User equilibrium assignment with expected utility theory

This paper proposes an improved user equilibrium traffic assignment method with utility theory. The traditional user equilibrium traffic assignment uses the minimizing travel time of users as the goal which is called Wardrop equilibrium criterion. Unlike the classical model, this paper assumes that the link travel time is a random variable and the user considers the risk of uncertainty. Then this paper uses the expected utility function to describe the user’s decision-making problem, and constructs a new equilibrium criterion and model. Subsequently, this paper gives the algorithm and example. The result shows that the new equilibrium criterion can more accurately describe the path selection behaviour of users.