On user strategies in a network implementing congestion pricing
Tobias Harks, Tobias Poschwatta · 2006
In the context of a network implementing congestion pricing, we focus on user strategies to determine their willingness to pay parameter. We argue that users downloading a file in fixed time, or users running a multimedia application will have other strategies to decide on their payment than simply to maximize their surplus measured by a concave utility function minus cost. Instead, we formulate the download task as an optimal control problem and account for dynamic changes of the state of congestion by using (online) model predictive control techniques. Finally, we develop online control strategies in order to automatically adapt the willingness to pay parameter.