A calibration to properly design a model integrating residential mobility and migration in a rural area

Abstract

We propose a hybrid microsimulation and agent-based model of mobility integrating migration and residential mobility. We tested it on the evolution of the population of the Cantal, a French “département” with 150,000 inhabitants. We calibrated it using various data sources from 1990 to 2006, and tested its predictions on other data of the same period and on the period 2007-2012. The spatial heterogeneity of the evolution is well reproduced and the model makes surprisingly correct predictions despite numerous simplifying assumptions. From this calibration we learnt more about how to model residential mobility and migration considering an agent-based model approach.