Exploratory Calibration of a Retail Location Model Using Search by Golden Section

This paper presents some experiments in calibrating a retail location model designed for the Kristiansand region in southern Norway. The form and behaviour of the model under extremes of its parameter values is first investigated, and then some calibration methods proposed by Hyman are tested. The need for a more general method is evident and a search procedure based on the Fibonacci numbers is outlined. A generalisation of this method, based on the golden section number, is derived and this method is used to explore the sensitivity of the model's goodness-of-fit to changes in parameter values. A fundamental result of these explorations shows that there is no unique fit for retail models with two parameters, and this result is likely to hold for other models of spatial interaction.