Bierlaire, M., and Ortelli, N. (2022)

Assisted specification with Biogeme

The package Biogeme is designed to estimate the parameters of various models using maximum likelihood estimation. It is particularly designed for discrete choice models. This document describes how to use Biogeme to apply the methodology for assisted specification described by Ortelli et al. (2021). In a nutshell, an optimization algorithm is used to generate models based on a minimal number of inputs provided by the analyst. These inputs are used to build a space of possible specifications that may contain any form of variable interaction, nonlinear transformation, segmentation of the population in the dataset and potential choice models; the space is then explored by an algorithm that sequentially introduces small modifications to an initial set of promising specifications. We assume that the reader is already familiar with discrete choice models, and has successfully installed Biogeme. Biogeme is a Python package written in Python and C++, that relies on the Pandas library for the management of the data. This document has been written using Biogeme 3.9.