Commuter Departure Time Choice Behaviorunder Congestion Pricing

Urban traffic congestion problem is increasingly serious.Faced with uncertain traffic system network,commuters are the main body of traffic travel,whose travel decision behavior is affected by traffic congestion.To solve this problem,as a kind of traffic demand management policies,the traffic congestion charging is paid more attention to.The implementation of congestion charging can make traffic network more complex and more uncertain for commuters,and then can affect the commuters'departure time choice.To describe and predict the departure time choice behavior of commuters in the traffic network,Cumulative Prospect Theory is used in this article.At present,with Cumulative Prospect theory,most of the studies on the departure time of commuters are studied from the following perspectives:compared with the expected utility model,highlight the advantage of Cumulative Prospect Theory in describing the decision-making behavior;verify the applicability of Cumulative Prospect Theory;and simply study the behavior of the departure time.There is no study about the actual departure time of commuters in the context of congestion pricing.Furthermore,in all the travel behavior research based on Cumulative Prospect Theory,there exists no research about estimating all the parameters of Cumulative Prospect Theory with the departure time data.This paper reviews the cumulative prospect theory,commuting time behavior and congestion pricing.Factors that affects the commuters' departure time choice behavior,are determined.A conceptual model that can effectively predict the actual departure time choice behavior of commuters,is proposed based on the cumulative prospect theory.Afterwards,examine the departure time choice behavior of commuters in their real life through stated preference survey,and the subjects are mainly those commuters who go to work by private car.Based on the empirical data,descriptive statistical analysis is carried out.Then perform the operation of Genetic algorithm to estimate the parameter values of value function and decision weight function,through MATLAB statistical software.Finally,through comparative analysis,explore the effects of different congestion charging mechanism.The results show that parameter values of the value function indicate that private car commuters are more inclined to depart early and have a relatively low degree of risk preference for lateness.The value of the weighting function coefficient indicates that the ability of private car commuters to perceive objective probability is stronger,and there is a small deviation in estimating the arrival time in the uncertain traffic system.The model of commuters departure time choice can well explain the commuter departure time choice behavior,which is based on cumulative prospect theory and combined with the congestion charging situation.The value of each parameter can vary with different charging situations and different reference points.The sample group of private car commuters has the characteristic of depending on the reference point when making behavior decisions.The way that combines charging by the time interval and charging for specific road,can change the departure time choice behavior of the commuters in the uncertain traffic system.Within the certain amount of charge,the utility of the private car commuter will gradually reach the maximum with the increase of congestion charge.Based on the empirical results and the literature researches,this article puts forward the corresponding countermeasures and suggestions,from the aspect of the design of congestion-pricing scheme.It is of great realistic significance for using congestion charging policy to alleviate the urban traffic congestion and guide commuters' actual travel behavior.