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Title:

ASSIGNING TRAFFIC OVER ESSENTIALLY-LEAST-COST PATHS

Accession Number:

00732410

Record Type:

Component

Availability:

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Order URL: http://worldcat.org/isbn/0309059550

Abstract:

The concept of a least-cost path is generalized. The simplest of all traffic assignment models assumes that all trip makers from a single origin-destination (O-D) pair take a single path, for example, the minimum cost path or the equilibrium path. However, in many applications, it is observed that trips from a single O-D do not all take the same path. It is not difficult to imagine commuters from a large residential area using different routes to travel to a common workplace simply because each has a different disutility function. In reality no two routes have exactly the same cost; however, when modeled deterministically as network graphs, these graphs invariably have O-Ds with degenerate (multiple) shortest paths. The ability to measure the "best" route should also be seriously questioned. Given the level of uncertainty that exists in any link attribute, the variance of the accumulated uncertainty of that attribute over any given route can easily be such as to make many routes statistically indistinguishable from the deterministic best route. An algorithm for generating the set of paths that are essentially indistinguishable from the least-cost path is presented. These paths are constructed from the set of "locally acceptable" detours that are within a given cost threshold. This is different from the classic "k" least-cost path problem in that it operates on a cost threshold as opposed to a predetermined number of paths. Methods are then presented for assigning traffic to this subnetwork of essentially-least-cost paths.

Supplemental Notes:

This paper appears in Transportation Research Record No. 1556, Transportation Forecasting: Short-Term Practical Improvements, Travel Behavior Models and Issues, and Artificial Intelligence.

Language:

English

Corporate Authors:

Transportation Research Board

500 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001 United States

Authors:

Hunt, D T
Kornhauser, A L

Pagination:

p. 1-7

Publication Date:

1996

Serial:

Transportation Research Record

Issue Number: 1556
Publisher: Transportation Research Board
ISSN: 0361-1981

ISBN:

0309059550

Features:

Figures (5) ; References (3) ; Tables (4)

Old TRIS Terms:

Subject Areas:

Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; I73: Traffic Control

Files:

TRIS, TRB

Created Date:

Feb 18 1997 12:00AM

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