Investigating day-to-day route choices based on multi-scenario laboratory experiments, Part II: Route-dependent attraction-based stochastic process model

Abstract

Laboratory experiments are one of the important means used to investigate travel choice behavior under strategic uncertainty. Many experiment-based studies have shown that the Nash equilibrium can predict aggregated route choices, while the fluctuations, whose mechanisms are still unclear, continue to exist until the end. To understand the fluctuations, this paper proposes a route-dependent attraction-based stochastic process model, which shares exactly the same behavioral foundation introduced in Part I of the study (Qi et al., 2023), i.e., route-dependent inertia and route-dependent preference. The model predictions are carefully compared with the experimental observations obtained from the congestible parallel-route laboratory experiments containing 312 subjects and eight decision-making scenarios (Qi et al., 2023). The results show that the proposed stochastic process model can precisely reproduce the random oscillations both in terms of flow switching and route flow evolution. Subsequently, an approximated model is developed to enhance the efficiency in evaluating the equilibrium distribution, providing a practical tool to evaluate the impacts of transportation policies in both long- and short-term runs. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first attempt to model and explain experimental phenomena by introducing stochastic process theories, as well as a successful example of applying experimental economics methodology to improve our understanding of human travel choice behavior.