Transportation Network Analysis

The fabric of all societies is held together by networks of various kinds, such as water supply, energy supply, sewage disposal, communication and, perhaps most importantly, transportation. Transportation Network Analysis is concerned primarily with the spatial, but also the temporal, nature of the movement of people and freight across land, where the movement is channelled onto roads or railways. The road and rail infrastructure constitute the transportation network while the movement of people and freight constitute the flows on the network. Providing a coherent theoretical framework, this book focuses on three interdependent aspects of transportation networks: state estimation — the estimation of path flows, vehicle queues, stops and delays; route choice — link cost functions and the equilibrium principle; and network design — traffic signal control, link design and link insertion or deletion. While the treatment of transportation networks is general and not specific to one mode of transport, the emphasis is on private transport by road networks with extensions to public transport indicated where appropriate. Numerous examples illustrate both definitions and algorithms.