On the overlap between regional paths in multi-region macroscopic fundamental diagram traffic equilibrium models

Abstract

Multi-region Macroscopic Fundamental Diagram (MFD) traffic equilibrium models have been developed as a computationally efficient alternative to classical route choice traffic assignment models. There remains a gap in the research, however, for adapting and extending existing stateof-the-art route choice models to formulate analogous (but context specific) regional path choice models. In this study, we focus on adapting/extending the most commonly used Path Size Logit (PSL) route choice model. A key difference between route choice and regional path choice is that for the latter the travel time experienced traversing through a region depends on the regional path being taken. Therefore, the degree to which two regional paths overlap depends not only on the regions that are shared but also the travel time that is shared within those shared regions. Accounting for this, we formulate a new Intersectional PSL regional path choice model and discuss/demonstrate its theoretical properties compared to standard PSL.