Practical Bayesian Optimization for Transportation Simulators

Abstract: We provide a method to solve optimization problem when objective function is a complex stochastic simulator of an urban transportation system. To reach this goal, a Bayesian optimization framework is introduced. We show how the choice of prior and inference algorithm effect the outcome of our optimization procedure. We develop dimensionality reduction techniques that allow for our optimization techniques to be applicable for real-life problems. We develop a distributed, Gaussian Process Bayesian regression and active learning models that allow parallel execution of our algorithms and enable usage of high performance computing. We present a fully Bayesian approach that is more sample efficient and reduces computational budget. Our framework is supported by theoretical analysis and an empirical study. We demonstrate our framework on the problem of calibrating a multi-modal transportation network of city of Bloomington, Illinois. Finally, we discuss directions for further research.