On the impact of coordinated fleets size on traffic efficiency

Abstract

We investigate a traffic assignment problem on a transportation network, considering both the demands of individual drivers and of a large fleet controlled by a central operator (minimizing the fleet's average travel time). We formulate this problem as a two-player convex game and we study how the size of the coordinated fleet, measured in terms of share of the total demand, influences the Price of Anarchy (PoA). We show that, for two-terminal networks, there are cases in which the fleet must reach a minimum share before actually affecting the PoA, which otherwise remains unchanged. Moreover, for parallel networks, we prove that the PoA is monotonically non-increasing in the fleet share.