Institute of Transportation, MOTC

Jui-Yen Deng, 2009.01
Institute of Transportation Science, Tamkang University

　　The dynamic route choice behavior is of the most interest to study the individual driver’s route choices under the influence of the route guidance information where individual driver makes consecutive route switch decisions along the traveling route.This particular issue has been successfully modeled with various forms and extensions under the notion of the “Indifference Bands” applied with Probit model specifications in recent years. However, this particular issue may be further investigated as game-like decisions of two perspectives: the game between road users (among whom makes individual route choice in response to traffic information) as an entity versus traffic management authority (who would distribute traffic and route guidance information to achieve its goal); and the game among road users (individual decision versus predicted others’ actions in response to traffic information).

　　A concept of controlled experiment was implemented to investigate dynamic route choice game among users supplied with various degrees of explicit traffic and route guidance information. The experiment context includes two decision dimensions:day-to-day pre-trip route choice and en-route decisions with a period of ten consecutive working weeks (50 days) under various designated scenarios (sequences).As such, a three stage comprehensive controlled experiment has been conducted where selected subjects were selected to participate in a series of laboratory simulation as commuting drivers while the researcher regard traffic management as authority.

　　The tasks of this study are in two folds: the first to examine the explicit game where evolution of the individual’s (player’s) consecutive decision and playoffs will be recorded and analyzed, including the decision to decision dynamics and their final (convergence) state. The second task is to further modeling the road user’s dynamic decision with embedded game concept in the notion of jointed indifference bands specified as a Probit model structure such that the game elements will be treated as inclusive attributes.

　　Three major findings may be concluded for this thesis research. The first, the game among users’ routing decisions indeed existed for taking into account of others’actions in response to traffic information. The second, the proposed controlled game experiment delineated general phenomenon of cyclic fluctuation and stabilization within a week in the context of day-to-day commuting. Finally, two indifference band models (for unknown management strategy and known management strategy) were successfully specified and calibrated with good associated statistical criteria.