Unconstrained Extremal Formulation of Some Transportation Equilibrium Problems

Abstract

This paper presents transportation equilibrium results that apply to both discrete choice models and network problems. Specifically, it shows that many network equilibrium problems admit an unconstrained extremal formulation and that unconstrained optimization algorithms may be used for their solution. Similar results are derived for equilibrium problems involving discrete choice models. It also shows that a certain class of stochastic networks exhibit unique equilibria and that simulation algorithms with fixed step sizes converge almost surely to the equilibrium point.