On the convergence of Bell's logit assignment formulation

Abstract

In Bell M.G.H. (1995. Transportation Research B 29, 287-295), a new logit assignment formulation was developed, which considered all possible paths in the network while still retaining the absence of a need for path enumeration. In his formulation, it presumes that the sum of a geometric series of the weights matrix always converges and hence can be computed as the inversion of a matrix. In this paper, we investigate the convergence properties of this geometric series by means of an eigensystem interpretation which states that the series converges if and only if all the eigenvalues associated with the weights matrix fall into the unit circle in a complex plane. It is found that the geometric series converges unconditionally for acyclic networks, but not necessarily does so for general networks. | In Bell M.G.H., a new logit assignment formulation was developed, which considered all possible paths in the network while still retaining the absence of a need for path enumeration. In his formulation, it presumes that the sum of a geometric series of the weights matrix always converges and hence can be computed as the inversion of a matrix. In this paper, we investigate the convergence properties of this geometric series by means of an eigensystem interpretation which states that the series converges if and only if all the eigenvalues associated with the weights matrix fall into the unit circle in a complex plane. It is found that the geometric series converges unconditionally for acyclic networks, but not necessarily does so for general networks.