Congestion pricing in the absence of demand functions

This paper enhances a trial-and-error implementation scheme of marginal-cost pricing on a transportation network, in the absence of explicit expression of the demand function. Link tolls and link flows are updated for the next trial with the revealed link flows for given current trial toll pattern. The method is quite simple, requiring only some function evaluations. Also, the step size is not required to be square summable, thereby leading to the improvement of the efficiency of the algorithm. The global convergence of the method is proved and some numerical results are reported to illustrate its performance.

[1]  Hai Yang,et al.  TRAFFIC RESTRAINT, ROAD PRICING AND NETWORK EQUILIBRIUM , 1997 .

[2]  Lars-Göran Mattsson,et al.  Road pricing: theory, empirical assessment and policy , 1995 .

[3]  B. Curtis Eaves,et al.  On the basic theorem of complementarity , 1971, Math. Program..

[4]  J. G. Wardrop,et al.  Some Theoretical Aspects of Road Traffic Research , 1952 .

[5]  Richard Cole,et al.  Pricing network edges for heterogeneous selfish users , 2003, STOC '03.

[6]  David E. Boyce,et al.  Variational inequality formulation of the system-optimal travel choice problem and efficient congestion tolls for a general transportation network with multiple time periods , 2002 .

[7]  Wei Xu,et al.  A Sequential Experimental Approach for Analyzing Second-Best Road Pricing with Unknown Demand Functions , 2005 .

[8]  Michael Z. F. Li,et al.  The role of speed–flow relationship in congestion pricing implementation with an application to Singapore , 2002 .

[9]  K. Small,et al.  Product Differentiation on Roads: Constrained Congestion Pricing with Heterogeneous Users , 2003 .

[10]  Panos M. Pardalos,et al.  Network Optimization , 1997 .

[11]  Hai Yang,et al.  Modified Goldstein–Levitin–Polyak Projection Method for Asymmetric Strongly Monotone Variational Inequalities , 2002 .

[12]  Hai Yang,et al.  System Optimum, Stochastic User Equilibrium, and Optimal Link Tolls , 1999, Transp. Sci..

[13]  Jong-Shi Pang,et al.  Error bounds in mathematical programming , 1997, Math. Program..

[14]  D. Hearn,et al.  Solving Congestion Toll Pricing Models , 1998 .

[15]  Hai Yang,et al.  TRIAL-AND-ERROR IMPLEMENTATION OF MARGINAL-COST PRICING ON NETWORKS IN THE ABSENCE OF DEMAND FUNCTIONS , 2004 .

[16]  F. Facchinei,et al.  Finite-Dimensional Variational Inequalities and Complementarity Problems , 2003 .

[17]  George Karakostas,et al.  The Efficiency of Optimal Taxes , 2004, CAAN.

[18]  D. Hearn,et al.  Congestion Toll Pricing of Traffic Networks , 1997 .

[19]  P. Tisato OPTIMAL BUS SUBSIDY AND CROSS SUBSIDY WITH A LOGIT CHOICE MODEL , 1998 .

[20]  Kenneth Button,et al.  Road Pricing, Traffic Congestion and the Environment , 1998 .

[21]  A Downs POINT OF VIEW: IMPLEMENTING PEAK-HOUR ROAD PRICING AT FULLSCALE: FINDING SOLUTIONS TO PRACTICAL PROBLEMS , 1993 .