"Incentivizing Greedy Drivers Using Ramp-Meters" Speaker: Yoni Peleg, The Hebrew University Date: Wednesday, 7 January 2009 Time: 12noon Place: Ross 201 Abstract: Drivers are selfish agents---each driver, trying to minimize the time it takes to reach its destination, picks the quickest path towards that destination. It is known that this greedy behavior does not necessarily lead to optimal solutions. We consider a scenario where small "side-roads" exist in parallel to a freeway. We demonstrate how greedy agents can exploit these "side-roads", bypassing congested traffic on the freeway; this greedy behavior of agents may itself encourage the creation of traffic jams. We then explain how this last problem can be solved using ramp-meters.