--- title: "An introduction to spatial interaction models: from first principles" output: rmarkdown::html_vignette vignette: > %\VignetteIndexEntry{An introduction to spatial interaction models: from first principles} %\VignetteEngine{knitr::rmarkdown} %\VignetteEncoding{UTF-8} bibliography: references.bib editor_options: markdown: wrap: sentence --- ```{r, include = FALSE} knitr::opts_chunk$set( collapse = TRUE, comment = "#>" ) ``` # What are SIMs? Spatial Interaction Models (SIMs) are mathematical models for estimating movement between spatial entities developed by Alan Wilson in the late 1960s and early 1970, with considerable uptake and refinement for transport modelling since then @boyce_forecasting_2015. There are four main types of traditional SIMs [@wilson_family_1971]: - Unconstrained - Production-constrained - Attraction-constrained - Doubly-constrained An early and highly influential type of SIM was the 'gravity model', defined by @wilson_family_1971 as follows (in a paper that explored many iterations on this formulation): $$ T_{i j}=K \frac{W_{i}^{(1)} W_{j}^{(2)}}{c_{i j}^{n}} $$ "where $T_{i j}$ is a measure of the interaction between zones $i$ and $W_{i}^{(1)}$ is a measure of the 'mass term' associated with zone $z_i$, $W_{j}^{(2)}$ is a measure of the 'mass term' associated with zone $z_j$, and $c_{ij}$ is a measure of the distance, or generalised cost of travel, between zone $i$ and zone $j$". $K$ is a 'constant of proportionality' and $n$ is a parameter to be estimated. Redefining the $W$ terms as $m$ and $n$ for origins and destinations respectively [@simini_universal_2012], this classic definition of the 'gravity model' can be written as follows: $$ T_{i j}=K \frac{m_{i} n_{j}}{c_{i j}^{n}} $$ For the purposes of this project, we will focus on production-constrained SIMs. These can be defined as follows [@wilson_family_1971]: $$ T_{ij} = A_iO_in_jf(c_{ij}) $$ where $A$ is a balancing factor defined as: $$ A_{i}=\frac{1}{\sum_{j} m_{j} \mathrm{f}\left(c_{i j}\right)} $$ $O_i$ is analogous to the travel demand in zone $i$, which can be roughly approximated by its population. More recent innovations in SIMs including the 'radiation model' @simini_universal_2012. See @lenormand_systematic_2016 for a comparison of alternative approaches. # Implementation in R Before using the functions in this or other packages, it may be worth implementing SIMs from first principles, to gain an understanding of how they work. The code presented below was written before the functions in the `simodels` package were developed, building on @dennett_modelling_2018. The aim is to demonstrate a common way of running SIMs, in a for loop, rather than using vectorised operations (used in the `simodels` package) which can be faster. ```{r, message=FALSE} library(tmap) library(dplyr) library(ggplot2) ``` ```{r inputs} zones = simodels::si_zones centroids = simodels::si_centroids od = simodels::si_od_census tm_shape(zones) + tm_polygons("all", palette = "viridis") ``` ```{r} od_df = od::points_to_od(centroids) od_sfc = od::odc_to_sfc(od_df[3:6]) sf::st_crs(od_sfc) = 4326 od_df$length = sf::st_length(od_sfc) od_df = od_df %>% transmute( O, D, length = as.numeric(length) / 1000, flow = NA, fc = NA ) od_df = sf::st_sf(od_df, geometry = od_sfc, crs = 4326) ``` An unconstrained spatial interaction model can be written as follows, with a more-or-less arbitrary value for `beta` which can be optimised later: ```{r unconstrained} beta = 0.3 i = 1 j = 2 for(i in seq(nrow(zones))) { for(j in seq(nrow(zones))) { O = zones$all[i] n = zones$all[j] ij = which(od_df$O == zones$geo_code[i] & od_df$D == zones$geo_code[j]) od_df$fc[ij] = exp(-beta * od_df$length[ij]) od_df$flow[ij] = O * n * od_df$fc[ij] } } od_top = od_df %>% filter(O != D) %>% top_n(n = 2000, wt = flow) tm_shape(zones) + tm_borders() + tm_shape(od_top) + tm_lines("flow") ``` We can plot the 'distance decay' curve associated with this SIM is as follows: ```{r distance_decay} summary(od_df$fc) od_df %>% ggplot() + geom_point(aes(length, fc)) ``` We can make this production constrained as follows: ```{r constrained} od_dfj = left_join( od_df, zones %>% select(O = geo_code, all) %>% sf::st_drop_geometry() ) od_dfj = od_dfj %>% group_by(O) %>% mutate(flow_constrained = flow / sum(flow) * first(all)) %>% ungroup() sum(od_dfj$flow_constrained) == sum(zones$all) od_top = od_dfj %>% filter(O != D) %>% top_n(n = 2000, wt = flow_constrained) tm_shape(zones) + tm_borders() + tm_shape(od_top) + tm_lines("flow_constrained") ``` # Validation ```{r validation} od_dfjc = inner_join(od_dfj %>% select(-all), od) od_dfjc %>% ggplot() + geom_point(aes(all, flow_constrained)) cor(od_dfjc$all, od_dfjc$flow_constrained)^2 ``` # References