Travel time reliability with boundedly rational travelers

ABSTRACT

This paper presents a definition of boundedly rational confidence level (BRCL) which is the probability that a trip arrives within the shortest travel time budget plus the acceptable travel time difference (i.e. boundedly rational threshold). Using the method of data fitting, boundedly rational threshold is estimated. Then, a reliability-based boundedly rational user equilibrium (R-BRUE) model that explicitly considers both travel time reliability and travelers’ bounded rationality in the route choice decision process is proposed. This new model hypothesizes that for each origin–destination (O–D) pair no traveler can improve his/her BRCL by unilaterally changing routes. A route-based quasi-method of a successive average algorithm is developed to solve the R-BRUE model. Numerical examples illustrate the essential ideas of the proposed model and the applicability of the proposed solution algorithm.

KEYWORDS:

• Travel time reliability
• boundedly rational
• confidence level
• travel time budget
• threshold
• quasi-method of successive average

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to three anonymous referees for their constructive comments and suggestions to improve the quality and clarity of the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Chao Sun http://orcid.org/-0000-0002-1543-5790

Lin Cheng http://orcid.org/-0000-0003-1617-0154

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51578150, No. 51378119), the Scientific Research Foundation of Graduate School of Southeast University (No. YBJJ1679), the Research Innovation Program for College Graduates of Jiangsu Province (No. KYLX15_0150), and the China Scholarship Council (CSC) Program sponsored by the Ministry of Education in China.