Friends Don’t Let Friends Drive on Bad Routes: Modeling the Impact of Social Networks on Drivers’ Route Choice Behavior

Route choice is a daily question that drivers face under variable traffic conditions. Although a variety of studies have focused on route choice behavior, actual route choice behavior on real-world networks and the mechanisms that govern it have eluded complete characterization. Part of the difficulty has been the growing availability of multiple information sources that may influence drivers’ route choices, precluding collection of adequate observational data. In addition, with continuing emergence of new forms and sources of information, such as social media with varying degrees of interactivity, engagement, and immediacy, existing frameworks and models for representing these choices and the influence of new information sources have been lacking. This study uses an agent-based modeling approach to investigate the effects of social influence on drivers’ route choice. The drivers communicate with each other in the same social network. This information is combined with their previous experiences. The first aim of this study is to investigate the impact of social network connectivity and information exchange on route choice. The second is to characterize when all drivers in the social network are satisfied about their route choices. The simulation results show that a boundedly-rational equilibrium is achieved when all drivers in the given social network are satisfied with their current route choices.

  • Supplemental Notes:
    • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ADB20 Effects of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) on Travel Choices.
  • Corporate Authors:

    Transportation Research Board

    500 Fifth Street, NW
    Washington, DC  United States  20001
  • Authors:
    • Chen, Ying
    • Talebpour, Alireza
    • Mahmassani, Hani S
  • Conference:
  • Date: 2015

Language

  • English

Media Info

  • Media Type: Digital/other
  • Features: Figures; References; Tables;
  • Pagination: 17p
  • Monograph Title: TRB 94th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

Filing Info

  • Accession Number: 01559047
  • Record Type: Publication
  • Report/Paper Numbers: 15-4974
  • Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
  • Created Date: Mar 31 2015 1:04PM