Bottleneck congestion and endogenously determined departure times under bounded rationality

This study examines departure time decisions in Vickrey's bottleneck model by incorporating bounded rationality through a quantal response equilibrium (QRE) framework. Traditional bottleneck models assume perfect rationality and may fail to capture real-world commuter behaviour. To address this limitation, a discrete version of the bottleneck model was developed and experimentally tested to compare the predictive performance of QRE and symmetric mixed-strategy equilibrium (SMSE). In a controlled laboratory setting with two conditions differing in the shadow price of travel time, departure time choices initially deviated from SMSE predictions, particularly under a low shadow price, but gradually converged toward them over repeated rounds. QRE provided a closer fit to observed departure time distributions than SMSE, especially in the low shadow price condition. Based on two out-of-sample validation measures, QRE demonstrated superior predictive performance, highligting the value of incorporating bounded rationality into bottleneck congestion models.