The Integrative Freight Market Simulation: An application of experimental economics and algorithmic solutions

The Integrative Freight Market Simulation (IFMS) involves the development of a comprehensive freight transportation demand model based on game theory which depicts both commodity flows and vehicle trips. This model has a two-level solution approach. One level deals with the economic problem of estimating the provision of freight service consistent with market equilibrium and profit maximization, while the other level deals with the network problem of constructing tours which are consistent with the economic solution and other system constraints. The development of the IFMS has two phases: the application of experimental economics to an urban freight transportation market and the development of algorithmic solution methods to solve the IFMS.; This thesis describes the development of a computer-based game, the experimental design, and experimental results in the first phase and the development of several solution approaches in the second phase. These solution methods included construction algorithms based on decision rules developed from knowledge gained from the experiments and a "cluster first, route second" approach. These methods were used to solve a series of test cases similar to those used in the experiments. A number of performance measures were developed and the experimental and algorithmic results were analyzed.; The economic and network levels of the IFMS are connected through the concept of market equilibrium. A method for obtaining a Coumot-Nash equilibrium was developed and applied in the clustering-routing solution approach. Finally, the geographical distribution of transportation flows was analyzed for both the experimental and algorithmic results.