The Impact of Travel Time Information on Travellers' Learning under Uncertainty

In this work, route-choice simulations and laboratory experiments were conducted in order to evaluate the effect of feedback mechanism on decision-making under uncertainty, with and without provided information about travel times. We discuss the prediction of travellers' response to uncertainty in two route-choice situations. In the first situation travellers are faced with a route-choice problem in which travel times are uncertain but some information (which may be static or dynamic) about travel times of each (or some) route is provided. The second situation takes place in a more uncertain environment in which information about routes is not provided, and the travellers' only source of information is their own experience. Experimental results are in conflict with the paradigm about traveller information systems: providing travellers with information will not necessarily lead them to make better decisions. There are situations when propensity to choose a more efficient route might be decreased (instead of increased) when travel time information about the routes is provided. As a consequence of information , the propensity of travellers to maximize utility is not always increased. It was found out that providing travellers with static information about expected travel times increases the non-homogeneity of travellers and reduces the maximization rate. These findings are described and explained. This better understanding of route-choice behaviour may improve traffic predictions based on route-choice modelling. The design of better cost-effective ATIS may benefit from such an insight.