Day-to-Day Flow Dynamics and Congestion Control

For a predetermined set of an upper bound of link flows, this paper proposes a price‐based congestion control scheme for achieving such a restraint target of traffic flow that evolves from day to day. On each day, drivers have to pay a toll selected from a feasible set. The tolls on each day are determined by the link flows and toll charges on the previous day and the predetermined upper bound of link flows. Several properties of the dynamical system model with the control scheme are analyzed, including the invariance of its evolutionary trajectories; the equivalence between its stationary state and user equilibrium under toll charge; the uniqueness, existence, and boundedness of its stationary state; and the convergence of its evolutionary trajectories. A special case of the model and implementation of the control scheme for several alternative targets are also given. Finally, application of the model to a traffic network is demonstrated with a numerical example. The study is helpful for better understanding the mechanism of congestion control under day‐to‐day traffic flow dynamics.