Traffic flow splitting from crowdsourced digital route choice support

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Abstract

Digital technology is fundamentally transforming human mobility. Route choices in particular are greatly affected by the availability of traffic data, increased connectivity of data sources and cheap access to computational resources. Digital routing technologies promise more efficient route choices for the individual and a reduction of congestion for cities. Yet, it is unclear how widespread adoption of such technologies actually alters the collective traffic flow dynamics on complex street networks. Here, we answer this question for the dynamics of urban commuting under digital route choice support. Building on the class of congestion games we study the evolution of commuting behavior as a fraction of the population relies on, but also contributes to, crowdsourced traffic information. The remainder of the population makes their route choices based on personal experience. We show how digital route choice support may cause a separation of commuter flows into technology and non-technology users along different routes. This collective behavior may fuel systemic inefficiencies and lead to an increase of congestion as a consequence. These results highlight new research directions in the field of algorithmic design of route choice decision support protocols to help fight congestion, emissions and other systemic inefficiencies in the course of increasing urbanization and digitization.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Article number035004
JournalJournal of Physics: Complexity
Volume1
Issue number3
Publication statusPublished - 7 Aug 2020
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

ORCID /0000-0002-5956-3137/work/142242403

Keywords

Keywords

  • Many-body game theory, Networks, Nonlinear dynamics, Traffic assignment

Library keywords