 Nonconvexity of the dynamic traffic assignment problemMalachy Carey Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, 1992, vol. 26, issue 2, 127-133 Abstract: We identify and discuss what appears to be a central difficulty for the future development of models of dynamic traffic flows on road networks. This difficulty is due to the fact that road traffic tends to behave in a first-in-first-out (FIFO) manner: that is, traffic which embarks on a road or other facility in period t exits from that facility ("on average") before traffic which enters in any later time periods. The FIFO requirement does not cause a problem in static traffic assignment, but we show that it yields a nonconvex constraint set in dynamic assignment, especially if there are multiple destinations or commodities. We consider various formulations, each of which yields a nonconvex optimization problem which is at present computationally tractable only for relatively small-scale examples. The above FIFO problem arises even if there is no congestion, and even if travel demands are fixed. Further the problem arises whether we are modeling a system optimum or a user equilibrium, and whether we use an optimization formulation or a complementarity or variational inequality formulation. We make some suggestions for dealing with, or avoiding, the problem and for further research. Date: 1992 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:transb:v:26:y:1992:i:2:p:127-133 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from 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 |
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