Title
Uncertainty in Multicommodity Routing Networks: When Does It Help?
Abstract
We study the equilibrium behavior in a multicommodity selfish routing game with uncertain users, where each user over- or underestimates their congestion costs by a multiplicative factor. Surprisingly, we find that uncertainties in different directions have qualitatively distinct impacts on equilibria. Namely, contrary to the usual notion that uncertainty increases inefficiencies, network congestion decreases when users overestimate their costs. On the other hand, underestimation of costs leads to increased congestion. We apply these results to urban transportation networks, where drivers have different estimates about the cost of congestion. In light of the dynamic pricing policies aimed at tackling congestion, our results indicate that users' perception of these prices can significantly impact the policy's efficacy, and “caution in the face of uncertainty” leads to favorable network conditions.
Year
DOI
Venue
2020
10.1109/TAC.2019.2962102
IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control
Keywords
DocType
Volume
Nash equilibrium,network routing,transportation,uncertainty
Journal
65
Issue
ISSN
Citations 
11
0018-9286
3
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.41
20
4
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Shreyas Sekar1267.56
Liyuan Zheng241.14
Lillian J. Ratliff38723.32
Baosen Zhang424141.10