Modeling and solving dynamic traffic assignment problems in continuous time

Abstract

Dynamic Traffic Assignment (DTA) is one of the most challenging problems in transportation science, aiming to provide detailed prediction of the time-varying traffic flows, measurement of time and cost and travel choices, so that time-varying operation strategies become possible. Different from its static counterpart, the DTA is challenging due to not only its conceptual complexity but also numerical difficulties. Being a specific problem in the DTA research, Dynamic user equilibrium (DUE) aims to predict future dynamic traffic states in a short-term fashion assuming travelers follow certain rational behavioral choices. However, comprehensive studies on continuous-time DUE are sparse in the literature. Another specific problem of the DTA is categorized as dynamic system optimum (DSO) or system optimal dynamic traffic assignment (SO-DTA). DSO predicts the optimal traffic states of a network under time-dependent traffic conditions from the perspective of the entire system. The DSO provides a benchmark for controlling and managing dynamic traffic networks.