The value of partial and full pre-trip information under stochastic demand and bottleneck capacity in the morning commute

This paper studies the welfare effects of providing pre-trip information to morning commuters in a single-bottleneck model, where both bottleneck capacity and travel demand are exogenously stochastic and assumed to follow an arbitrary joint distribution. We first derive the equilibrium travel costs under varying levels of information completeness, and then examine how information completeness influences travel costs and the key factors driving the welfare outcomes of information provision. We find that the welfare effects of providing pre-trip information are associated with the information completeness, the degree of correlation between bottleneck capacity and demand, and the frequency and amplitude of bottleneck capacity and demand changes. Although providing full information is never welfare-reducing, providing partial information can increase travel costs compared to no information (i.e., information paradox) when demand and bottleneck capacity are moderately correlated. Nevertheless, transitioning from partial to full information consistently leads to a reduction in travel costs. Our numerical examples further confirm the theoretical results and highlight the necessity of accounting for uncertainties in both supply and demand when developing traveler information systems.