Spatial Transferability of Neural Network Models

in Travel Demand Modeling

Liang Tang 1; Chenfeng Xiong 2; and Lei Zhang 3

Abstract: Neural network (NN) models have been widely used in travel demand modeling in recently years. However, there are few studies
about the spatial transferability of NN models. In this paper, the spatial transferability of NN models in travel demand modeling, especially in
mode choice models, is analyzed. This paper first discusses the performance of naïve transfer when no data are available in an application
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context. Then, a NN model adaptation method is proposed using the classification adjustment weight vector when limited local data are
available. Using the 2007/2008 Transportation Planning Board—Baltimore Metropolitan Council Household Travel Survey data, five NN
models are built using trips within five areas in the Washington, DC, and Baltimore regions. Each of the five NN models is applied to the other
four areas to study spatial transferability using both individual-level and aggregate-level performance measures. The result shows that the
naïve transfer of NN models can perform very well between areas that share many similarities. It also indicates the transferability of NN
models is not symmetric. The performance of the proposed adaptation method is evaluated for different sample sizes of local training data. For
transfer between areas that have significant differences, the proposed NN model adaptation method can improve performance significantly,
even with a small sample size, compared to naïve transfer. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)CP.1943-5487.0000752. © 2018 American Society of
Civil Engineers.

Introduction
Travel demand models are important tools in the transportation
planning process, and they are used to analyze people’s travel
behaviors and predict travel demand changes in different scenarios.
However, these travel demand models usually need various data as
input from different kinds of travel surveys, like household travel
surveys (HHTSs), stated preference (SP) surveys, or global posi-
tioning system (GPS) surveys. These surveys are usually very
time-consuming and effort-consuming to conduct. For those re-
gions that want to do some transportation analysis but lack those
survey data, spatial transfer sometimes is a more practical and ef-
ficient solution than spending money and time in conducting travel
surveys and building local travel demand models. Spatial transfer
refers to the practice that applies a model to an area other than the
estimation context. Spatial transfer can save significant time and
money because it does not require any data from application con-
texts, or it needs only limited data to update the transferred model.
Because of these benefits, spatial transfer has become a common
practice when resources are limited (Rossi and Bhat 2014; Sikder
et al. 2013b). Many studies have been conducted to study the trans-
ferability of travel demand models, especially for the most widely
used logit-based models (Bowman et al. 2014; Ziemke et al. 2015;
1 (NNs) are one of the most popular CI models and have been suc-
Graduate Research Assistant, Dept. of Civil and Environmental
Engineering, Univ. of Maryland, 1173 Glenn Martin Hall, College Park,
MD 20742. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4138-1543. E-mail: liang@
umd.edu
2 eling. Hensher and Ton (2000) compared the predictive capability
Assistant Research Professor, Dept. of Civil and Environmental
Engineering, Univ. of Maryland, 1173 Glenn Martin Hall, College Park,
MD 20742. E-mail: cxiong@umd.edu
3
Herbert Rabin Distinguished Professor, Dept. of Civil and Environ-
mental Engineering, Univ. of Maryland, 1173 Glenn Martin Hall, College
Park, MD 20742 (corresponding author). E-mail: lei@umd.edu
Note. This manuscript was submitted on May 9, 2017; approved on
October 16, 2017; published online on February 10, 2018. Discussion per-
iod open until July 10, 2018; separate discussions must be submitted for
individual papers. This paper is part of the Journal of Computing in Civil
Engineering, © ASCE, ISSN 0887-3801.
Yasmin et al. 2015; Sikder et al. 2013a; Wafa et al. 2015; Bowman
and Bradley 2017). Based on data availability, people can use
different transfer methods. When no local data are available, naïve
transfer is the only available transferring method, which means
directly applying the model from the estimated context to the
application context without changing the model specification or
parameters. When limited local data are available, people can
use local data to update the parameters of the transferred models.
Different transfer methods have been proposed and studied for logit
models, including naïve transfer, transfer scaling, Bayesian updat-
ing, combined transfer estimator, and joint context estimation
(Karasmaa 2007; Xiong et al. 2015; Xiong and Zhang 2013).
Karasmaa (2007) studied the spatial transferability of mode and
destination choice models; both were logit models. Different trans-
fer methods (transfer scaling, Bayesian updating, combined trans-
fer, or joint context estimation) were compared using different
sample sizes, and the researchers concluded that joint context es-
timation gives the best prediction performance in almost all cases.
Detailed suggestions have been provided about how to conduct a
successful spatial transfer for logit models (Rossi and Bhat 2014).
In recent years, computational intelligence (CI) methods, which
are based on learning, adaptation, evolution, and fuzzy logic, are
more and more used in transportation fields. Neural networks
cessfully applied to travel demand modeling in different choice
dimensions (Shmueli et al. 1996; Sayed and Razavi 2000). Many
studies have been conducted applying NNs in mode choice mod-
of neural network models and nested logit models in the context of
a commuter mode choice problem. The results showed that nested
logit models are better at matching the overall market share,
whereas neural network models are better at predicting an individ-
ual’s travel mode. Cantarella and de Luca (2005) discussed how to
successfully apply the multilayer feedforward network (MLFFN)
to support travel demand analysis, like trip generation, trip distri-
bution, and modal split. Then, they built MLFFN models to analyze
transportation mode choice and compare with random utility

© ASCE 04018010-1 J. Comput. Civ. Eng.

J. Comput. Civ. Eng., 2018, 32(3): 04018010

 models. They concluded that MLFFN models may outperform
random utility models when the values of model shares are quite
similar. Xie et al. (2003) compared decision trees, neural networks,
and the multinomial logit model in mode choice modeling and con-
cluded that the neural network model gives superior prediction per-
formance in most cases. Zhang and Xie (2008) compared three
different kinds of models for travel mode choice modeling: the mul-
tinomial logit model, multilayer feedforward neural network
model, and support vector machine model. They found that the sup-
port vector machine model performed better than the multinomial
logit and multilayer feedforward neural network models. Research-
ers also applied NN in other choice dimensions of travel demand
modeling. AMOS, an activity-based microsimulation model sys-
tem, uses neural network models to model individual responses
to various transportation control measures, which is the travel de-
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mand management response option generator module of AMOS
(Pendyala et al. 1997). Transportation control measures considered
in the paper include parking pricing, improved bicycle or pedestrian
facilities, employer-supplied commuter vouchers, congestion pric-
ing and travel time reduction, and so on. Under different transpor-
tation control measures, a neural network model is used to predict
individual’s responses, which can be one of eight possible options:
do nothing different, change the departure time to work or school,
walk to work or school, bicycle to work or school, take a car or van
pool to work or school, take transit to work or school, work at
home, and other. Pang et al. (1999) used a fuzzy neural approach,
which is a fuzzy system using a particularly structured neural net-
work, to model the decision-making process of an individual’s
route choice. The proposed approach is adaptive to the decision
making of the driver, which shows the driver’s preference. Dia
and Panwai (2007) used neural network models to analyze com-
muters’ route choice behavior in response to traveler information
systems. Dia and Panwai (2009) then compared the performance of
neural network models to discrete choice models. The results
showed that neural network models perform better than binary pro-
bit and logit models. Longhi et al. (2005) used artificial neural net-
works to predict the growth rate of total regional employment at a
certain time. Mozolin et al. (2000) compared the performance of
multilayer perceptron neural networks and maximum-likelihood
doubly constrained models for commuter trip distribution. The re-
sults showed that NN models may fit data better, but their predictive
accuracy is poor in comparison to that of maximum-likelihood
doubly constrained models. Tillema et al. (2006) applied neural
networks in trip distribution modeling and compared the results
to doubly constrained gravity models. They concluded that neural
networks outperform gravity models when data are scarce. Shmueli
et al. (1996) used neural networks to predict the number of work,
leisure, and maintenance trips and total number of trips. Sarvareddy
et al. (2005) tried two neural network models, the backpropagation
and the fully recurrent neural network, for truck trip generation us-
ing vessel freight data. Zhou et al. (2007) explored the application
of backpropagation neural networks to travel demand analysis.
They first applied backpropagation neural networks to model trip
generation, trip distribution, and mode choice separately. Then,
they discussed integrated models that can be built in two ways:
a simple combination of separate models or a multilayer backpro-
pagation network model. Mostafa (2004) used neural network
models to forecast maritime traffic flows and compared the model
performance with the performance of the autoregressive integrated
moving average (ARIMA) model. The results showed that neural
network models generally perform better than the ARIMA model.
As shown in previous discussion, NN models have been applied
in problems like mode choice, trip generation, trip distribution,
route choice, and modeling travelers’ behavior under different
© ASCE 04018010-2
J. Comput. Civ. Eng., 2018, 32(3): 04018010
policies or traveler information systems. Many studies have been
conducted to compare NN models with other models, like logit
models, doubly constrained gravity models, and support vector ma-
chine models, depending on the application context. Sometimes
NN models win, and sometimes they lose. However, it is widely
acknowledged that it is a good alternative method for different
transportation problems because of its ability to work with massive
amounts of multidimensional data, its modeling flexibility, its
learning and generalization ability, its adaptability, and its good
predictive ability (Karlaftis and Vlahogianni 2011). Although many
studies have been conducted applying NN models in different
transportation problems, most of these previous studies focus on
the accuracy or performance in applying NN models to various
transportation problems. Few studies have been conducted to study
the transferability of NN models. One such study is Hensher and
Ton (2000). This study focused on commuters’ mode choice and
compared the generalization ability between NN and nested logit
models using SP data from Sydney and Melbourne. Naïve transfer
was used in the study. The researchers found that NN has prediction
ability comparable to the nested logit model and concluded that
there is no clear indication which approach is better. Another study
that analyzed the transferability of CI models in travel demand
modeling was Arentze et al. (2002). They tested the spatial trans-
ferability of different components of Albatross, which is a rule-
based model. Choice rules trained from Hendrik-Ido-Ambacht
were applied directly to Voorhout and Apeldoorn, which is essen-
tially naïve transfer. The researchers concluded that the overall spa-
tial transferability of the model was satisfactory, except for mode
choice models.
When studying model transferability, various assessment mea-
sures are used, representing three different aspects: model equiv-
alence between the transferred and local models, predictive
ability at either the individual or aggregate level, and sensitivity
analysis. Depending on whether one is assessing the performance
of the transferred model relative to the model estimated based on
local data, these measures can also be categorized as absolute or
relative measures. Rossi and Bhat (2014) gave a more detailed
summary of assessment measures used for evaluating model
transferability.
Through the literature review, it is found that few studies con-
sider the spatial transferability of NN models in travel demand
modeling. The few existing studies simply compare the naïve trans-
ferability between the NN and logit models with no discussion
about what leads to a NN model with better transferability. Addi-
tionally, there is a gap in how to update the NN model when some
local data are available. Although several transfer methods have
been proposed and studied, including transfer scaling, Bayesian up-
dating, combined transfer estimator, and joint context estimation,
they are targeted for traditional statistical models like logit-based
models and have not been used on NN models. No study has been
done to adapt NN models using available local data in travel de-
mand modeling. In this paper, the spatial transferability of NN
models in travel demand modeling, especially in mode choice mod-
els, will be analyzed. The paper first studies the naïve transferabil-
ity of the NN models when no data are available in an application
context. Then, a NN model adaptation method is proposed when
limited local data are available. In order to test how the proposed
NN model adaptation method performs for different sample sizes of
local data, the NN model adaptation method is evaluated using five
different sample sizes. Five areas in the Washington, DC, and
Baltimore regions are chosen to conduct the transferability analy-
sis: DC, Baltimore city, Baltimore County, Anne Arundel County,
and Montgomery County. The 2007/2008 Transportation Planning
Board—Baltimore Metropolitan Council Household Travel Surveys
J. Comput. Civ. Eng.

are used to train the NN models and conduct the transferability
analysis.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. The next section
introduces the NN models and the proposed NN model adaptation
method. The “Data” section introduces the data and some descrip-
tive statistics. The results of the spatial transferability analysis for
the five NN models will be presented in the “Results” section. The
last section concludes the main findings of the paper and discusses
several possible future research directions.
Methodology
Neural Network Model
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Different types of NN models have currently been developed and
applied, like feedforward neural networks, recurrent neural net-
works, radial basis function networks, and so on. In this paper,
one of the most widely used neural network structures is used—
the feedforward neural network (FNN), which normally consists
of an input layer, one or more hidden layers, and an output layer.
In FNN, information moves in one direction: from the input nodes,
through hidden nodes, and to the output nodes. In this paper, the
single hidden-layer FNN or three-layer FNN is used with the struc-
ture shown in Fig. 1. NN models can be applied to solve both clas-
sification and regression problems. For K-class classification
(K > 2), there are K output nodes in the output layer, with the
kth node modeling the probability of class kðk ¼ 1; 2; : : : ; KÞ.
For binary classification problems, usually only one output node
will be included in the output layer. For a regression problem, there
is only one output node in the output layer.
Input information enters the NN model through the input layer.
The input layer usually standardizes the input to avoid saturation
and facilitate the training process (Hastie et al. 2009). Then, the
hidden layer creates derived features Zm ðm ¼ 1; 2; : : : ; MÞ based
on linear combinations of the X p ðp ¼ 1; 2; : : : ; PÞ from the input
layer as Eq. (1). The derived features Zm then feed into the output
layer to calculate the target Y k as Eq. (2)
Zm ¼ σðvÞ ¼ σðαom þ αTm XÞ; m ¼ 1; : : : ; M ð1Þ
Y k ¼ gk ðTÞ ¼ gk ðβ ok þ βTk ZÞ; k ¼ 1; : : : ; K ð2Þ
where αom , αm , β ok , and βk = unknown parameters in NN models,
often called weights.
The function σðvÞ is called the activation function, where the
sigmoid function σðvÞ ¼ 1=ð1 þ e−v Þ is usually used. The function
gk ðTÞ is called the output function, where the softmax function
… However, these assumptions may not be true. For example, for
Output Layer Y1 Y2 YK
…
Hidden Layer Z1 Z2 ZM
…
Input Layer X1 X2 X2 XP
Fig. 1. Single hidden-layer FNN
© ASCE 04018010-3
J. Comput. Civ. Eng., 2018, 32(3): 04018010

PK T
gk ðTÞ ¼ eT k l¼1 e
l is usually used for K-class classification.
The softmax function can produce positive value of Y k that sum
to one. In application, the predicted class k would be the one with
largest value of Y k
k ¼ argmaxi Y i ; i ¼ 1; : : : ; K ð3Þ
When fitting the NN model, one needs to find a set of weights to
fit the training data well. In classification problems, cross-entropy
is usually used as the measure of fit
X
N X
K
RðθÞ ¼ − tkn lnyk ðxn Þ ð4Þ
n¼1 k¼1
where N = number of the training sample size; and tkn = true output
value of the sample n, tkn ¼ 1 if sample n belongs to class k, tkn ¼ 0
otherwise. The backpropagation algorithm is the most commonly
used training algorithm for NN models (Wasserman 1989).
There are several issues that need to be taken care of when train-
ing the NN model. Before starting training, the structure of the NN
model needs to be determined, which means modelers need to
decide the number of hidden layers and number of nodes in each
hidden layers. The three-layer FNN is the most commonly used NN
structure in travel demand modeling and has shown good perfor-
mance (Sayed and Razavi 2000; Xie et al. 2003; Zhang and Xie
2008). Therefore, this study will continue using the three-layer
FNN structure. Different numbers of nodes in the hidden layer will
be tried, and the one with best performance based on cross-
validation will be taken.
The second issue is the overfitting problem. The model may fit
the training data very well but have very poor generalization ability
if modelers try to achieve the global minimum value of the cross-
entropy RðθÞ. Early stopping (Caruana et al. 2001) is adopted in this
study to deal with this problem, which means that the model is
trained only for a while before it reaches the global optimum. Val-
idation data are usually used to determine when to stop because it is
preferred to stop training when the validation error starts to
increase.
The third issue in NN training is the multiple minima problem.
Because the error function RðθÞ is nonconvex, there will be many
local minima, and the final train NN will be quite dependent on the
choice of starting weights. A common practice is to try several
starting weights and choose the solution with the best performance.
Another issue is the imbalanced data set problem. If NN models
are directly trained on the training data set, there are two assump-
tions made (Provost 2000):
1. The goal is to maximize accuracy; and
2. The classifier will operate on a data set drawn from the same
distribution as the training data.
the mode choice problem, sometimes modelers may not care that
much about predicting each individual accurately and care more
about getting the overall market shares of different modes correctly.
Sometimes the target of interest is a minor class like bus and
identifying bus users, or sometimes the sample data are not
representative of the whole population. If either of the two assump-
tions is violated, the imbalanced data set may cause a problem that
needs to be handled. The imbalanced data set issue can be solved by
instance reweighting or resampling (Elkan 2001; Lin et al. 2002;
Du Plessis and Sugiyama 2014).
NN models can easily be used to solve transportation problems.
As mentioned in the introduction, NN models have been success-
fully applied in problems like mode choice, trip generation, trip
distribution, route choice, and modeling travelers’ behavior under
J. Comput. Civ. Eng.
 different policies or traveler information systems. When defining a
NN model for a discrete choice problem like a mode choice prob-
lem, one input node is introduced for each independent variable
(like sociodemographic variables, attributes of different alterna-
tives, etc.) and one output node for each alternative in the choice
set. On the other hand, when defining a NN model for a continuous
problem like trip generation, only one output node is needed.
Model Transfer Method
When transferring a NN model from the estimation context to the
application context, it is necessary to check the aforementioned two
assumptions. If both assumptions stand, which means that the goal
of the model application is to maximize accuracy and the applica-
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tion context is similar to the estimation context, the model trans-
ferability is enhanced. For the statement that the application context
is similar to the estimation context, it means that the data of the
application context follow similar distribution as the data of the
estimation context on different aspects, like socioeconomic makeup
and mode share. If both assumptions stand, a simple naïve transfer
can work very well, and it is the simplest way for model transfer
and requires minimal resources. It directly applies the model from
the estimated context to the application context without changing
the model specification or parameters and does not require any lo-
cal data. However, usually, the second assumption is violated and
the distribution of the estimation data is different from the data in
the application context, which will case a systematical bias. When
some local data are available, the systematical bias can be reduced
by updating the parameters of the transferred model using local
data. Previous studies have proposed several parameter-updating
methods, including transfer scaling, Bayesian updating, combined
transfer estimator, and joint context estimation. However, these
methods are targeted toward traditional statistical models like
logit-based models. No study has been done to adapt NN models
using available local data in travel demand modeling.
In the field of freeway incident detection, FNN models are
usually adapted through adjusting the output threshold value
(Srinivasan et al. 2004). However, this method is applicable only
for binary classification problems. For most travel demand model-
ing problems, there are usually more than two alternatives in the
choice set. In order to handle this problem, this paper proposes
a new model adaptation method for FNN models. The proposed
model adaptation method works for any discrete choice problems,
like mode choice, route choice, modeling travelers’ behavior under
different policies, or any other transportation problems with dis-
crete dependent variables.
Here, the classification adjustment weight vector is introduced
W ¼ ðw1 · · · wk · · · wK Þ
When predicting, instead of choosing k with the largest value of
Y k , k with the largest value of wk Y k is chosen
k ¼ argmaxi ðwi Y i Þ; i ¼ 1; : : : ; K
If the classification adjustment weight wk equals one, it is the
base case in which the k with the largest value of Y k is chosen.
When some local data are available, the classification adjustment
weight vector can be tuned to reflect the local characteristics.
Because only the relative values between those weights make
sense, any of the weights can be fixed to be one. Here, w1 is
assumed to be one; thus, the classification adjustment weight
vector is
W ¼ ð1 · · · wk · · · wK Þ
© ASCE
J. Comput. Civ. Eng., 2018, 32(3): 04018010
When wk > 1, then the classifier is more in favor of the kth class
compared to the first class; when wk < 1, the classifier is more in
favor of the first class. In order to prevent adjusting the classifier too
much in one direction and save computation time, upper and lower
bounds can be set when searching the suitable value of the classi-
fication adjustment weights.
By introducing the classification adjustment weight vector, the
classifier’s classification ability is adjusted based on the prevalence
of different classes in the local data, which essentially reduces the
systematical bias of the different data distributions between the es-
timation and application contexts.
Measures
In this study, the spatial transferability of NN models is measured
mainly based on the predictive ability at either the individual or
aggregate level. Some measures from previous literature about
the spatial transferability of logit models are used, as well as some
others that are more suitable for NN models. These measures can be
used to evaluate discrete choice models.
The individual-level measures assess the ability of the trans-
ferred model to predict individual-level outcomes in the application
context. Two individual-level measures are used in the study: the hit
ratio (HT) and overall prediction accuracy (ACC)
N pk
HTk ¼ ð8Þ
Nk
P
N pk
ACC ¼ Pk ð9Þ
k Nk
where N pk = number of correctly predicted individual observations
for choice alternative k; and N k = number of actual observations for
choice alternative k.
The aggregate measures assess the ability of the transferred
model to predict aggregate travel behaviors in the application con-
text. Three aggregate measures are used in this study: the mean
absolute relative error measure (REM), the root mean square error
(RMSE), and the relative aggregate transfer error (RATE). REM
measures the aggregate predictive ability of the transferred model
for each choice alternative. RMSE gives an overall measurement
for all choice alternatives. RATE compares the predictive ability
of the transferred model to the local model
PSk − OSk
REMk ¼ ð10Þ
OSk
P 1=2
k PSk × REM2k
RMSE ¼ P ð11Þ
ð5Þ k PSk
RMSEi ðβ j Þ
RATE ¼ ð12Þ
RMSEi ðβ i Þ
ð6Þ where PSk and OSk = predicted shares and observed shares, respec-
tively, for a choice alternative k; RMSEi ðβ j Þ = RMSE of the trans-
ferred model applied to the application context data; and
RMSEi ðβ i Þ = RMSE of the local model applied to the application
context data.
Data
The 2007/2008 Transportation Planning Board—Baltimore Metro-
politan Council Household Travel Survey (TPB-BMC HHTS) is
ð7Þ used in this study, which covers approximately 14,000 households
04018010-4 J. Comput. Civ. Eng.
 Table 1. Explanatory Variables
Variable Definition
Age Age in years
Income Household income
Lic Have driver license? (persons 16+)
Emply Currently employed?
Tenure Housing tenure
Workers Number of workers in household
Vehicles Number of vehicles in the household
Bikes Number of bicycles in the household
Opurp Origin trip purpose
Dpurp Destination trip purpose
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Time Travel time for each mode
Free parking Employer provides free parking
Share parking Employer and employee share parking cost
Subsidies Employer provides subsidies for transit or vanpooling
Ride home Guaranteed ride home available to employee
in the Washington, DC, and Baltimore regions (National Capital
Region Transportation Planning Board Metropolitan Washington
Council of Governments 2010). Representative households were
asked to complete a travel diary that documented the activities
of all household members on a randomly assigned weekday. Vari-
ous information was collected, including trip, person, household,
and vehicle information. In order to study the spatial transferability,
trips within five regions are used: District of Columbia (DC) and
Montgomery County (MG) in the Washington region, and Balti-
more city (BAL), Baltimore County (BC), and Anne Arundel
County (AA) in the Baltimore region. Trips in other areas and
cross-region trips are not considered in this study.
In order to build mode choice models, alternative specific var-
iables are required for each travel mode. However, TPB-BMC
HHTS records travel information only for the real-taken mode.
Additional information is needed to represent the level of service
for all alternative modes. In this study, travel time skim matrices
from the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments
(MWCOG) Travel Forecasting Model version 2.3 are used for
DC and MG, and travel time skim matrices from the Baltimore Re-
gion Travel Demand Model version 4.0 are used for BAL, BC, and
AA. Four travel modes are considered when modeling travelers’
mode choice decisions: transit, driving (auto driver), carpool (auto
passenger), and walk or bike, which represents the primary travel
mode. Travel times of transit, driving, and carpool are provided by
the travel time skim matrices. For walk or bike, travel time is esti-
mated using reported trip distance divided by speed. The speed is
exogenously defined as 4.87 mi=h.
Explanatory variables used in this study include age; income;
driver license; employment; housing tenure; number of workers
in household; number of vehicles; number of bikes; trip purpose;
trip distance; travel time for each alternative mode; and some trans-
portation benefit policies employers provide to employees, like free
parking, share parking cost, subsidies for transit, and so on. These
explanatory variables are summarized in Table 1.
Table 2 summarizes some descriptive statistics of the recorded
trips within the five study areas. DC and BAL are higher-density
urban areas, whereas MG, BC, and AA are lower-density areas.
Significant differences can be observed between the higher-density
and lower-density areas. For example, in DC and BAL, there are
many transit and walk or bike trips, whereas in MG, BC, and AA,
driving is dominant and constitutes more than 64% of the trips.
© ASCE 04018010-5
J. Comput. Civ. Eng., 2018, 32(3): 04018010
Values
Numeric value
1 = less than $50,000; 2 = $50,000–$99,999;
3 = $100,000–$149,999; 4 = $150,000 or more
1 = YES; 2 = no; −9 = not applicable
1 = YES; 2 = no; −9 = not applicable
1 = owned; 2 = rented
Numeric value
Numeric value
Numeric value
01 = home; 02 = work; 04 = shop; 08 = school;
09 = other; 11 = drop off or pick up someone
01 = home; 02 = work; 04 = shop; 08 = school;
09 = other; 11 = drop off or pick up someone
Continuous (min)
1 = yes; 2 = no; −9 = not applicable
1 = yes; 2 = no; −9 = not applicable
1 = yes; 2 = no; −9 = not applicable
1 = yes; 2 = no; −9 = not applicable
People in DC and BAL have shorter trips and more HBW trips
compared to other areas. Additionally, in DC and BAL, there
are fewer elders and a lower number of vehicles and bikes in each
household. More people in these two areas rent houses.
There are differences in some aspects between DC and BAL.
For example, BAL has many more low-income people, almost
30% of the total sample. This may be because BAL has the lowest
average number of workers per household among these five re-
gions. DC has more transit and walk or bike trips than BAL, which
may be because DC has better transit facilities and trips in DC are
shorter.
The three lower-density areas, MG, BC, and AA, are very sim-
ilar in many aspects like age, employment, house ownership, num-
ber of vehicles, number of bikes, trip purpose, trip distance, modal
share, and so on. Thus, models are expected to be more transferable
between these three areas because they share so many similarities.
Results
NN Model Training
The data of each area are first randomly separated into two parts:
80% for the training data set and 20% for the test data set. The
training data set is used for NN model training, whereas the test
data set is used to evaluate model transferability.
In this study, it is assumed that the goal of the mode choice
model is to maximize accuracy. For each region, the sample data
set is assumed to be representative of the whole population. With
these two assumptions, the imbalanced data set problem is not that
problematic and is not handled in the case study.
Before starting NN training, the structure of the NN model
needs to be specified, which means to determine the number of
hidden layers and the number of nodes in each hidden layer. As
discussed in the “Methodology” section, a three-layer FNN model
with one hidden layer is used in this study. In order to choose the
number of nodes in the hidden layer, different numbers of nodes are
tried, from 4 to 20. For each case, 10-fold cross-validation is used to
evaluate the model performance. In 10-fold cross-validation, the
training samples are first arbitrarily divided into 10 subsets. Then,
one of the subsets is left out as the validation data for testing the
model, and the NN model is trained using the samples in the re-
maining nine subsets. The process is repeated 10 times with each of
J. Comput. Civ. Eng.
 Table 2. Descriptive Statistics
Categories DC MG BAL BC AA
Sample size 8,968 6,355 5,114 5,620 4,521
Age <18 years 9.5% 19.9% 14.4% 14.6% 15.8%
Age 18–29 years 12.8% 7.4% 12.7% 8.8% 8.0%
Age 30–64 years 65.4% 56.2% 59.4% 56.2% 55.6%
Age >65 years 12.2% 16.5% 13.4% 20.4% 20.6%
Income < $30,000 10.6% 7.7% 28.8% 10.5% 8.0%
Income $30,000–$74,999 27.6% 32.3% 36.5% 42.3% 33.4%
Income ≥ 75,000 61.8% 60.0% 34.7% 47.3% 58.6%
Driver 82.6% 77.5% 73.2% 84.2% 84.8%
Employed 68.7% 54.4% 59.2% 54.0% 53.4%
Own the house 68.9% 83.5% 67.5% 83.6% 89.1%
Average number of workers 1.3 1.4 1.2 1.3 1.4
Average number of vehicles 1.3 1.9 1.4 2.1 2.2
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Average number of bikes 1.2 1.6 1.0 1.4 1.6

HBW 16.3% 11.7% 18.4% 12.9% 11.2%
HBSCH 3.6% 5.9% 7.3% 4.5% 3.6%
HBS 12.8% 18.5% 14.8% 18.1% 20.1%
HBO 26.2% 36.7% 32.0% 31.6% 33.5%
NHW 22.8% 17.2% 13.7% 21.1% 20.0%
Average trip distance (miles) 1.8 3.2 2.3 4.2 4.3
Transit 18.3% 2.4% 10.8% 0.7% 0.4%
Driving 30.2% 64.5% 49.3% 72.4% 71.4%
Carpool 10.2% 23.9% 17.4% 22.2% 23.2%
Walk or bike 41.3% 9.2% 22.5% 4.7% 5.1%
Note: HBO = home-based other trips; HBS = home-based shopping trips; HBSCH = home-based school trips; HBW = home-based work trips; NHW = non–
home-based work trips.

the 10 subsets used exactly once as the validation data. The average
of the 10 validation error results is used as the final performance
evaluation. When training the NN model, the early stopping tech-
nique is used to mitigate the problem of overfitting. Because of the
multiple minima problem, for each training data set, the NN model
is trained 10 times, and the one with the best performance is used.
Fig. 2 shows the calculated 10-fold cross-validation error using dif-
ferent numbers of nodes in the hidden layer when training the BAL
NN model. Here, the cross-entropy based on the validation data is
used as the error measure. Based on this plot, the NN model has the
best performance when the hidden layer has 17 nodes for the BAL
training data. The number of nodes in the hidden layers is also de-
termined for DC, MG, BC, and AA training data in the same way,
and is 18, 14, 9, and 16, respectively.
After specifying the number of nodes in the hidden layer, the
NN model structure is determined. Then, five NN models are
trained using the training data set of the five areas with early stop-
ping and multiple runs.
0.09
0.0895
Cross validation Error
Naïve Transfer
The model estimated for each of the five areas is evaluated by the
five test data sets. The performance for the test data of the same area
represents the performance of the local model, whereas the perfor-
mance for the test data of other areas represents the performance
when the model is directly transferred to these areas. Because each
of the five models is transferred to the other four areas, there are, in
total, 20 transfers. Table 3 shows the performance of the 20 naïve
transfers between the five areas, as well as the performance of the
local model. Performance measures including HT, ACC, REM,
RMSE, and RATE are presented in Table 3. For the DC test data,
the BAL model has good performance based on ACC, RMSE, and
RATE, whereas the MG, BC, and AA models are not transferable,
with low ACC and very high RMSE and RATE. For the MG test
data, the BC and AA models have very good performance, whereas
the DC and BAL models do not perform very well. For the BAL
test data, the MG and DC models perform better than the AA and
BC models. For the BC test data, MG and AA perform better than
the DC and BAL models, whereas the DC model has a very high
RMSE value. For the AA test data, MG and BC have very good
performance, whereas the DC model has a very high RMSE value.
Table 4 shows the transferability ranking for each of the five areas
when they are used as the application context. Tables 3 and 4

clearly show that the transferability between the three lower-density

0.089 areas is very good, as expected, because they share similar demo-
graphic characteristics. The two higher-density urban areas have
0.0885 reasonably good transferability, but not as good as the transferabil-
ity between the three lower-density areas, probably because DC and
0.088 BAL have some significant differences, such as BAL having more
low-income people and longer trips. In terms of ACC, the DC
0.0875
model has good transferability to MG, BC, and AA, whereas the
4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 MG, BC, and AA models have poor transferability to DC, which
No. of nodes indicates that the transferability of NN models is not symmetric,
similar to the logit models (Nowrouzian and Srinivasan 2012;
Fig. 2. Number of hidden nodes selection for BAL NN model
Sikder and Pinjari Rawoof 2013).

© ASCE 04018010-6 J. Comput. Civ. Eng.

J. Comput. Civ. Eng., 2018, 32(3): 04018010

 Table 3. Naïve Transfer Performance
HT REM
Application Estimation Transit Driving Carpool Walk or bike ACC Transit Driving Carpool Walk or bike
context context (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) RMSE RATE
DC DC 62.3 77.2 37.0 84.1 73.6 −16.7 15.3 −48.7 7.0 0.16 1.00
MG 29.8 97.6 45.4 20.7 48.5 −59.1 132.5 5.9 −74.6 1.16 7.12
BAL 52.1 77.8 37.0 76.1 68.6 −27.4 25.4 −32.8 0.4 0.20 1.25
BC 0.9 98.9 47.9 5.7 37.8 −98.6 162.4 50.4 −90.4 1.49 9.13
AA 0.0 95.8 48.7 32.1 47.8 −100.0 127.5 25.2 −58.1 1.10 6.75
MG DC 54.5 85.4 50.0 73.2 75.2 104.5 −3.4 −47.5 112.2 0.58 2.78
MG 45.5 99.6 67.8 31.7 84.4 −31.8 16.8 −19.8 −57.3 0.21 1.00
BAL 54.5 84.1 57.4 51.2 74.0 45.5 −2.5 −22.8 61.0 0.27 1.30
BC 0.0 99.1 72.3 12.2 82.1 −100.0 17.5 −3.5 −84.1 0.18 0.88
AA 0.0 96.8 65.8 28.0 80.6 −100.0 14.4 −14.4 −36.6 0.17 0.80
BAL DC 66.7 78.2 28.7 83.1 70.9 20.2 −9.4% −63.4 45.9 0.33 2.17
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MG 51.2 98.5 56.4 36.6 71.4 −38.1 35.9 −11.9 −45.3 0.35 2.35
BAL 67.9 93.8 47.5 73.3 78.9 −7.1 12.4 −39.6 2.3 0.15 1.00
BC 4.8 99.4 61.4 10.5 60.5 −94.0 44.7 65.3 −80.8 0.53 3.51
AA 0.0 98.2 55.4 39.5 65.7 −100.0 37.6 20.8 −37.8 0.35 2.34
BC DC 80.0 88.4 46.5 81.1 78.7 360.0 −0.4 −51.8 194.6 0.98 5.17
MG 80.0 99.6 62.4 10.8 86.9 20.0 14.4 −32.4 −70.3 0.20 1.06
BAL 80.0 82.1 67.1 35.1 76.5 120.0 −6.9% 18.2 2.7 0.18 0.96
BC 0.0 98.9 63.5 13.5 86.3 −100.0 13.9 −28.2 −64.9 0.19 1.00
AA 0.0 98.2 62.9 10.8 85.5 −100.0 12.6 −29.4 −40.5 0.18 0.94
AA DC 80.0 86.8 41.5 79.4 75.5 180.0 0.5 −56.5 211.8 0.94 4.08
MG 40.0 99.3 57.1 5.9 83.6 −20.0 18.6 −35.4 −79.4 0.23 1.02
BAL 40.0 65.9 71.4 44.1 65.8 −60.0 −22.0% 71.4 −20.6 0.49 2.12
BC 0.0 98.6 57.8 0.0 82.7 −100.0 18.3 −29.3 −91.2 0.22 0.94
AA 0.0 99.5 58.5 17.6 84.4 −100.0 18.1 −33.3 −70.6 0.23 1.00
Note: Bold is used for the performance of the local models.

Table 4. Transferability Ranking

to adapt the model. Because it is a four-class classification problem,
there are four classification adjustment weights in the classification
Application Transferability ranking Transferability ranking adjustment weight vector, W ¼ ð1; w2 ; w3 ; w4 Þ. The lower and
context based on ACC based on RMSE upper bounds for each w are set as 0.2 and 5 to prevent adjusting
DC BAL ≫ MG > AA > BC BAL ≫ AA > MG > BC the classifier too much toward one direction and to save computa-
MG BC > AA > DC > BAL AA > BC > BAL > DC tion time. The enumeration method is used to search for the optimal
BAL MG > DC > AA > BC DC > AA > MG > BC combination of three weights. The searching step is set as 0.1.
BC MG > AA > DC > BAL AA > BAL > MG ≫ DC
Table 5 shows the detailed results of the adapted model from
AA MG > BC > DC > BAL BC > MG > BAL ≫ DC
MG to DC using 100 local data. Tables 6 and 7 show the perfor-
mance of the 20 transferred NN models after model adaptation us-
ing different sample sizes. The performance of naïve transfer is also
Model Adaptation included in the tables for comparison.
Because part of the transfer error comes from sampling the local Table 5 shows the detailed results of the adapted model from
data or random variation (Karasmaa 2007), it would be interesting MG to DC using 100 local data, compared with naïve transfer.
to test how the proposed NN model adaptation method performs for The model adaptation is conducted five times, and the average clas-
different sizes of local data. In this study, the proposed NN model sification adjustment weight vector is shown in the table, as well as
adaptation method is applied using five different local data sample the confusion matrix, ACC, and HT calculated using the weight
sizes: 100, 200, 300, 400, and 500. The model adaptation is con- vector. A large weight, 1.74, is assigned to walk or bike mode,
ducted five times for each sample size. Each time, the specified size whereas small weights, 0.26 and 0.28, are assigned to driving
of data is randomly drawn from the local training data set and used and carpool, respectively. This is because DC has more transit

Table 5. NN Model Transferred from MG to DC

Transfer method ACC (%) Confusion matrix Transit Driving Carpool Walk or bike Weight HT (%)
Naïve transfer 48.5 Transit 64 116 26 9 — 29.8
Driving 1 369 0 8 — 97.6
Carpool 7 51 54 7 — 45.4
Walk or bike 16 343 46 106 — 20.7
Model adaptation 65.9 Transit 87 89 15 24 1 40.5
Driving 4 295 0 79 0.26 78.0
Carpool 7 39 34 39 0.28 28.6
Walk or bike 18 94 9 390 1.74 76.3

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J. Comput. Civ. Eng., 2018, 32(3): 04018010

 Table 6. Model Adaptation Performance Based on ACC
Application context Estimation context Naïve transfer 100 200 300 400 500
DC MG 0.48 0.66 (þ) 0.66 (þ) 0.66 (þ) 0.66 (þ) 0.66 (þ)
BAL 0.69 0.68 (×) 0.68 (×) 0.69 (×) 0.68 (×) 0.69 (×)
BC 0.38 0.56 (þ) 0.55 (þ) 0.55 (þ) 0.55 (þ) 0.55 (þ)
AA 0.48 0.56 (þ) 0.60 (þ) 0.60 (þ) 0.59 (þ) 0.58 (þ)
MG DC 0.75 0.83 (þ) 0.83 (þ) 0.82 (þ) 0.81 (þ) 0.83 (þ)
BAL 0.74 0.82 (þ) 0.81 (þ) 0.81 (þ) 0.81 (þ) 0.81 (þ)
BC 0.82 0.82 (×) 0.81 (×) 0.82 (×) 0.82 (×) 0.81 (×)
AA 0.81 0.81 (×) 0.82 (þ) 0.82 (þ) 0.82 (þ) 0.82 (þ)
BAL DC 0.71 0.72 (þ) 0.72 (þ) 0.74 (þ) 0.74 (þ) 0.74 (þ)
MG 0.71 0.71 (×) 0.73 (þ) 0.72 (×) 0.73 (þ) 0.73 (þ)
BC 0.61 0.62 (þ) 0.62 (þ) 0.64 (þ) 0.64 (þ) 0.64 (þ)
AA 0.66 0.67 (þ) 0.69 (þ) 0.69 (þ) 0.69 (þ) 0.69 (þ)
BC DC 0.79 0.84 (þ) 0.85 (þ) 0.85 (þ) 0.85 (þ) 0.86 (þ)
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MG 0.87 0.85 (−) 0.87 (×) 0.87 (×) 0.86 (×) 0.87 (×)
BAL 0.77 0.81 (þ) 0.81 (þ) 0.81 (þ) 0.81 (þ) 0.82 (þ)
AA 0.86 0.85 (×) 0.86 (×) 0.86 (×) 0.86 (×) 0.86 (×)
AA DC 0.76 0.82 (þ) 0.82 (þ) 0.83 (þ) 0.83 (þ) 0.83 (þ)
MG 0.84 0.84 (×) 0.84 (×) 0.84 (×) 0.84 (×) 0.84 (×)
BAL 0.66 0.78 (þ) 0.78 (þ) 0.78 (þ) 0.78 (þ) 0.79 (þ)
BC 0.83 0.82 (×) 0.83 (×) 0.82 (×) 0.83 (×) 0.83 (×)
Amount of performance increase compared to naïve transfer 12 14 13 14 14
Amount of performance decrease compared to naïve transfer 1 0 0 0 0
Note: (þ) indicates the ACC of the adapted model is larger than the ACC of the naïve transferred model plus 0.01; (−) indicates the ACC of the adapted model
is less than the ACC of the naïve transferred model minus 0.01; (×) indicates that the adapted model has similar performance to the naïve transferred model.

Table 7. Model Adaptation Performance Based on RMSE

Application context Estimation context Naïve transfer 100 200 300 400 500
DC MG 1.16 0.32 (þ) 0.31 (þ) 0.3 (þ) 0.25 (þ) 0.26 (þ)
BAL 0.20 0.22 (−) 0.22 (−) 0.23 (−) 0.28 (−) 0.16 (þ)
BC 1.49 0.34 (þ) 0.42 (þ) 0.40 (þ) 0.37 (þ) 0.36 (þ)
AA 1.10 0.43 (þ) 0.25 (þ) 0.29 (þ) 0.32 (þ) 0.37 (þ)
MG DC 0.58 0.19 (þ) 0.20 (þ) 0.19 (þ) 0.17 (þ) 0.19 (þ)
BAL 0.27 0.19 (þ) 0.18 (þ) 0.17 (þ) 0.15 (þ) 0.16 (þ)
BC 0.18 0.19 (×) 0.20 (−) 0.21 (−) 0.21 (−) 0.19 (×)
AA 0.17 0.20 (−) 0.21 (−) 0.20 (−) 0.21 (−) 0.22 (−)
BAL DC 0.33 0.17 (þ) 0.15 (þ) 0.18 (þ) 0.18 (þ) 0.18 (þ)
MG 0.35 0.29 (þ) 0.26 (þ) 0.32 (þ) 0.20 (þ) 0.20 (þ)
BC 0.53 0.43 (þ) 0.39 (þ) 0.34 (þ) 0.36 (þ) 0.22 (þ)
AA 0.35 0.24 (þ) 0.32 (þ) 0.3 (þ) 0.26 (þ) 0.29 (þ)
BC DC 0.98 0.29 (þ) 0.16 (þ) 0.19 (þ) 0.25 (þ) 0.21 (þ)
MG 0.20 0.17 (þ) 0.22 (−) 0.22 (−) 0.23 (−) 0.20 (×)
BAL 0.18 0.38 (−) 0.38 (−) 0.42 (−) 0.51 (−) 0.51 (−)
AA 0.18 0.16 (þ) 0.19 (−) 0.20 (−) 0.21 (−) 0.19 (−)
AA DC 0.94 0.27 (þ) 0.23 (þ) 0.23 (þ) 0.24 (þ) 0.22 (þ)
MG 0.23 0.23 (×) 0.24 (×) 0.24 (×) 0.24 (×) 0.23 (×)
BAL 0.49 0.13 (þ) 0.13 (þ) 0.15 (þ) 0.14 (þ) 0.15 (þ)
BC 0.22 0.23 (−) 0.22 (×) 0.21 (×) 0.22 (−) 0.24 (−)
Number of performance increase compared to naïve transfer 14 12 12 12 13
Number of performance decrease compared to naïve transfer 4 6 6 6 4
Note: (þ) indicates the RMSE of the adapted model is larger than the RMSE of the naïve transferred model plus 0.01; (−) indicates the RMSE of the adapted
model is less than the RMSE of the naïve transferred model minus 0.01; (×) indicates that the adapted model has similar performance to the naïve
transferred model.

and walk or bike trips and fewer driving and carpool trips compared
to MG. By doing this, the adapted model is able to predict transit
and walk or bike with much higher accuracy, thus achieving higher
overall prediction accuracy.
Table 6 shows the performance evaluated by ACC. Each ACC
value of the adapted model of different sizes represents the mean
value of five runs. It shows that the adaptation method can improve
the individual-level performance of NN models most of the time.
For those transfers between areas where there exist many differen-
ces and naïve transfer does not work very well, the model adapta-
tion method will improve the accuracy significantly, even with a
small sample size, such as MG transferred to DC (ACC increased
from 0.48 to 0.66 with sample size of 100), BC transferred to DC
(ACC increased from 0.38 to 0.56 with sample size of 100), AA
transferred to DC (ACC increased from 0.48 to 0.56 with sample
size of 100), DC transferred to BC (ACC increased from 0.79 to

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J. Comput. Civ. Eng., 2018, 32(3): 04018010

 0.84 with sample size of 100), and DC transferred to AA (ACC
increased from 0.76 to 0.82 with sample size of 100). For transfer
between areas that share many similarities and for which naïve
transfer works well, the gain of using model adaptation is not as
significant, such as transfer between DC and BAL and transfers
among MG, BC, and AA. Generally speaking, there is not much
difference between the adapted models using different sizes of
local data, which means that even a small size of local data can
significantly improve the model transferability if the data are
representative of local data. However, when the sample size is
smaller, the randomness of local data sampling will have an increas-
ing impact, which will affect the robustness of the adapted model.
Table 7 shows the performance evaluated by RMSE. Each
RMSE value of the adapted model of different sizes represents
the mean value of five runs. Similar conclusions can be reached
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as those for ACC. As Table 7 shows, the adapted model can gain
significantly for those transfers even with a small sample size be-
tween areas where there exist many differences and for which naïve
transfer does not work very well, such as in the case of MG trans-
ferred to DC (RMSE decreased from 1.16 to 0.32 with sample size
of 100), BC transferred to DC (RMSE decreased from 1.49 to 0.34
with sample size of 100), AA transferred to DC (RMSE decreased
from 1.10 to 0.43 with sample size of 100), DC transferred to MG
(RMSE decreased from 0.59 to 0.19 with sample size of 100), DC
transferred to BC (RMSE decreased from 0.98 to 0.29 with sample
size of 100), and DC transferred to AA (RMSE decreased from
0.94 to 0.27 with sample size of 100). The gain of using model
adaptation for transfer between similar areas is not as significant,
such as transfers among MG, BC, and AA. There is not much differ-
ence between the adapted models using different sizes of local data.
Even a small size of local data can improve the performance signifi-
cantly. However, in some cases, the adapted models may perform
worse than the naïve transfer based on RMSE. This is because the
proposed adaptation method is targeted to maximize accuracy in
the application context instead of matching the market share. Model
transferability in terms of aggregate level may be harmed sometimes.
Conclusions
In this paper, the spatial transferability of NN models in travel de-
mand modeling, especially in mode choice models, is analyzed.
The paper first discusses the naïve transferability of NN models
when no data are available in the application context. Then, a
NN model adaptation method is proposed using the classification
adjustment weight vector when limited data from the application
context are available. The performance of the adaptation method
is evaluated for different sample sizes. Using the 2007/2008
TPB-BMC HHTS data, five NN models are built using trips within
five areas: DC and MG from the Washington, DC, region, and
BAL, BC, and AA from the Baltimore region. Cross-validation
is used to choose the number of nodes in the hidden layer. When
training the NN models, the early stopping technique is used to
avoid overfitting, and multiple runs are used to deal with the multi-
ple minima problem. Each of the five NN models built is applied to
four other areas to test the performance of naïve transfer. Different
performance measures are used to evaluate the transferability, in-
cluding individual-level measures like HT and ACC, as well as ag-
gregate measures like REM, RMSE, and RATE. After analyzing
the performance of naïve transfer, it is found that the model trans-
ferability is good between areas that share many similarities in
characteristics like land use, travel modal share, and so on. In
the five study areas, the transferability between the three lower-
density areas is very good. The two higher-density urban areas,
© ASCE 04018010-9
J. Comput. Civ. Eng., 2018, 32(3): 04018010
DC and BAL, have reasonably good transferability, but not as good
as the transferability among the three lower-density areas because
DC and BAL have some significant differences, such as BAL hav-
ing more low-income people and longer trips. It is also noticed that
the transferability of NN models is not symmetric.
The proposed NN model adaptation method is used to adapt the
transferred models using five different local data sample sizes: 100,
200, 300, 400, and 500. The performances of the adapted models
are evaluated by the individual-level measure ACC and aggregate
measure RMSE. Similar conclusions can be drawn from individual-
level and aggregate measures. The proposed NN model adaptation
method can gain significantly for transfers between the areas where
there exist many differences and for which naïve transfer does not
work very well, even with small sample size, as long as the local
sample is representative. For transfer between areas that are very
similar, the gain of using model adaptation is not as significant.
Because the proposed adaptation method is targeted to maximize
accuracy in the application context, the model transferability in
terms of individual-level performance is boosted most of the time,
whereas the model transferability in terms of aggregate level may
be harmed sometimes.
In this study, the lower and upper bounds for each classification
adjustment weight are set as 0.2 and 5 to prevent adjusting the clas-
sifier too much in one direction and to save computation time. If no
bound is set for searching the classification adjustment weight, it
would be expected that those classes with few observations in the
local training data may be neglected, especially when the local sam-
ple size is small. In the future, it would be interesting to study how
different settings of the lower and upper bounds will affect the
performance of the adapted NN models. Additionally, this study
focuses on the transferability of NN models without comparing
them to other models, like logit models, random forest, support
vector machine, and so on. How different methods differ in their
spatial transferability is an interesting research direction. Moreover,
in this paper, the three lower-density areas, MG, BC, and AA, are
considered more “similar” compared to DC and BAL through
qualitatively comparing aspects like age, employment, house
ownership, number of vehicles, number of bikes, trip purpose, trip
distance, modal share, and so on. The NN models of these three
regions are also shown to have higher transferability among each
other. However, no quantitative definition is given to define the
level of similarity between different regions. How to quantitatively
define the level of similarity and how the level of similarity will
affect model transferability will be studied in future research.
Finally, the 2007/2008 TPB-BMC HHTS data used in this study
are slightly outdated. The 2017/2018 household travel survey for
the TPB-BMC regions will start in September 2017. According to
MWCOG, the data will be ready for modelers and practitioners in
2019. This new data set will be explored in future studies.
Acknowledgments
This research is financially supported by the National Science
Foundation CAREER Award Project “Reliability as an Emergent
Property of Transportation Networks” and U.S. Federal Highway
Administration Exploratory Advanced Research Program. The
authors are solely responsible for the statements in the paper.
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