Mechanisms And Regulation Strategies Of The Morning Rush Hour Congestion Based On A Y-shaped Dual-bottleneck Model

Alleviating traffic congestion during morning peak hours is a global management problem.The waste of resources and pollution emissions caused by traffic congestion greatly hinder the construction process of China’s powerful transportation network.Due to multiple constraints such as relationships between multi bottlenecks in the traffic network,the commuter heterogeneity,different target arrival times,limited road resources,and the time variability of traffic flow,the dynamic equilibrium of users is diverse,and the discrimination is more complex.Thus,effective congestion regulation strategies are relatively weak.In recent years,although some progresses have been made in the area of the morning commute problem based on the “multibottleneck” model,there are still some problems to be solved:(1)For the “multi-bottleneck”model in morning commute,the existing studies related to mechanisms and evolution rules of the traffic congestion pattern are mainly based on specific scenarios(e.g.,bottleneck capacity meeting certain conditions).Therefore,there is a lack of comprehensive analysis of the mechanism of traffic congestion patterns from a general scenario purpose.(2)The existing studies of the “multi-bottleneck” model in morning commute are mainly based on individual decisionmaking.There is a lack of analysis to focus on the study of household joint decision-making.(3)The analysis of congestion mitigation strategies of existing studies in morning commute mainly based on the “individual multi-bottleneck” model,and the research on congestion mitigation strategies for the “individual and household multi-bottleneck” model needs to be further improved.(4)For the “individual multi-bottleneck” model in morning commute,the congestion mitigation strategies from a system optimal perspective are relatively weak.In summary,based on the classic “Y-shaped dual-bottleneck” model in morning commute,the study fully considers the travel decision-making behaviors of the individual and household.Through literature research and practical investigation,the main research work is as follows:1.Mechanisms and evolution rules of the traffic congestion pattern in morning commute based on a Y-shaped model with dual bottlenecks.Given the complex discrimination of formation mechanisms and evolution rules of the congestion pattern,firstly,the commuting mechanisms of the individual and household are analyzed.Secondly,two different discrimination criteria for influencing factors of the user equilibrium are proposed corresponding to the heterogeneous(the individual and household)and homogeneous(the individual)users,respectively.The user equilibrium and related critical conditions in a combination of all influence factors are derived.Finally,the mechanisms and evolution rules of the congestion pattern are analyzed,laying a foundation for the formulation of reasonable and efficient congestion regulation strategies.2.The staggering policy in morning commute with individual and household travelers.Considering the inefficiency of congestion regulation strategy for individual and household travelers,this study introduces the staggering variable and fully considers the complexity(e.g.,heterogeneous users,the bottleneck correlation and merging property)of the Y-shaped network with dual bottlenecks.A Y-shaped morning commute model with individual and household users is constructed based on the staggering policy.Firstly,76 types of user equilibrium states with the staggering policy are derived and classified into four traffic congestion patterns.Secondly,the optimal staggering policies for minimizing different objectives,i.e.,the total system cost,the total congestion cost,system performance,the upstream bottleneck and downstream congestion costs,are derived.Finally,the impact of the expansion of bottleneck capacity on reducing the total system cost is discussed.The results show that proper design of the staggering policy can eliminate the paradoxical phenomenon caused by the expansion of the upstream bottleneck capacity,which provides a theoretical basis for traffic management departments to formulate reasonable staggering policies.3.The ride-sharing pricing scheme in morning commute with individual travelers.Firstly,regarding the weakness of congestion regulation strategies for individual travelers,this study introduces the concept of ride-sharing by referring to the sharing economy theory.A ride-sharing pricing scheme model in morning commute based on a Y-shaped network with dual bottlenecks is constructed by considering the complexity of the Y-shaped network(e.g.,the bottleneck correlation and merging property).Secondly,considering the charging-compensation scheme in the morning commute,the model examines the ride-sharing pricing scheme to maximize the platform profit and minimize the system disutility.The corresponding threshold conditions for the ride-sharing pricing schemes are given.The results show that when all commuters participate in the ride-sharing service,the profit of the platform and the system disutility can both reach their own optimal value.The ride-sharing pricing scheme that aims to minimize the system disutility can also simultaneously eliminate the traffic congestion at the two bottlenecks in the Y-shaped network.The study extends of the classical bottleneck model in the morning commute problem and a deepening of economic theory in transportation.The results enrich the theory of the mechanism and evolution of the morning commute problem.Under the framework of the government’s“smart transportation,low-carbon economy”,the proposed staggering policy and ride-sharing pricing scheme can guide the practice and provide theoretical support for alleviating traffic congestion and exploring the “intelligent sharing,green traveling” construction of powerful transportation networks.