Abstract
This study examines to what extent travel information can be used to direct travelers to system-optimal routes that may be sub-optimal for them personally, but contribute to network efficiency. This is done by empirically examining determinants of travelers’ compliance with social routing advice. To that end, we conducted both a stated choice experiment and a revealed choice experiment (which also collected stated intentions and motivations for revealed behavior). Results from the stated choice experiment indicate a significant difference in compliance behavior across different information frames, societal goals, sizes of travel time sacrifices and personality. These findings are less evident from results based on analysis of revealed choices; i.e., the main motivation for revealed compliance seems to be an intrinsic motivation to contribute to improved throughput, while the main motivation for non-compliance relates to perceived traffic conditions. Moreover, the size of the travel time sacrifice seems not that important as expected. Nonetheless, comparing stated intentions with real-world behavior suggests that a relation between intention and compliance frequency does exist.
Highlights
Travel information is expected by many scholars and practitioners alike to be successful in improving road network efficiency by directing the network state from a user equilibrium towards a system optimum
As the social value orientation measure specifies three categories of which competitors are rarely present in a route choice context, this category is combined with individualists; i.e., they both aim to enhance outcomes for themselves
This paper contributes to literature on social routing by empirically studying determinants of travelers’ compliance with system-optimal travel information and social routing advice
Summary
Travel information is expected by many scholars and practitioners alike to be successful in improving road network efficiency by directing the network state from a user equilibrium towards a system optimum. Conventional (personalized) travel information aims at the individual’s benefit, stimulating travelers’ personal optimization of their own route choices (so-called selfish routing behavior); this may lead to an inefficient user equilibrium (e.g., Ben-Akiva et al 1991). As selfish routing tends to result in severe congestion at certain locations in the road network and slow down overall traffic movement, traffic authorities tend to pursue system (or social) optimal network conditions in which the total travel time—and therewith congestion—within the network is minimized. Examples on network efficiency, such as Pigou’s example (Pigou, as cited by Roughgarden 2006) and Braess’s Paradox (Braess et al 2005), have shown that in order to achieve system optimal network conditions, some travelers need to act socially and choose route alternatives possibly at their own expense (i.e., they might need to take a detour), referred to as social routing behavior. See Levy et al (2017) and Klein et al (2018) for two recent theoretical and simulationbased expositions of how different behaviors at the micro-level may lead to system-optimal outcomes
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