Evaluating link and path incentives: which is the most effective strategy for mitigating traffic congestion?

Ramin Niroumand; Shaghayegh Vosough; Claudio Roncoli; Marco Rinaldi; Richard Connors

Evaluating link and path incentives: which is the most effective strategy for mitigating traffic congestion?

Ramin Niroumand^*, Shaghayegh Vosough, Claudio Roncoli, Marco Rinaldi, Richard Connors

^*Corresponding author for this work

Traffic Systems Engineering

Research output: Contribution to conference › Paper › peer-review

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Abstract

This study investigates the potential of link-and path-based incentives to mitigate congestion in urban transportation networks. Both incentive schemes are formulated as non-linear optimisation problems with complementarity constraints. Mathematically, it is demonstrated that the feasible region of the link-based model is a subset of the feasible region of the path-based model. Consequently, path-based incentives exhibit greater potential for shifting the user equilibrium flow pattern toward system optimum compared to link incentives. A column generation-based iterative solution technique, which generates new paths at each iteration, is devised to efficiently solve both optimisation problems. Numerical experiments conducted for various transport networks also highlight the superiority of path-based incentives in reducing total travel time in urban transportation networks.

Original language	English
Number of pages	20
Publication status	Published - 2025
Event	104th Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) - Walter E. Washington Convention Center, Washington DC, United States Duration: 5 Jan 2025 → 9 Jan 2025 https://trb-annual-meeting.nationalacademies.org/schedule

Conference

Conference	104th Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board (TRB)
Abbreviated title	TRB 2025
Country/Territory	United States
City	Washington DC
Period	5/01/25 → 9/01/25
Internet address	https://trb-annual-meeting.nationalacademies.org/schedule

Bibliographical note

Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care
Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.

Keywords

Incentive scheme
System optimum
Traffic assignment
Traffic management

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Embargoed Document

Evaluating link and path incentives: which is the most effective strategy for mitigating traffic congestion?
Accepted author manuscript, 638 KB
Licence: CC BY
Embargo ends: 5/07/25

Cite this

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title = "Evaluating link and path incentives: which is the most effective strategy for mitigating traffic congestion?",

abstract = "This study investigates the potential of link-and path-based incentives to mitigate congestion in urban transportation networks. Both incentive schemes are formulated as non-linear optimisation problems with complementarity constraints. Mathematically, it is demonstrated that the feasible region of the link-based model is a subset of the feasible region of the path-based model. Consequently, path-based incentives exhibit greater potential for shifting the user equilibrium flow pattern toward system optimum compared to link incentives. A column generation-based iterative solution technique, which generates new paths at each iteration, is devised to efficiently solve both optimisation problems. Numerical experiments conducted for various transport networks also highlight the superiority of path-based incentives in reducing total travel time in urban transportation networks.",

keywords = "Incentive scheme, System optimum, Traffic assignment, Traffic management",

author = "Ramin Niroumand and Shaghayegh Vosough and Claudio Roncoli and Marco Rinaldi and Richard Connors",

note = "Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository {\textquoteleft}You share, we take care!{\textquoteright} – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public. ; 104th Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board (TRB), TRB 2025 ; Conference date: 05-01-2025 Through 09-01-2025",

year = "2025",

language = "English",

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Evaluating link and path incentives: which is the most effective strategy for mitigating traffic congestion? / Niroumand, Ramin; Vosough, Shaghayegh; Roncoli, Claudio et al.
2025. Paper presented at 104th Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board (TRB), Washington DC, District of Columbia, United States.

Research output: Contribution to conference › Paper › peer-review

TY - CONF

T1 - Evaluating link and path incentives

T2 - 104th Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board (TRB)

AU - Niroumand, Ramin

AU - Vosough, Shaghayegh

AU - Roncoli, Claudio

AU - Rinaldi, Marco

AU - Connors, Richard

N1 - Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.

PY - 2025

Y1 - 2025

N2 - This study investigates the potential of link-and path-based incentives to mitigate congestion in urban transportation networks. Both incentive schemes are formulated as non-linear optimisation problems with complementarity constraints. Mathematically, it is demonstrated that the feasible region of the link-based model is a subset of the feasible region of the path-based model. Consequently, path-based incentives exhibit greater potential for shifting the user equilibrium flow pattern toward system optimum compared to link incentives. A column generation-based iterative solution technique, which generates new paths at each iteration, is devised to efficiently solve both optimisation problems. Numerical experiments conducted for various transport networks also highlight the superiority of path-based incentives in reducing total travel time in urban transportation networks.

AB - This study investigates the potential of link-and path-based incentives to mitigate congestion in urban transportation networks. Both incentive schemes are formulated as non-linear optimisation problems with complementarity constraints. Mathematically, it is demonstrated that the feasible region of the link-based model is a subset of the feasible region of the path-based model. Consequently, path-based incentives exhibit greater potential for shifting the user equilibrium flow pattern toward system optimum compared to link incentives. A column generation-based iterative solution technique, which generates new paths at each iteration, is devised to efficiently solve both optimisation problems. Numerical experiments conducted for various transport networks also highlight the superiority of path-based incentives in reducing total travel time in urban transportation networks.

KW - Incentive scheme

KW - System optimum

KW - Traffic assignment

KW - Traffic management

M3 - Paper

Y2 - 5 January 2025 through 9 January 2025

ER -

Evaluating link and path incentives: which is the most effective strategy for mitigating traffic congestion?

Abstract

Conference

Bibliographical note

Keywords

UN SDGs

Embargoed Document

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Cite this