Learning and managing stochastic network traffic dynamics with an aggregate traffic representation

Wei Liu and Wai Yuen Szeto

Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, 2020, vol. 137, issue C, 19-46

Abstract: This study estimates and manages the stochastic traffic dynamics in a bi-modal transportation system, and gives hints on how increasing data availability in transport and cities can be utilized to estimate transport supply functions and manage transport demand simultaneously. In the bi-modal system, travelers’ mode choices are based on their perceptions of the two travel modes: driving or public transit. Some travelers who have access to real-time road (car) traffic information may shift their mode based on the information received (note that real-time information about public transit departures/arrivals is not considered here). For the roadway network, the within-day traffic evolution is modeled through a Macroscopic Fundamental Diagram (MFD), where the flow dynamics exhibits a certain level of uncertainty. A non-parametric approach is proposed to estimate the MFD. To improve traffic efficiency, we develop an adaptive pricing mechanism coupled with the learned MFD. The adaptive pricing extends the study of Liu and Geroliminis (2017) to the time-dependent case, which can better accommodate temporal demand variations and achieve higher efficiency. Numerical studies are conducted on a one-region theoretical city network to illustrate the dynamic evolution of traffic, the MFD learning framework, and the efficiency of the adaptive pricing mechanism.

Keywords: Traffic dynamics; Stochastic MFD; Information provision; Learning; Pricing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191261517307130
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:transb:v:137:y:2020:i:c:p:19-46

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
https://shop.elsevie ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

DOI: 10.1016/j.trb.2019.03.021

Access Statistics for this article

Transportation Research Part B: Methodological is currently edited by Fred Mannering

More articles in Transportation Research Part B: Methodological from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().