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The paper presents various modifications of the Frank–Wolfe algorithm in the equilibrium traffic assignment problem. The Beckman model is used as a model for experiments. In this article, first of all, attention is paid to the choice of the direction of the basic step of the Frank–Wolfe algorithm. Algorithms will be presented: Conjugate Frank–Wolfe (CFW), Bi-conjugate Frank–Wolfe (BFW), Fukushima Frank –Wolfe (FFW). Each modification corresponds to different approaches to the choice of this direction. Some of these modifications are described in previous works of the authors. In this article, following algorithms will be proposed: N-conjugate Frank–Wolfe (NFW), Weighted Fukushima Frank–Wolfe (WFFW). These algorithms are some ideological continuation of the BFW and FFW algorithms. Thus, if the first algorithm used at each iteration the last two directions of the previous iterations to select the next direction conjugate to them, then the proposed algorithm NFW is using more than $N$ previous directions. In the case of Fukushima Frank–Wolfe, the average of several previous directions is taken as the next direction. According to this algorithm, a modification WFFW is proposed, which uses a exponential smoothing from previous directions. For comparative analysis, experiments with various modifications were carried out on several data sets representing urban structures and taken from publicly available sources. The relative gap value was taken as the quality metric. The experimental results showed the advantage of algorithms using the previous directions for step selection over the classic Frank–Wolfe algorithm. In addition, an improvement in efficiency was revealed when using more than two conjugate directions. For example, on various datasets, the modification 3FW showed the best convergence. In addition, the proposed modification WFFW often overtook FFW and CFW, although performed worse than NFW.

Authors describe a two-stage traffic assignment model. It contains of two blocks. The first block consists of a model for calculating a correspondence (demand) matrix, whereas the second block is a traffic assignment model. The first model calculates a matrix of correspondences using a matrix of transport costs (it characterizes the required volumes of movement from one area to another, it is time in this case). To solve this problem, authors propose to use one of the most popular methods of calculating the correspondence matrix in urban studies — the entropy model. The second model describes exactly how the needs for displacement specified by the correspondence matrix are distributed along the possible paths. Knowing the ways of the flows distribution along the paths, it is possible to calculate the cost matrix. Equilibrium in a two-stage model is a fixed point in the sequence of these two models. In practice the problem of finding a fixed point can be solved by the fixed-point iteration method. Unfortunately, at the moment the issue of convergence and estimations of the convergence rate for this method has not been studied quite thoroughly. In addition, the numerical implementation of the algorithm results in many problems. In particular, if the starting point is incorrect, situations may arise where the algorithm requires extremely large numbers to be computed and exceeds the available memory even on the most modern computers. Therefore the article proposes a method for reducing the problem of finding the equilibrium to the problem of the convex non-smooth optimization. Also a numerical method for solving the obtained optimization problem is proposed. Numerical experiments were carried out for both methods of solving the problem. The authors used data for Vladivostok (for this city information from various sources was processed and collected in a new dataset) and two smaller cities in the USA. It was not possible to achieve convergence by the method of fixed-point iteration, whereas the second model for the same dataset demonstrated convergence rate $k^{-1.67}$.

We consider one of the problems of transport modelling — searching the equilibrium distribution of traffic flows in the network. We use the classic Beckman’s model to describe time costs and flow distribution in the network represented by directed graph. Meanwhile agents’ behavior is not completely rational, what is described by the introduction of Markov logit dynamics: any driver selects a route randomly according to the Gibbs’ distribution taking into account current time costs on the edges of the graph. Thus, the problem is reduced to searching of the stationary distribution for this dynamics which is a stochastic Nash – Wardrope equilibrium in the corresponding population congestion game in the transport network. Since the game is potential, this problem is equivalent to the problem of minimization of some functional over flows distribution. The stochasticity is reflected in the appearance of the entropy regularization, in contrast to non-stochastic case. The dual problem is constructed to obtain a solution of the optimization problem. The universal primal-dual gradient method is applied. A major specificity of this method lies in an adaptive adjustment to the local smoothness of the problem, what is most important in case of the complex structure of the objective function and an inability to obtain a prior smoothness bound with acceptable accuracy. Such a situation occurs in the considered problem since the properties of the function strongly depend on the transport graph, on which we do not impose strong restrictions. The article describes the algorithm including the numerical differentiation for calculation of the objective function value and gradient. In addition, the paper represents a theoretical estimate of time complexity of the algorithm and the results of numerical experiments conducted on a small American town.

Since 1950s the field of city transport modelling has progressed rapidly. The first equilibrium distribution models of traffic flow appeared. The most popular model (which is still being widely used) was the Beckmann model, based on the two Wardrop principles. The core of the model could be briefly described as the search for the Nash equilibrium in a population demand game, in which losses of agents (drivers) are calculated based on the chosen path and demands of this path with correspondences being fixed. The demands (costs) of a path are calculated as the sum of the demands of different path segments (graph edges), that are included in the path. The costs of an edge (edge travel time) are determined by the amount of traffic on this edge (more traffic means larger travel time). The flow on a graph edge is determined by the sum of flows over all paths passing through the given edge. Thus, the cost of traveling along a path is determined not only by the choice of the path, but also by the paths other drivers have chosen. Thus, it is a standard game theory task. The way cost functions are constructed allows us to narrow the search for equilibrium to solving an optimization problem (game is potential in this case). If the cost functions are monotone and non-decreasing, the optimization problem is convex. Actually, different assumptions about the cost functions form different models. The most popular model is based on the BPR cost function. Such functions are massively used in calculations of real cities. However, in the beginning of the XXI century, Yu. E. Nesterov and A. de Palma showed that Beckmann-type models have serious weak points. Those could be fixed using the stable dynamics model, as it was called by the authors. The search for equilibrium here could be also reduced to an optimization problem, moreover, the problem of linear programming. In 2013, A.V.Gasnikov discovered that the stable dynamics model can be obtained by a passage to the limit in the Beckmann model. However, it was made only for several practically important, but still special cases. Generally, the question if this passage to the limit is possible remains open. In this paper, we provide the justification of the possibility of the above-mentioned passage to the limit in the general case, when the cost function for traveling along the edge as a function of the flow along the edge degenerates into a function equal to fixed costs until the capacity is reached and it is equal to plus infinity when the capacity is exceeded.

This article describes possible improvements for the simultaneous multi-stage transport model code for speeding up computations and improving the model detailing. The model consists of two blocks, where the first block is intended to calculate the correspondence matrix, and the second block computes the equilibrium distribution of traffic flows along the routes. The first block uses a matrix of transport costs that calculates a matrix of correspondences. It describes the costs (time in our case) of travel from one area to another. The second block presents how exactly the drivers (agents) are distributed along the possible paths. So, knowing the distribution of the flows along the paths, it is possible to calculate the cost matrix. Equilibrium in a two-stage traffic flow model is a fixed point of a sequence of the two described models. Thus, in this paper we report an attempt to influence the calculation speed of Dijkstra’s algorithm part of the model. It is used to calculate the shortest path from one point to another, which should be re-calculated after each iteration of the flow distribution part. We also study and implement the road pricing in the model code, as well as we replace the Sinkhorn algorithm in the calculation of the correspondence matrix part with its faster implementation. In the beginning of the paper, we provide a short theoretical overview of the transport modelling motivation; we discuss current approaches to the modelling and provide an example for demonstration of how the whole cycle of multi-stage transport modelling works.