A novel hybrid optimization algorithm of computational intelligence techniques for highway passenger volume prediction

A novel hybrid optimization algorithm combining computational intelligence techniques is presented to solve the multifactor highway passenger volume prediction problem. In this paper, we can get and discretize a reduced decision table, which implies that the number of evaluation criteria such as travel quantity, fixed-asset investment, railway mileage, and waterway passenger volume are reduced with no information loss through rough set theory (RST) method. Particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm based on the random global optimization is inducted into the network training. The PSO algorithm is used for glancing study in order to confirm the initial values, and then the back propagation neural network (BPNN) is used for given accuracy to found the PSO-BPNN model. And this reduced information is used to form a classification rule set, which is regarded as an appropriate input parameter to training PSO-BPNN model. The RST-PSO-BPNN model is obtained to forecast highway passenger volume. The rules developed by RST analysis show the best prediction accuracy if a case matches any one of the rules. The keystone of this hybrid optimization algorithm is using rules developed by RST for an object that matches any one of the rules and the PSO-BPNN model for one that does not match any of them. The effectiveness of our optimization algorithm was verified by experiments comparing the traditional gray model method. For the experiment, highway passenger volumes of China during the period 1995–2009 were selected, and for the validation, the novel hybrid optimization algorithm is reliable.