Efficiency of the plate-number-based traffic rationing in general networks

Road space rationing based on vehicle plate numbers restricts vehicle access to a network based upon the license number on pre-established days. It has been used in some large cities especially when there are some major events. This paper analyzes the efficiency of road space rationing schemes by establishing the bounds of the reduction in the system cost associated with the restricted flow pattern at user equilibrium in comparison with the system cost at the original user equilibrium. The bounds are established under the general traffic equilibrium model formulated as variational inequalities and illustrated with a simple example.