A modified Physarum-inspired model for the user equilibrium traffic assignment problem

The user equilibrium traffic assignment principle is very important in the traffic assignment problem. Mathematical programming models are designed to solve the user equilibrium problem in traditional algorithms. Recently, the Physarum shows the ability to address the user equilibrium and system optimization traffic assignment problems. However, the Physarum model are not efficient in real traffic networks with two-way traffic characteristics and multiple origin–destination pairs. In this article, a modified Physarum-inspired model for the user equilibrium problem is proposed. By decomposing traffic flux based on origin nodes, the traffic flux from different origin–destination pairs can be distinguished in the proposed model. The Physarum can obtain the equilibrium traffic flux when no shorter path can be discovered between each origin–destination pair. Finally, numerical examples demonstrate the rationality and convergence properties of the proposed model.     

基于内生参考点的交通网络均衡模型

应用累积前景理论研究了随机交通网络中出行者有限理性的路径选择行为,选择期望 超额出行时间作为参考点,反映出行者同时考虑出行时间的可靠性和不可靠性,建立了基于累积前景理论的随机网络均衡及其等价的变分不等式模型,运用基于连续平均法的启发式算法求解,并给出算例验证了该模型和算法,最后分析了有限理性的假设和内生的参考点对出行者路径选择行为和随机网络均衡的影响．     

An N-path user equilibrium for transportation networks

The traditional trip-based approach to transportation modeling has been employed for the past decade. The last step of the trip-based modeling approach is traffic assignment, which has been typically formulated as a user equilibrium (UE) problem. In the conventional perspective, the definition of UE traffic assignment is the condition that no road user can unilaterally change routes to reduce their travel time. An equivalent definition is that the travel times of all the used paths between any given origin–destination pair are equal and less than those of the unused paths. The underlying assumption of the UE definition is that road users have full information on the available transportation paths and can potentially use any path if the currently used path is overly congested. However, a more practical scenario is that each road user has a limited path set within which she/he can choose routes from. In this new scenario, we call the resulting user equilibrium an N-path user equilibrium (NPUE), in which each road user has only N paths to select from when making route choices in the network. We introduce a new formulation of the NPUE and derive optimality conditions based on this formulation. Different from traditional modeling framework, the constraints of the proposed model are of linear form, which makes it possible to solve the problem with conventional convex programming techniques. We also show that the traditional UE is a special case of an NPUE and prove the uniqueness of the resulting flow pattern of the NPUE. To efficiently solve this problem, we devise path-based and link-based solution algorithms. The proposed solution algorithms are empirically applied to networks of various sizes to examine the impact of constrained user path sets. Numerical results demonstrate that NPUE results can differ significantly from UE results depending on the number of paths available to road users. In addition, we observed an interesting phenomenon, where increasing the number of paths available to road users can sometimes decrease the overall system performance due to their selfish routing behaviors. This paradox demonstrates that network information should be provided with caution, as such information can do more harm than good in certain transportation systems.     

A novel algorithm for area traffic capacity control with elastic travel demands

A non-linear area traffic control system with limited capacity is considered in this paper. Optimal signal settings and link capacity expansions can be determined while trip distribution and network flow are in equilibrium. This problem can be formulated as a non-linear mathematical program with equilibrium constraints. For the objective function a non-linear constrained optimization program for signal settings and link capacity expansion is determined. For the constraint set the elastic user equilibrium traffic assignment obeying Wardrop’s first principle can be formulated as a variational inequality. Since the constrained optimization problem is non-convex, only local optima can be obtained. In this paper, a novel algorithm using a non-smooth trust region approach is proposed. Numerical tests are performed using a real data city network and various example test networks in which the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed method are confirmed as compared to other well-known solution methods.     

A turning restriction design problem in urban road networks

Turning restriction is one of the commonest traffic management techniques and an effective low cost traffic improvement strategy in urban road networks. However, the literature has not paid much attention to the turning restriction design problem (TRDP), which aims to determine a set of intersections where turning restrictions should be implemented. In this paper, a bi-level programming model is proposed to formulate the TRDP. The upper level problem is to minimize the total travel cost from the viewpoint of traffic managers, and the lower level problem is to depict travelers’ route choice behavior based on stochastic user equilibrium (SUE) theory. We propose a branch and bound method (BBM), based on the sensitivity analysis algorithm (SAA), to find the optimal turning restriction strategy. A branch strategy and a bound strategy are applied to accelerate the solution process of the TRDP. The computational experiments give promising results, showing that the optimal turning restriction strategy can obviously reduce system congestion and are robust to the variations of both the dispersion parameter of the SUE problem and the level of demand.     

An equilibrium model for urban transit assignment based on game theory

The urban public transport system is portrayed as a special commodity market where passenger is consumer, transit operator is producer and the special goods is the service for passenger’s trip. The generalized Nash equilibrium game is applied to describe how passengers adjust their route choices and trip modes. We present a market equilibrium model for urban public transport system as a series of mathematical programmings and equations, which is to describe both the competitions among different transit operators and the interactive influences among passengers. The proposed model can simultaneously predict how passengers choose their optimal routes and trip modes. An algorithm is designed to obtain the equilibrium solution. Finally, a simple numerical example is given and some conclusions are drawn.     

An Ant Colony Optimisation algorithm for solving the asymmetric traffic assignment problem

In this paper we propose an Ant Colony Optimisation (ACO) algorithm for defining the signal settings on urban networks following a local approach. This consists in optimising the signal settings of each intersection of an urban network as a function only of traffic flows at the accesses to the same intersection, taking account of the effects of signal settings on costs and on user route choices. This problem, also known as Local Optimisation of Signal Settings (LOSS), has been widely studied in the literature and can be formulated as an asymmetric assignment problem. The proposed ACO algorithm is based on two kinds of behaviour of artificial ants which allow the LOSS problem to be solved: traditional behaviour based on the response to pheromones for simulating user route choice, and innovative behaviour based on the pressure of an ant stream for solving the signal setting definition problem. Our results on real-scale networks show that the proposed approach allows the solution to be obtained in less time but with the same accuracy as in traditional MSA (Method of Successive Averages) approaches.     

多方式弹性需求下公交定价双层规划模型

为描述多方式城市交通网络下公交定价与出行选择行为的相互作用与影响,将出行方式选择与路径选择涵盖于同一网络,建立了上层模型分别以企业利润最大化、乘客出行成本最小化和社会福利最大化为目标函数,下层模型为多方式弹性需求随机用户配流模型的公交定价双层规划模型。运用改进遗传算法对模型整体进行求解,下层模型采用综合对角化算法和MSA算法的组合求解算法。最后,设计了一个算例以说明模型应用。结果表明:运用双层规划模型所确定的公交票价较传统静态票价可使政府、企业及出行者三方都获得更高收益,且上层模型以社会福利最大化为目标函数能代表社会群体中多数人利益,优化效果最为理想。     

考虑路网可靠性和空间公平性的次优拥挤收费模型

根据随机路网环境下出行者规避风险的路径选择行为,提出了一种考虑路网可靠性和空间公平性的次优拥挤收费双层规划模型。其中,上层模型以具有空间公平性约束条件下最大化路网的社会福利为目标,下层模型是实施拥挤收费条件下考虑行程时间可靠性的弹性需求用户平衡模型。鉴于双层规划模型的复杂性,设计了基于遗传算法和FrankWolfe算法的组合式算法来求解提出的模型。算例结果表明:考虑行程时间可靠性的次优拥挤收费会产生不同于传统次优拥挤收费的平衡流量分布模式,表明出行者的路径选择行为对拥挤收费结果会产生直接影响;此外,算例结果还说明遗传算法对参数设置具有很强的鲁棒性。     

多用户类多准则交通分配的势博弈与拥挤定价

交通管理者在解决路网拥挤问题时,并不知道出行者的出行效用,同时管理者难以对出行者的路径选择行为做出准确的观测.运用势博弈理论分析多用户类多准则交通行为的演化过程,得到了固定需求和弹性需求情形下的可容许动态(一种刻画出行者通过转换路径增加当前效用的近似调整行为的演化动态),证明当路段时间函数和逆需求函数为严格单调、连续、可微时,所对应的交通分配是势博弈问题的惟一Nash均衡点.进一步研究了固定需求下的可变拥挤道路收费问题,得到了在当前系统状态下实现系统最优交通分配的拥挤收费水平.     

An efficient algorithm for optimal design of area traffic control with network flows

An equilibrium network design (EQND) is a problem of finding the optimal design parameters while taking into account the route choice of users. This problem can be formulated as an optimization by taking the user equilibrium traffic assignment as a constraint. In this paper, the methods solving the EQND problem with signal settings are investigated via numerical calculations on two example road networks. An efficient algorithm is proposed in which improvement on a locally optimal search by combining the technique of parallel tangents with the gradient projection method is presented. As it shows, the method combines the locally optimal search and globally search heuristic achieved substantially better performance than did those other approaches.     

A Multi-Class Dynamic User Equilibrium Model for Queuing Networks with Advanced Traveler Information Systems

This paper presents a formulation and solution algorithm for a composite dynamic user-equilibrium assignment problem with multi-user classes, in order to assess the impacts of Advanced Traveler Information Systems (ATIS) in general networks with queues. Suppose that users equipped with ATIS will receive complete information and hence be able to choose the best departure times and routes in a deterministic manner, while users not equipped with ATIS will have incomplete information and hence may make decisions on departure times and routes in a stochastic manner. This paper proposes a discrete-time, finite-dimensional variational inequality formulation that involves two criteria regarding the route and departure time choice behaviors, i.e., the deterministic dynamic user equilibrium and the nested logit-based stochastic dynamic user equilibrium. The formulation is then converted to an equivalent “zero-extreme value” minimization problem. A heuristic algorithm based on route/time-swapping process is proposed, which iteratively adjusts the route and departure time choices to reach closely to an extreme point of the minimization problem. A numerical example is used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach for assessing the ATIS impacts such as changes in individual travel costs, departure times, route inflows, queuing peaks and total network travel cost. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Reformulating the traffic equilibrium problem via a smooth gap function

This paper proposes an alternate formulation of the traffic assignment problem using route flows and the shortest Origin-Destination (OD) travel times as the decision variables. This is accomplished through defining a gap function to convert the Nonlinear Complementarity Problem (NCP) formulation to an equivalent Mathematical Program (MP). This formulation has two advantages:

• 1.(i) it can model assignment problems with general route costs which cannot be accomplished with existing formulations that use link-flow variables
• 2.(ii) the objective function is smooth, convex, and bounded, which permits efficient MP algorithms for its solution.

Two solution approaches are developed to solve the proposed formulation. The first is based on a set of working routes, which are modeled as “known a priori” based on travelers' preferences or interviews. The second approach uses a column generation procedure to generate a new route in each iteration on a need basis. For each approach, we use a Successive Quadratic Programming (SQP) algorithm to solve for the solutions.To show that the formulation is correct, we solve a small example with a general route cost and compare it to the classic traffic equilibrium problem which assumes an additive route cost function. Finally, numerical results for a medium-sized network are provided to demonstrate the feasibility of the solution approach.     

Chaos in a dynamic model of urban transportation network flow based on user equilibrium states

In this study, we investigate the dynamical behavior of network traffic flow. We first build a two-stage mathematical model to analyze the complex behavior of network flow, a dynamical model, which is based on the dynamical gravity model proposed by Dendrinos and Sonis [Dendrinos DS, Sonis M. Chaos and social-spatial dynamic. Berlin: Springer-Verlag; 1990] is used to estimate the number of trips. Considering the fact that the Origin–Destination (O–D) trip cost in the traffic network is hard to express as a functional form, in the second stage, the user equilibrium network assignment model was used to estimate the trip cost, which is the minimum cost of used path when user equilibrium (UE) conditions are satisfied. It is important to use UE to estimate the O–D cost, since a connection is built among link flow, path flow, and O–D flow. The dynamical model describes the variations of O–D flows over discrete time periods, such as each day and each week. It is shown that even in a system with dimensions equal to two, chaos phenomenon still exists. A “Chaos Propagation” phenomenon is found in the given model.     

基于Stackelberg博弈的时变双层交通分配模型

提出一个时变双层交通分配模型,其中上层网络管理者设立了一个路段的最大排队长度,其目标是使由网络流和排队长度定义的总出行时间最小.目标函数在离散时段内以路段流量和排队长度作为决策变量,同时考虑不同类型的信号交叉口延误的影响.下层网络用户的反应依赖于上层管理者的决策,其选择是使自身感知阻抗最小的路径,服从一个基于成对组合Logit的路径选择模型,构成一个成对组合Logit的均衡分配问题.结合了交通分配和流传播方法,将其表示为一个均衡约束下的双层数学规划问题,形成了一个Stackelberg非合作博弈.使用遗传算法求解该双层规划问题,并采用实证分析来表现模型的特征和算法的计算表现.结果表明路径重叠、路段流量、路段排队长度等因素对网络均衡流分布均有显著影响.     

A bi-objective turning restriction design problem in urban road networks

This paper introduces a bi-objective turning restriction design problem (BOTRDP), which aims to simultaneously improve network traffic efficiency and reduce environmental pollution by implementing turning restrictions at selected intersections. A bi-level programming model is proposed to formulate the BOTRDP. The upper level problem aims to minimize both the total system travel time (TSTT) and the cost of total vehicle emissions (CTVE) from the viewpoint of traffic managers, and the lower level problem depicts travelers’ route choice behavior based on stochastic user equilibrium (SUE) theory. The modified artificial bee colony (ABC) heuristic is developed to find Pareto optimal turning restriction strategies. Different from the traditional ABC heuristic, crossover operators are captured to enhance the performance of the heuristic. The computational experiments show that incorporating crossover operators into the ABC heuristic can indeed improve its performance and that the proposed heuristic significantly outperforms the non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA) even if different operators are randomly chosen and used in the NSGA as in our proposed heuristic. The results also illustrate that a Pareto optimal turning restriction strategy can obviously reduce the TSTT and the CTVE when compared with those without implementing the strategy, and that the number of Pareto optimal turning restriction designs is smaller when the network is more congested but greater network efficiency and air quality improvement can be achieved. The results also demonstrate that traffic information provision does have an impact on the number of Pareto optimal turning restriction designs. These results should have important implications on traffic management.     

基于网络等级特征与VMS的交叉巢式Logit模型

基于等级特征与可变信息板(VMS)研究了交叉巢式Logit(CNL)模型及网络交通流分配。综合幂函数与指数函数表示方法给出新的信息效用衰减因子,结合道路等级特征表示VMS对车流的影响系数及CNL模型的分配系数;给出等级结构道路网络的随机用户均衡条件下的交叉巢式Logit路径选择模型及其等价数学规划,并设计网络流分配算法。通过实例网络的计算与分析,得到一些有意义的结论:等级结构越显著的路网总出行时间费用越低且其分散参数(θ)弹性绝对值越大;对具有较强随机性的实际路网,若增加一定的确定性则节省更多网络总出行时间;道路网络中设置了VMS时总出行时间受分散参数的影响更小。     

An efficient algorithm for computing traffic equilibria using TRANSYT model

Computing traffic equilibria with signal settings using TRANSYT model for an area traffic control road system is considered in this paper. Following Wardrop’s first principle, this problem can be formulated as a variational inequality problem. In this paper, we propose a novel algorithm to efficiently solve this equilibrium traffic assignment with global convergence. Numerical calculations are conducted on a grid-size road network. As it shows, the proposed method achieved greater savings in computational overheads than did those conventional methods for solving traffic equilibria when signal settings are particularly taken into account.     

Stochastic equilibrium assignment with variable demand: Theoretical and implementation issues

Recently, it has been pointed out that transport models should reflect all significant traveler choice behavior. In particular, trip generation, trip distribution, modal split as well as route choice should be modeled in a consistent process based on the equilibrium between transport supply and travel demand. In this paper a general fixed-point approach that allows dealing with multi-user stochastic equilibrium assignment with variable demand is presented. The main focus was on investigating the effectiveness of internal and external approaches and of different algorithmic specifications based on the method of successive averages within the internal approach. The vector demand function was assumed non-separable, non-symmetric cost functions were adopted and implementation issues, such updating step and convergence criterion, were investigated. In particular the aim was threefold: (i) compare the internal and the external approaches; (ii) investigate the effectiveness of different algorithmic specifications to solve the variable demand equilibrium assignment problem through the internal approach; (iii) investigate the incidence of the number of the links with non-separable and/or asymmetrical cost functions. The proposed analyses were carried out with respect to two real-scale urban networks regarding medium-size urban contexts in Italy.     

Traffic assignment model with fuzzy level of travel demand: An efficient algorithm based on quasi-Logit formulas

The place of fuzzy concepts in traffic assignment (TA) models has been studied in recent literature. Keeping fuzzy level of travel demand in mind, we propose a new TA model in which the travel costs of links are depended on their congestion. From the results of such fuzzy TA model, network planners are able to estimate the number of travelers on network links. By using zero–one variables, the proposed model is transformed into a crisp mixed-integer problem with respect to path-flow variables. In order to produce the Logit flows from this problem, Damberg et al. algorithm is modified. Then, the level of certainty is maximized and perceived travel delays are minimized. For a fixed certainty degree, the obtained solution, which is named the fuzzy equilibrium flow, satisfies a quasi-Logit formula similar to ordinary expression of the Logit route choice model. Eventually, we examine the quality of different path enumeration techniques in the proposed model.