant interest because it reaffirms the
importance, within sampling procedures, of defining parameter distributions (and mean
values) from observed data rather than infer them from assumptions, whenever it is possible.
Indeed, the parameter distributions (and mean values) for specific networks may significantly
vary from the standard ones suggested by the existing literature or imported from previous
studies. Thus, pre-defined parameter distributions (and mean values) based on assumptions
and practice may not be reliable for modelling purposes.

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