On characterizing the relationship between route choice behavior and optimal traffic control solution space

Explicitly including the dynamics of users’ route choice behaviour in optimal traffic control applications has been of interest for researchers in the last five decades. This has been recognized as a very challenging problem, due to the added layer of complexity and the considerable non-convexity of the resulting problem, even when dealing with simple static assignment and analytical link cost functions. In this work we establish a direct behavioural connection between the different shapes and structures emerging in the solution space of such problems and the underlying route choice behaviour. We specifically investigate how changes in the active equilibrium route set exert direct influence on the solution space’s structure and behaviour. Based on this result, we then formulate and validate a constrained version of the original problem, yielding desirable properties in terms of solution space regularity.