A toll-based approach for regulating hazmat transportation network considering boundedly rational route choice

Abstract

This paper introduces a novel toll charge to regulate transportation of hazardous materials (hazmat), taking into account that carriers are bounded rational decision-makers. In the case of bounded rationality, the route choice behaviour of carriers is described based on the link-based perception error model. Then, a novel bi-level programming model is developed, which aims to minimise both total tolls and maximum total risk, while finding the shortest path according to certain perception errors. To effectively solve the proposed model, it is decomposed into two subproblems, and the particle swarm optimisation algorithm and K-shortest paths algorithm are designed. Furthermore, an extended model is developed to ensure risk equity between different links, where the constraints on maximum link risk are added. Numerical experiments are conducted to validate the proposed models and algorithms, demonstrating that maximum total risk can be effectively mitigated and risk equity between different links can be achieved.