Braess' Paradox in Asymmetrical Traffic Networks

Braess’ paradox illustrates situations when adding a new link to a transport network might lead to an equilibrium state in which travel times of users will increase. Braess’ paradox has been studied mainly in the context of the classical problem introduced by Braess and his colleagues, assuming a certain type of symmetry in networks: two pairs of links in those networks are assumed to have the same volume-delay functions. This research explore Braess’ paradox by considering arbitrary volume-delay functions, i.e. symmetry properties are not assumed for any of the network’s links and the occurrence of Braess’ paradox is studied for a general configuration.