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Pricing network edges for heterogeneous selfish users (2003)
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| Venue: | Proc. of STOC |
| Citations: | 113 - 9 self |
BibTeX
@INPROCEEDINGS{Cole03pricingnetwork,
author = {Richard Cole and Yevgeniy Dodis and Tim Roughgarden},
title = {Pricing network edges for heterogeneous selfish users},
booktitle = {Proc. of STOC},
year = {2003}
}
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Abstract
We study the negative consequences of selfish behavior in a congested network and economic means of influencing such behavior. We consider the model of selfish routing defined by Wardrop [30] and studied in a computer science context by Roughgarden and Tardos [26]. In this model, the latency experienced by network traffic on an edge of the network is a function of the edge congestion, and network users are assumed to selfishly route traffic on minimum-latency paths. The quality of a routing of traffic is measured by the sum of travel times (the total latency). It is well known that the outcome of selfish routing (a Nash equilibrium) does not minimize the total latency and can be improved upon with coordination. An ancient strategy for improving the selfish solution is the principle of marginal cost pricing, which asserts that on each edge of the network, each network user on the edge should pay a tax offsetting the congestion effects caused by its presence. By pricing network edges according to this principle, the inefficiency of selfish routing can always be eradicated. This result, while fundamental, assumes a very strong homogeneity property: all network users are assumed to trade off time and money in an identical way. The guarantee also ignores both the algorithmic
Keyphrases
network edge network user heterogeneous selfish user selfish routing total latency marginal cost pricing travel time network traffic congested network nash equilibrium congestion effect route traffic strong homogeneity property ancient strategy economic mean minimum-latency path negative consequence computer science context identical way selfish solution selfish behavior edge congestion
