Economy of information in congested transport systems

Emerging communication and information technologies increasingly enable users of transport systems to determine their own whereabouts and help support their trip scheduling and rescheduling decisions by providing timely information on traffic conditions. The authors investigate the linkages between behavioural attitudes of users towards risk and valuation of information, by utilising decision-theoretic and risk management principles and extensive-form game trees. Several examples are provided to demonstrate the increase in expected value and steps that should be encountered in the provision of travel information, with particular emphasis on multi-modal transport systems with congestion effects.