Transportation Network Design: Dr. Tom V. Mathew
Transportation Network Design: Dr. Tom V. Mathew
Transportation Network Design: Dr. Tom V. Mathew
Contents
1 Introduction
2 Traffic assignment
2.1 All-or-nothing assignment
2.2 Incremental assignment
2.3 Capacity restraint assignment
2.4 User equilibrium assignment (UE)
2.5 System Optimum Assignment (SO)
2.6 Example 1
2.7 Example 2
2.8 Stochastic user equilibrium assignment
2.9 Dynamic Assignment
Bibliography
1 Introduction
This document discusses the aspects of network design.First a brief introduction of network design will be
given.Then various types of assignment techniques will be discussed including the mathematical
formulation and numerical illustration of the important ones.Then the concept of bilevel programming
and few examples will be presented.Finally one such example, namely the network capacity expansion
will be formulated as a bilevel optimization problem and will be illustrated using a numerical example.
Transportation network design in a broad sense deeds with the configuration of network to achieve
specified objectives.There are two variations to the problem, the continuous network design and the
discrete network design. Examples of the form include
a
The determination of road width.
b
The calculation of signal timings.
c
The setting of road user charges.
Although this document covers the continous network design in detailed, basis underlinig principles are
some form the discrete case. Conventional network design has been concerned with minimization of total
system cost.However, this may be unrealistic in the sense that how the user will respond to the proposed
changes is not considered. Therefore, currently the network designis thought of as supply demand
problem or leader-follower game.The system designer leads, taking into account how the user follow.
The core of all network design problems is how a user chooses his route of travel. The class of traffic
assignment problem tries to model these behaviour. Therefore, the traffic assignment will be discussed
before adressing bi-level formulation of the network design problems.
2 Traffic assignment
The process of allocating given set of trip interchanges to the specified transportation system is usually
refered to as traffic assignment. The fundamental aim of the traffic assignment process is to reproduce
on the transportation system, the pattern of vehicular movements which would be observed when the
travel demand represented by the trip matrix, or matrices ,to be assigned is satisfied. The major aims of
traffic assignment procedures are:
1. To estimate the volume of traffic on the links of the network and possibly the turning movements at
intersections.
2. To furnish estimates of travel costs between trip origins and destinations for use in trip distribution.
3. To obtain aggregate network measures, e.g. total vehicular flows, total distance covered by the
vehicle, total system travel time.
4. To estimate zone-to-zone travel costs(times) for a given level of demand.
5. To obtain reasonable link flows and to identify heavily congested links.
6. To estimate the routes used between each origin to destination(O-D) pair.
7. To analyse which O-D pairs that uses a particular link or path.
8. To obtain turning movements for the design of future junctions.
The types of traffic assignment models are all-or-nothing assignment, incremental assignment, capacity
restraint assignment, user equilibrium assignment (UE), stochastic user equilibrium assignment (SUE),
system optimum assignment (SO), etc. These frequently used models are discussed here.
(1)
k is the path, equilibrium flows in link a, travel time on link a, flow on path k connecting
The equations above are simply flow conservation equations and non negativity constraints, respectively.
These constraints naturally hold the point that minimizes the objective function. These equations state
user equilibrium principle.The path connecting O-D pair can be divided into two categories : those
carrying the flow and those not carrying the flow on which the travel time is greater than (or equal to)the
minimum O-D travel time. If the flow pattern satisfies these equations no motorist can better off by
unilaterally changing routes. All other routes have either equal or heavy travel times. The user
equilibrium criteria is thus met for every O-D pair. The UE problem is convex because the link travel time
functions are monotonically increasing function, and the link travel time a particular link is independent of
the flow and other links of the networks. To solve such convex problem Frank Wolfe algorithm is useful.
(2)
equilibrium flows in link a, travel time on link a, flow on path k connecting O-D pair r-s,
2.6 Example 1
To demonstrate how the most common assignment works, an example network is considered. This
network has two nodes having two paths as links.
Let us suppose a case where travel time is not a function of flow as shown in other words it is constant as
shown in the figure below.
The travel time functions for both the links is given by:
Since the shortest path is Link 1 all flows are assigned to it making =12 and = 0.
below :
Differentiate the above equation w.r.t and equate to zero, and solving for and then leads
Differentiate the above equation w.r.t and equate to zero, and solving for and then leads
After solving each of the formulations the results are tabulated in Table 1. One can infer that if the travel
time is independent of the flow, then essentially there in no difference between the various assignment
types.
Type TSTT
2.7 Example 2
Assume which makes 0 and . Since the shortest path is Link 1 all
below:
Differentiate the above equation w.r.t and equate to zero, and solving for and then leads
Substituting
Differentiate the above equation w.r.t zero, and solving for and then leads to the solution
After solving each of the formulations the results are tabulated in Table 2. One can infer that unlike
earlier, the various assignment types shows considerable differences in the performace. AON has
obviously the worst solution and SO has the best.
Type TSTT
1. Most of the cost functions, such as the BPR function, do not take into consideration emission-related
factors.
2. Interactions between links are not considered; the travel time on one link is independent of the
volumes on other links. This is an obvious oversimplification. At intersections, link travel times are
affected by volumes on other approaches and opposing left turns. On freeways, merging and
weaving conditions can greatly affect travel times. Queuing caused by bottlenecks on other links can
also be a factor. Queues build as volumes approach the bottleneck
3. Although some software packages allow node-based capacities, delays, or performance functions
which allows for better modeling of intersection dynamics. However, many of the problems described
above cannot be eliminated through network solutions. Some of these issues can be addressed by
considering the effects of flows on other links and the delays at a junction, on the link under
investigation.
4 Bilevel
The bilevel programming (BLP) problem is a special case of multilevel programming problems with a two
level structure. The problem can be expressed as follows: the transport planner, wishes to determine an
optimal policy as a function of his or control variables (y) and the users response to these controls,
where users response generally takes the form of a network flow (x). The transport planner then seeks
to minimise a function of both y and x, where some constraints may be imposed upony as well as the
fact that x should be a user equilibrium flow, parameterised by the control vector,y. There exists many
problems in transportation that can be formulated as bilevel programming problem.They include network
capacity expansion, network level signal setting and optimum toll pricing. They are discussed briefly here:
5 Examples of Bilevel
5.1 Network Capacity Expansion
The network capacity expansion problem is to determine capacity enhancements of existing facilities of a
transportation network which are, in some sense, optimal. Network design models concerned with adding
indivisible facilities (modeled as integer variables) are said to be discrete, whereas those dealing with
divisible capacity enhancements (modeled as continuous variables) are said to be continuous. Thus
network expansion problem is a continuous network design problem,which determines the set of link
capacity expansions and the corresponding equilibrium flows for which measures of performance index
for network is optimal. A bilevel programming technique can be used to formulate this equilibrium
network design problem. At the upper level problem, the system performance index is defined as the
sum of total travel times and investment costs of link capacity expansions. At the lower level problem,
the user equilibrium flow is determined by Wardrop's first principle and can be formulated as an
equivalent minimization problem. The most well-studied equilibrium network design problem is user
equilibrium network design with fixed transportation demand.
type, and sequence of phases), signal settings may consist of cycle length's, green splits, and
offsets.Traffic equilibrium, is a set of link flows satisfying satisfying Wardrop's first principle.
The equilibrium traffic signal setting is a pair such that is a traffic equilibrium when
(3)
(4)
If there exists a pair , then link flows and signal settings are
(5)
(6)
(7)
If there exists such a pair , then link flows and signal settings are
(8)
There can be be three types of formulation on upper level, one is total network travel cost , the sum
(9)
The total revenue, denoted as , arising from toll charges can be expressed as:
(10)
A third objective function can be to maximize the ratio, denoted as , of the total revenue to total cost
(11)
where is travel cost is exit flows and are the queueing delay.
'y' when 'x' is known. The network design problem consists of finding a pair ,such that is
(12)
where is the capacity improvement corresponding to a under specified Budget B and is the
(13)
where is a function that given optimal capacity expansion vector for a given . If there exists
such a pair ( , ) then link flows and capacity improvement are mutually consistent or in
equilibrium , in the sense that users choice when controls are at yield link flows equal to those from
(14)
or equivalently
(15)
Figure 3: Bilevel
Let A be the set of links in the network, the set of OD pairs, q the vector of fixed OD pair demands,q
= , K the set of paths between OD pair , f the vector of path flows between OD pair r,s on path
k which means f = [ ], x the vector of link flows, x = , y the vector of link capacity expansion,
y= , B the allocated budget for expansion, travel time on link a, is the coefficient of link
expansion vector y,, flow on path k connecting O-D pair r-s, trip rate between r and s.
Upper Level
(16)
subject to
(17)
(18)
Lower Level
(19)
subject t
(20)
(21)
(22)
(23)
equilibrium flows in link a, travel time on link a, link capacity expansions in link a, ,
flow on path k connecting O-D pair r-s, trip rate between r and s. To illustrate how the bilevel
problem of network capacity expansion works an example network was considered.This network had four
nodes and five links.Two links were considered for improvement. The figure shows the network.
7 Numerical Example
7.1 Input
(24)
(25)
(26)
(27)
7.2 Output
no. x0* x1* x2* x3* x4* UE TSTT z1* z2* SO
1 42.5 38.71 52.87 10.37 79.09 317.39 692.8 5.36 4.64 609.41
2 38.78 42.27 56.05 17.27 75.65 296.85 564.23 5.79 4.21 564
3 38.61 42.44 55.67 17.06 76.02 296.73 564.48 5.95 4.05 564.45
4 38.45 42.56 55.58 17.13 76.07 296.53 563.5 6.02 3.98 563.5
5 38.51 42.53 55.48 16.97 76.21 296.68 564.61 6.04 3.96 564.61
6 38.5 42.53 55.46 16.96 76.22 296.66 564.6 6.04 3.96 564.6
7.3 Discussion
The initial link expansion vector is taken as 0. User equilibrium is performed to get the required link
flows. Now these flows are input to upper level from where we get a new set of link expansion vectors
which minimizes the system travel time.This iteration is repeated until the total sytem travel time from
lower level and upper level converges.
Bibliography
1
Y. Sheffi, Urban transportation networks: Equilibrium analysis with mathematical programming
methods.
New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1984.
2
R. Thomas, Traffic Assignment Techniques.
England: Avebury Technical publication, 1991.