Genetic computation of road network design and pricing Stackelberg games with multi-class users

  • Authors:
  • Loukas Dimitriou;Theodore Tsekeris;Antony Stathopoulos

  • Affiliations:
  • Department of Transportation Planning and Engineering, School of Civil Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, Athens, Greece;Centre for Planning and Economic Research, Athens, Greece;Department of Transportation Planning and Engineering, School of Civil Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, Athens, Greece

  • Venue:
  • Evo'08 Proceedings of the 2008 conference on Applications of evolutionary computing
  • Year:
  • 2008

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Abstract

This paper deals with the problems of optimal capacity and pricing decisions in private road networks. These problems are described as a class of design and pricing Stackelberg games and formulated as nonconvex, bilevel nonlinear programs. Such games capture interactions among the decisions of system designer/operator, government regulations and reactions of multi-class users on optimal toll-capacity combinations. The present class of games applies to a realistic urban highway with untolled alternative arterial links. In contrast with the mostly used continuous representations, the highway capacity is more intuitively expressed as a discrete variable, which further complicates the solution procedure. Hence, an evolutionary computing approach is employed to provide a stochastic global search of the optimal toll and capacity choices. The results offer valuable insights into how investment and pricing strategies can be deployed in regulated private road networks.