Optimum departure times for commuters in congested networks

We propose an algorithm to compute the optimum departure time and path for a commuter in a congested network. Constant costs for use of arcs, cost functions of travel time depending on exogenous congestion and schedule delay are taken into account. A best path for a given departure time is computed with a previous algorithm for the generalized shortest path problem. The globally optimal departure time and an optimal path are determined by adapting Piyavskii's algorithm to the case of one-sided Lipschitz functions.This research has benefited from a grant of the Transportation Center of Northwestern University. The first author's research was partially supported by NSF grant No. SES-8911517 to Northwestern University. The second author's research was partially supported by AFOSR grants No. 89-0512 and 90-0008 to Rutgers University.