info:eu-repo/semantics/lecture
Network pricing: How to induce optimal flows under strategic link operators
Autor
Correa-Haeussler, José Rafael
Gúzman, Cristobal
Lianeas, Thanasis
Nikolova, Evdokia
Schroeder, Marc
Institución
Resumen
Network pricing games provide a framework for modeling real-world settings with two types of strategic
agents: owners (operators) of the network and users of the network. Owners of the network post a price for
usage of the link they own so as to attract users and maximize profit; users of the network select routes
based on price and level of use by other users. We point out that an equilibrium in these games may not
exist, may not be unique and may induce an arbitrarily inefficient network performance.
Our main result is to observe that a simple regulation on the network owners market solves all three issues
above. Specifically, if an authority could set appropriate caps (upper bounds) on the tolls (prices) operators
can charge, then: the game among the link operators has a unique and strong Nash equilibrium and the
users’ game results in a Wardrop equilibrium that achieves the optimal total delay. We call any price vector
with these properties a great set of tolls. As a secondary objective, we want to compute great tolls that
minimize total users’ payments and we provide a linear program that does this. We obtain multiplicative
approximation results compared to the optimal total users’ payments for arbitrary networks with
polynomial latencies of bounded degree, while in the single-commodity case we obtain a bound that only
depends on the topology of the network. Lastly, we show how the same mechanism of setting appropriate
caps on the allowable prices extends to the model of elastic demand. FONDECYT FONDECYT