A Model for Detecting Braess Paradox in General Transportation Networks

This study is for detecting the Braess Paradox by stable dynamics in general transportation networks. Stable dynamics, suggested by Nesterov and de Palma[18], is a new model which describes and provides a stable state of congestion in urban transportation networks. In comparison with user equilibrium model based on link latency function in analyzing transportation networks, stable dynamics requires few parameters and is coincident with intuitions and observations on the congestion. Therefore it is expected to be an useful analysis tool for transportation planners. The phenomenon that increasing capacity of a network, for example creating new links, may decrease its performance is called Braess Paradox. It has been studied intensively under user equilibrium model with link latency function since Braess[5] demonstrated a paradoxical example. However it is an open problem to detect the Braess Paradox under stable dynamics. In this study, we suggest a method to detect the Paradox in general networks under stable dynamics. In our model, we decide whether Braess Paradox will occur in a given network. We also find Braess links or Braess crosses if a network permits the paradox. We also show an example how to apply it in a network.