Effects of Network Structure on the Performance of a Modeled Traffic Network under Drivers' Bounded Rationality

TL;DR

This paper studies how different network structures influence traffic flow performance under drivers' bounded rationality, revealing phase transitions between congestion states using a minority game model.

Contribution

It introduces a minority route choice game to model driver behavior and analyzes the impact of ring-and-hub topologies on traffic congestion phases.

Findings

Network topology changes can trigger phase transitions from free flow to congestion.

The model captures how drivers' bounded rationality affects traffic dynamics.

Insights can inform better traffic network planning and management.

Abstract

We propose a minority route choice game to investigate the effect of the network structure on traffic network performance under the assumption of drivers' bounded rationality. We investigate ring-and-hub topologies to capture the nature of traffic networks in cities, and employ a minority game-based inductive learning process to model the characteristic behavior under the route choice scenario. Through numerical experiments, we find that topological changes in traffic networks induce a phase transition from an uncongested phase to a congested phase. Understanding this phase transition is helpful in planning new traffic networks.