On the Price of Satisficing in Network User Equilibria

TL;DR

This paper investigates how satisficing decision-making by network users affects overall traffic efficiency, quantifying the potential increase in total travel time compared to fully rational behavior through analytical and numerical bounds.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of the price of satisficing in network equilibria and derives analytical bounds for its worst-case impact on system travel time.

Findings

The price of satisficing can significantly worsen total travel time.

Analytical bounds are established for the worst-case ratio of travel times.

Numerical analysis confirms the bounds across various network examples.

Abstract

When network users are satisficing decision-makers, the resulting traffic pattern attains a satisficing user equilibrium, which may deviate from the (perfectly rational) user equilibrium. In a satisficing user equilibrium traffic pattern, the total system travel time can be worse than in the case of the PRUE. We show how bad the worst-case satisficing user equilibrium traffic pattern can be, compared to the perfectly rational user equilibrium. We call the ratio between the total system travel times of the two traffic patterns the price of satisficing, for which we provide an analytical bound. We compare the analytical bound with numerical bounds for several transportation networks.