A General Fixed-Point Approach to Multimode Multi-User Equilibrium Assignment with Elastic Demand
Abstract
This paper presents a fixed-point formulation of multi-mode multi-user equilibrium assignment with elastic demand. Users of different classes may have different behavioral characteristics as well as sets of available routes and modes. They may also behave according to different deterministic and/or probabilistic choice models with different utility specifications. Demand elasticity is dealt with without using the inverse of demand function; in addition, the mode choice can be explicitly dealt with. Conditions for existence and uniqueness of solutions are stated, which generalize and extend those in the literature. A general framework for solution algorithms is also developed, and a simple new algorithm is proposed to solve asymmetric (stochastic) multi-mode multi-user equilibrium with elastic demand.
