Games with a Partial Permission Structure and Their Applications

This thesis contains an introduction and six chapters. The introduction helps readers to position this thesis in game theory and graph theory, and Chapter 2 presents preliminaries, including cooperative games, digraphs, and games with a permission structure. Chapters 3, 4 and 5 provide new permission approaches, and characterize some Shapley value type solutions for cooperative games under these permission approaches. More specific, Chapter 3 combines disjunctive permission and local permission features to construct the local disjunctive permission approach. This approach requires that a player needs to get permission from at least one of its direct authorizers to cooperate, which can be used to model the approval right. Chapter 4 generalizes the local disjunctive and the local conjunctive permission approaches. This generalized approach requires that a player needs to get permission from a certain number of its direct authorizers to cooperate, which is suitable to describe certain voting situations. Chapter 5 provides a generalization of the local and the global disjunctive permission approaches, which requires that a non-top player needs permission from a sequence of authorizers that include a top player, or a sequence of at least $\xi$ authorizers to cooperate. This level generalization is commonly used in management. Besides, in those chapters, we provide axiomatizations for Shapley value type solutions for cooperative games under these permission approaches. Chapters 6 and 7 focus on applications of the content studied in the previous chapters. Chapter 6 provides a template for constructing measures based on permission values. In this chapter, we first propose the disjunctive measure to estimate dominance in a digraph by applying the local disjunctive permission value to additive games with a permission structure. Next, we generalize the disjunctive measure based on weak fairness, and extend this measure to weighted digraphs (including weights on nodes and weights on arcs). Finally, we axiomatize all these measures, and apply them to some classical networks in the literature, illustrating how they can be used to identify the key nodes in digraphs. Chapter 7 models highway toll allocation problems and provides a new platform for the application of games with a permission structure. In Chapter 7, we provide three toll allocation methods based on different toll charging rules. Besides, we characterize these methods and investigate the relationships between these methods and (disjunctive and conjunctive) permission values

Transforming payment choices by doubling fees on the Illinois tollway

Rising traffic congestion and the need to improve operational efficiency prompted the Illinois Tollway Authority to unveil plans to reconfigure its road network for “stop-free” electronic toll collection. Committing to an extensive construction program would have required the Tollway to ensure that enough drivers had electronic payment devices (branded as I- PASS). Conversely, without reconfigured toll gates the drivers would have had less reason to own an I-PASS. To resolve this potentially thorny chicken-and-egg problem, the Tollway put in place a new I-PASS distribution network and then dramatically raised the price for cash toll payments. This paper focuses on consumer response to the change in relative prices. Using tollway traffic data, we document a substantial aggregate increase in electronic toll payments. The propensity to pay electronically rose uniformly throughout the day, reflecting the effectiveness of the Tollway’s actions in modifying behavior of both commuters and leisure drivers. ; However, not all drivers appear to have responded to the price change per se. To analyze the relative importance of price, income, and fixed participation costs we use the Census tract level data on employment and residential location to construct a ZIP-code measure of the likelihood of commuting to work via the tollway. Conditional on this measure, we show that the adoption of electronic payments among lower-income households was indeed influenced by the price change. In contrast, high- and medium-income households responded to lower fixed costs of obtaining I-PASS at conveniently located supermarkets. Finally, we document the role of social network relationships, as changes in I-PASS ownership for all income groups were strongly affected by I-PASS use among neighbors and co- workers.Toll roads ; Toll roads - Illinois

Study of a Dynamic Cooperative Trading Queue Routing Control Scheme for Freeways and Facilities with Parallel Queues

This article explores the coalitional stability of a new cooperative control policy for freeways and parallel queuing facilities with multiple servers. Based on predicted future delays per queue or lane, a VOT-heterogeneous population of agents can agree to switch lanes or queues and transfer payments to each other in order to minimize the total cost of the incoming platoon. The strategic interaction is captured by an n-level Stackelberg model with coalitions, while the cooperative structure is formulated as a partition function game (PFG). The stability concept explored is the strong-core for PFGs which we found appropiate given the nature of the problem. This concept ensures that the efficient allocation is individually rational and coalitionally stable. We analyze this control mechanism for two settings: a static vertical queue and a dynamic horizontal queue. For the former, we first characterize the properties of the underlying cooperative game. Our simulation results suggest that the setting is always strong-core stable. For the latter, we propose a new relaxation program for the strong-core concept. Our simulation results on a freeway bottleneck with constant outflow using Newell's car-following model show the imputations to be generally strong-core stable and the coalitional instabilities to remain small with regard to users' costs.Comment: 3 figures. Presented at Annual Meeting Transportation Research Board 2018, Washington DC. Proof of conjecture 1 pendin

Options for reshaping the railway

In many countries the mismatch between what the railways offer and what the customers want has caused significant economic inefficiency and severe financial strains for the railways and their government owners. The concept of the railway as a monolithic entity is so strong in many countries as to be a roadblock against reshaping the railway. The authors explore four options which can be used to reshape the railways. First is the lines of business option which improves accountability and responsiveness to markets. The second is the competitive access option which introduces intramodal competition in selected markets, while maintaining unitary control over most railway operations. The third is the"wholesaler"option which would accomplish an excellent marketing job, but the actual operation would remain in monolithic hands. Finally there is the"toll rail enterprise"option which comes closest to reflecting a theoretical model of marketing effectiveness, however it would generate potential operating conflicts and higher transaction costs. The authors show that one generalization holds true in all circumstances: a monolithic railway does not function well in a market economy in competition with privately owned, properly regulated competitors - especially trucking. The authors point out that solutions will vary, but the universal objective as an economy becomes more market driven is to make the railway more market sensitive.Railways Transport,Roads&Highways,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,ICT Policy and Strategies

Value of Travel Time Reliability Part II: A Study of Tradeoffs Between Travel Reliability, Congestion Mitigation Strategies and Emissions

Capacity, demand, and vehicle based emissions reduction strategies are compared for several pollutants employing aggregate US congestion and vehicle fleet condition data. We find that congestion mitigation does not inevitably lead to reduced emissions; the net effect of mitigation depends on the balance of induced travel demand and increased vehicle efficiency that in turn depend on the pollutant, congestion level, and fleet composition. In the long run, capacity-based congestion improvements within certain speed intervals can reasonably be expected to increase emissions of CO2e, CO, and NOx through increased vehicle travel volume. Better opportunities for emissions reductions exist for HC and PM2.5 emissions, and on more heavily congested arterials. Advanced-efficiency vehicles with emissions rates that are less sensitive to congestion than conventional vehicles generate less emissions co-benefits from congestion mitigation

Cost allocation problems on highways with grouped users

One of the practical applications of cooperative transferable utility games involves determining the fee structure for users of a given facility, whose construction or maintenance costs need to be recouped. In this context, certain efficiency and equity criteria guide the considered solutions. This paper analyzes how to allocate the fixed costs of a highway among its users through tolls, considering that different classes of vehicles or travelers utilize the service. For this purpose, we make use of generalized highway games with a priori unions that represent distinct user groups, such as frequent travelers or truckers, who, due to enhanced bargaining power, often secure reductions in their fares in real-world scenarios. In particular, the Owen value, the coalitional Tijs value, and a new value termed the Shapley-Tijs value are axiomatically characterized. Additionally, straightforward formulations for calculating these values are provided. Finally, the proposed methodology is applied to actual traffic data from the AP-9 highway in Spain

The determinants of contractual choice for private involvement in infrastructure projects in the United States

Reliance on private partners to help provide infrastructure investment and service delivery is increasing in the United States. Numerous studies have examined the determinants of the degree of private participation in infrastructure projects as governed by contract type. We depart from this simple public/private dichotomy by examining a rich set of contractual arrangements. We utilize both municipal and state-level data on 472 projects of various types completed between 1985 and 2008. Our estimates indicate that infrastructure characteristics, particularly those that reflect stand alone versus network characteristics, are key factors influencing the extent of private participation. Fiscal variables, such as a jurisdiction’s relative debt level, and basic controls, such as population and locality of government, increase the degree of private participation, while a greater tax burden reduces private participation