IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nwu/cmsems/974.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Information and Usage of Congestible Facilities Under Free Access

Author

Listed:
  • Richard Arnott

Abstract

We investigate the effect of information about congestion on participation and time-of-use decisions in a free-access delay system subject to predictable and unpredictable fluctuations in capacity and demand intensity. Expected welfare is greater with perfect than with zero information, while optimal design capacity is greater if and only if demand elasticity is less than one. Imperfect information can reduce welfare by inducting concentration in the arrival time of users at the facility. This suggests that route guidance systems for automobile travel and other public information dissemination schemes must be designed and implemented with care.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard Arnott, 1992. "Information and Usage of Congestible Facilities Under Free Access," Discussion Papers 974, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:nwu:cmsems:974
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/research/math/papers/974.pdf
    File Function: main text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Haltiwanger, John & Waldman, Michael, 1985. "Rational Expectations and the Limits of Rationality: An Analysis of Heterogeneity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(3), pages 326-340, June.
    2. Vanolin F. Hurdle & Dan Y. Solomon, 1986. "Service Functions for Urban Freeways---An Empirical Study," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 20(3), pages 153-163, August.
    3. Burness, H Stuart & Patrick, Robert H, 1991. "Peak-Load Pricing with Continuous and Interdependent Demand," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 3(1), pages 69-88, March.
    4. Henderson, J. Vernon, 1981. "The economics of staggered work hours," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 349-364, May.
    5. Hani Mahmassani & Robert Herman, 1984. "Dynamic User Equilibrium Departure Time and Route Choice on Idealized Traffic Arterials," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 18(4), pages 362-384, November.
    6. Moshe Ben-Akiva & Andre de Palma & Pavlos Kanaroglou, 1986. "Dynamic Model of Peak Period Traffic Congestion with Elastic Arrival Rates," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 20(3), pages 164-181, August.
    7. Panzar, John C, 1979. "Equilibrium and Welfare in Unregulated Airline Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 69(2), pages 92-95, May.
    8. John C. Panzar, 1976. "A Neoclassical Approach to Peak Load Pricing," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 7(2), pages 521-530, Autumn.
    9. Esther Gal-Or, 1988. "The Advantages of Imprecise Information," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 19(2), pages 266-275, Summer.
    10. Sullivan, Edward C. & Wong, Sun, 1989. "Development Of A Dynamic Equilibrium Assignment Procedure For Network-level Analysis Of New Technology," Institute of Transportation Studies, Research Reports, Working Papers, Proceedings qt9ns859v6, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Berkeley.
    11. Andre de Palma & Moshe Ben-Akiva & Claude Lefevre & Nicolaos Litinas, 1983. "Stochastic Equilibrium Model of Peak Period Traffic Congestion," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 17(4), pages 430-453, November.
    12. Hung-po Chao, 1983. "Peak Load Pricing and Capacity Planning with Demand and Supply Uncertainty," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 14(1), pages 179-190, Spring.
    13. Newbery, David M, 1990. "Pricing and Congestion: Economic Principles Relevant to Pricing Roads," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 6(2), pages 22-38, Summer.
    14. Visscher, Michael L, 1973. "Welfare-Maximizing Price and Output with Stochastic Demand: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 63(1), pages 224-229, March.
    15. Coate, Stephen & Panzar, John C, 1989. "Public Utility Pricing and Capacity Choice under Risk: A Rational Expectations Approach," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 1(4), pages 305-317, December.
    16. Hirshleifer, Jack, 1971. "The Private and Social Value of Information and the Reward to Inventive Activity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 61(4), pages 561-574, September.
    17. Mohring, Herbert, 1970. "The Peak Load Problem with Increasing Returns and Pricing Constraints," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 60(4), pages 693-705, September.
    18. McFadden, Daniel, 1974. "The measurement of urban travel demand," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 303-328, November.
    19. Richard R. Nelson & Sidney G. Winter, 1964. "A Case Study in the Economics of Information and Coordination the Weather Forecasting System," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 78(3), pages 420-441.
    20. Richard Arnott, 1986. "Information and Time-Of-Use Decisions in Stochastically Congestable Facilities," Discussion Papers 788, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    21. Cannon, Colin M., 1987. "Peak-pricing and self-rationing of gas," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 99-103, April.
    22. Brown, Gardner, Jr & Johnson, M Bruce, 1969. "Public Utility Pricing and Output under Risk," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 59(1), pages 119-128, March.
    23. Arnott, Richard & de Palma, Andre & Lindsey, Robin, 1992. "Route choice with heterogeneous drivers and group-specific congestion costs," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 71-102, March.
    24. Camerer, Colin & Loewenstein, George & Weber, Martin, 1989. "The Curse of Knowledge in Economic Settings: An Experimental Analysis," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(5), pages 1232-1254, October.
    25. Gordon F. Newell, 1987. "The Morning Commute for Nonidentical Travelers," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 21(2), pages 74-88, May.
    26. Arnott, Richard & de Palma, Andre & Lindsey, Robin, 1990. "Economics of a bottleneck," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 111-130, January.
    27. Small, Kenneth A., 1983. "The incidence of congestion tolls on urban highways," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 90-111, January.
    28. Gardes, Yonnel & May, Adolf D., 1990. "Traffic Modeling To Evaluate Potential Benefits Of Advanced Traffic Management And In-vehicle Information Systems In A Freeway/Arterial Corridor," Institute of Transportation Studies, Research Reports, Working Papers, Proceedings qt70c6600f, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Berkeley.
    29. Peter O. Steiner, 1957. "Peak Loads and Efficient Pricing," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 71(4), pages 585-610.
    30. Chris Hendrickson & George Kocur, 1981. "Schedule Delay and Departure Time Decisions in a Deterministic Model," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 15(1), pages 62-77, February.
    31. Vickrey, William S, 1969. "Congestion Theory and Transport Investment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 59(2), pages 251-260, May.
    32. Small, Kenneth A, 1982. "The Scheduling of Consumer Activities: Work Trips," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(3), pages 467-479, June.
    33. V. F. Hurdle, 1981. "Equilibrium Flows on Urban Freeways," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 15(3), pages 255-293, August.
    34. Rothschild, Michael & Stiglitz, Joseph E., 1970. "Increasing risk: I. A definition," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 225-243, September.
    35. Kraus, Marvin, 1982. "Highway pricing and capacity choice under uncertain demand," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 122-128, July.
    36. Wilson, Robert B, 1989. "Efficient and Competitive Rationing," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(1), pages 1-40, January.
    37. De Vany, Arthur & Saving, Thomas R, 1980. "Competition and Highway Pricing for Stochastic Traffic," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 53(1), pages 45-60, January.
    38. R. Arnott & A. de Palma & R. Lindsey, 1986. "Departure Time and Route Choice," Working Paper 658, Economics Department, Queen's University.
    39. De Vany, Arthur S & Saving, Thomas R, 1977. "Product Quality, Uncertainty, and Regulation: The Trucking Industry," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(4), pages 583-594, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Richard Arnott, 1986. "Information and Time-Of-Use Decisions in Stochastically Congestable Facilities," Discussion Papers 788, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    2. Kenneth Small, 2015. "The Bottleneck Model: An Assessment and Interpretation," Working Papers 141506, University of California-Irvine, Department of Economics.
    3. Kenneth A. Small & Xuehao Chu, 2003. "Hypercongestion," Journal of Transport Economics and Policy, University of Bath, vol. 37(3), pages 319-352, September.
    4. Small, Kenneth A., 2015. "The bottleneck model: An assessment and interpretation," Economics of Transportation, Elsevier, vol. 4(1), pages 110-117.
    5. Li, Zhi-Chun & Huang, Hai-Jun & Yang, Hai, 2020. "Fifty years of the bottleneck model: A bibliometric review and future research directions," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 311-342.
    6. Chen, Hongyu & Nie, Yu (Marco) & Yin, Yafeng, 2015. "Optimal multi-step toll design under general user heterogeneity," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 81(P3), pages 775-793.
    7. Richard Arnott, 1989. "Does Providing Information to Drivers Reduce Traffic Congestion?," Discussion Papers 864, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    8. Zhang, Xiaoning & Yang, Hai & Huang, Hai-Jun & Zhang, H. Michael, 2005. "Integrated scheduling of daily work activities and morning-evening commutes with bottleneck congestion," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 41-60, January.
    9. Cantelmo, Guido & Viti, Francesco, 2019. "Incorporating activity duration and scheduling utility into equilibrium-based Dynamic Traffic Assignment," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 365-390.
    10. Robin Lindsey, 2004. "Existence, Uniqueness, and Trip Cost Function Properties of User Equilibrium in the Bottleneck Model with Multiple User Classes," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 38(3), pages 293-314, August.
    11. Yu Nie, 2015. "A New Tradable Credit Scheme for the Morning Commute Problem," Networks and Spatial Economics, Springer, vol. 15(3), pages 719-741, September.
    12. Liu, Yang & Nie, Yu (Marco), 2011. "Morning commute problem considering route choice, user heterogeneity and alternative system optima," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 45(4), pages 619-642.
    13. Peer, Stefanie & Verhoef, Erik T., 2013. "Equilibrium at a bottleneck when long-run and short-run scheduling preferences diverge," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 12-27.
    14. Fu, Xinying & van den Berg, Vincent A.C. & Verhoef, Erik T., 2018. "Private road supply in networks with heterogeneous users," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 430-443.
    15. Chen, Hongyu & Liu, Yang & Nie, Yu (Marco), 2015. "Solving the step-tolled bottleneck model with general user heterogeneity," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 81(P1), pages 210-229.
    16. Ramadurai, Gitakrishnan & Ukkusuri, Satish V. & Zhao, Jinye & Pang, Jong-Shi, 2010. "Linear complementarity formulation for single bottleneck model with heterogeneous commuters," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 193-214, February.
    17. Small, K. & Noland, R. & Koskenoja, P., 1995. "Socio-economic Attributes And Impacts Of Travel Reliability: A Stated Preference Approach," Institute of Transportation Studies, Research Reports, Working Papers, Proceedings qt82n2w53k, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Berkeley.
    18. Nie, Yu (Marco) & Yin, Yafeng, 2013. "Managing rush hour travel choices with tradable credit scheme," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 1-19.
    19. Amirgholy, Mahyar & Gao, H. Oliver, 2017. "Modeling the dynamics of congestion in large urban networks using the macroscopic fundamental diagram: User equilibrium, system optimum, and pricing strategies," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 215-237.
    20. Noland, Robert B. & Small, Kenneth A. & Koskenoja, Pia Maria & Chu, Xuehao, 1998. "Simulating travel reliability," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(5), pages 535-564, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nwu:cmsems:974. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Fran Walker (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cmnwuus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.