In this paper a multiclass, multicriteria network equilibrium framework for urban location and transportation decisions in the Information Age is proposed, in which the advent of telecommunication networks may provide a substitute for physical transportation. The framework interprets the option of telecommuting as a transportation mode choice and considers three distinct scenarios: (1) residential locations are known, as well as the number of residents, and one seeks to determine their places of work, along with their optimal routes of travel; (2) places of employment are given and the numbers employed are known, but one wishes to determine their resident locations and their optimal travel routes; and (3) the total number of individuals are given and one seeks to determine their residential locations, their employment locations, as well as their optimal routes of travel between. Each class of decisionmaker is allowed to have his or her own set of criteria associated with the route and locational decisions. Qualitative properties and a computational procedure are proposed along with convergence results. The algorithm is then applied to a numerical example and its variants.
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/anna_nagurney/126/