A speed limit scheme to enhance carpooling in the presence of HOV lanes in degradable networks

Triggered by the principle that speed limits are able to adjust flow patterns in a network, this paper proposes a scheme imposing speed limits on the low occupancy vehicle (LOV) lanes in the presence of high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes to encourage travelers to carpool. Degradable traffic networks are taken into consideration. A bi-level programming model is built to detect the effects of this scheme. The lower level describes the travelers’ choice of travel mode and route by a variational inequality while the upper level targets the maximum net economic benefit and minimal number of accidents. A multi-objective genetic algorithm for the computation of optimal values of the speed limits is applied to compute solutions to the Sioux Falls network example. The optimal solutions, the rough bound of dominate solution and the system performances with respect to various demands are described and discussed.