As the demands placed on transport systems have increased relative to extensions in supply, problems of network unreliability have become ever more prevalent. The response of some transport users has been to accommodate expectations of unreliability in their decision-making, particularly through their trip scheduling. Developing ideas further, we acknowledge the fundamental role that random utility model (RUM) conventionally plays as a component of transport network models is acknowledged. The concept of a transport network acknowledges that travellers may make choices with reference to the condition of the transport system and, it follows, to their interactions with other users. Furthermore, travellers' experiences of travel conditions may influence their future travel choices. When faced with the task of reconciling these phenomena, network analysts seek to identify the conditions under which the network reaches some sense of 'equilibrium'. This notion of equilibrium may, however, be challenged on several counts; of particular relevance to the current discussion is the proposition that travellers have perfect information. Moreover, it becomes apparent that the challenges to RUM that arise from trip scheduling under uncertainty - as discussed above - also manifest themselves in the operation of transport network models. In response to such challenges, transport network modellers have experimented with RUMs of increasingly generality. Despite this progression in the generality and sophistication of methods, significant challenges to the normative validity of RUM and transport network models remain. Of increasing prominence in transport research, is the conjecture that expected utility maximisation may represent an inappropriate objective of choice under uncertainty. The authors reconcile Prospect Theory with the extant theory of trip scheduling; a novel aspect of the investigation is the consideration of the overlap between Prospect Theory and a generalised representation of the random expected utility maximisation model. The is then extended analysis to consider the interface with transport network models, with the aim of developing a consistent framework for representing the travel time uncertainty arising from uncertainty in demand. To this end, the existence and uniqueness of an equilibrium solution (fixed point condition) to the network problem is considered, given the representation of Prospect Theory. A mathematical algorithm for computing this equilibrium state is proposed. For the covering abstract please see ITRD E135207.
Samenvatting