Responsive transport network design: minimal investment for desired travel time reduction

ABSTRACT

It is crucial for policymakers to satisfy the expectation of network users in practice. It is a so-called responsive transport network design problem. It is curious that this important problem is rarely explored. This paper aims to propose a method to solve this problem. A novel bi-level programming model is formulated where the upper level is to minimize investment cost with desired travel time reduction target, while the lower level is transport system equilibrium that is a closed-loop feedback process between destination choice and traffic assignment. It is well known that the solution of bi-level programming model is challenging. A trial and error algorithm is designed to solve the proposed model. Finally, a computational experiment is carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness and operability of the proposed method and algorithm. Results show that they are useful tools for investment decision making on target-oriented transport network design.

KEYWORDS:

• Responsive network design
• minimal investment
• desired goal
• bi-level programming model
• trial and error algorithm

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the anonymous reviewers for their suggestions, which were very useful in revising the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research is supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (Grants No. BK20201277) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grants No. 2242021820022).