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The Bottleneck Model: An Assessment and Interpretation

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  • Kenneth Small

    (Department of Economics, University of California-Irvine)

Abstract

The bottleneck model of congestion with endogenous scheduling has become a standard tool of transportation economics. It provides surprising insights about the time pattern of congestion, optimal pricing, and many distinct inefficiencies of unpriced equilibria including wrong departure order with heterogeneous preferences, wrong allocation of users across links of a network, and wrong order in which parking spaces are occupied. It illuminates the roles of travel-time reliability, traffic information, and extreme congestion ("hypercongestion"). It has been developed for use in practical network planning. Future use will probably emphasize greater realism, leading to more practical applications.

Suggested Citation

  • Kenneth Small, 2015. "The Bottleneck Model: An Assessment and Interpretation," Working Papers 141506, University of California-Irvine, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:irv:wpaper:141506
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    File URL: https://www.economics.uci.edu/files/docs/workingpapers/2014-15/14-15-06.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Congestion; Bottleneck; Scheduling; Congestion pricing; Parking; Reliability;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • R41 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Transportation Economics - - - Transportation: Demand, Supply, and Congestion; Travel Time; Safety and Accidents; Transportation Noise
    • R48 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Transportation Economics - - - Government Pricing and Policy

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