Summary: Tradeo#s in worst­case equilibria
Baruch Awerbuch a
a Dept. of Computer Science, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, 21218.
Yossi Azar b,1 , Yossi Richter b,2
b School of Computer Science, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, 69978, Israel.
Dekel Tsur c
c Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of California San
Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093
Abstract
We investigate the problem of routing tra#c through a congested network in an
environment of non­cooperative users. We use the worst­case coordination ratio
suggested by Koutsoupias and Papadimitriou to measure the performance degrada­
tion due to the lack of a centralized tra#c regulating authority. We provide a full
characterization of the worst­case coordination ratio in the restricted assignment
and unrelated parallel links model. In particular, we quantify the tradeo# between
the ``negligibility'' of the tra#c controlled by each user and the worst­case coordi­
nation ratio. We analyze both pure and mixed strategies systems and identify the
range where their performance is similar.
Email addresses: baruch@cs.jhu.edu (Baruch Awerbuch), azar@tau.ac.il
(Yossi Azar), yo@tau.ac.il (Yossi Richter), dtsur@cs.ucsd.edu (Dekel Tsur).

Source: Azar, Yossi - School of Computer Science, Tel Aviv University

Collections: Computer Technologies and Information Sciences