Traveler's Route Choice Behavior Model Based on Reasoning and Prospect Theory

To fully describe the route choice behavior of travelers under uncertain conditions, comprehensively consider the route attributes and traveler preferences, a traveler route choice behavior model based on reasoning and prospect theory is proposed. In the framework of prospect theory, firstly, the relationship between the route attributes and travel impedance is established by fuzzy reasoning to determine the route's gains to travelers. Secondly, considering the uncertainty of the road network, the selection probabilities of the routes are calculated by merging the traveler's preference with evidential reasoning. Finally, by calculating the route prospect value, the route with the largest prospect value is taken as the traveler's choice, and the validity of the model is analyzed through a calculation example. The results show that the model can accurately describe the route selection behavior of the travelers, and the behavior of the travelers is affected by the uncertainty of reference points and road networks. The choice behavior of different route preferences has a large difference, and the characteristics of travelers themselves are a consideration that cannot be ignored.

1. Introduction

With the increase in vehicle ownership, the number of travelers in the transportation network is increasing day by day. Research on their route selection behavior can improve the utilization of road network resources and make the transportation system operate efficiently [1]. The traveler's route choice behavior is essentially uncertain. Scholars have found in their research that the traveler's route choice is mainly affected by the traffic information obtained and their own characteristics [2]–[5]. When making risky decisions, they present the characteristics of bounded rationality.