Patent ID: 7457703

Claim:
A computer-based apparatus for redesigning a travel network having a plurality of origin-destination pairs, comprising: a surplus determining device configured to determine the consumer surplus generated by an additional path added to a first origin-destination pair within the travel network; wherein the surplus determining device performs an expectation calculation on the first origin-destination pair before a proposed added path, and further performs an expectation calculation on the first origin-destination pair taking into account the proposed added path; and wherein the surplus determining device performs a surplus determination C n (J 1 , J 0 ) based on the following equation: C n ⁡ ( J 1 , J 0 ) = 1 α n ⁢ { ln ⁡ [ ∑ j = 1 J 1 ⁢ ⅇ V n 1 ⁡ ( j ) ] - ln ⁡ [ ∑ j = 1 J 0 ⁢ ⅇ V n 0 ⁡ ( j ) ] } , where V 0 is an observable utility component of a consumer utility model in an existing travel network (J 0 ), V 1 is an observable utility component of a consumer utility model in a modified travel network (J 1 ), α n is the marginal utility of money to decision-maker n, J 0 denotes an existing travel network and J 1 denotes a respective modified network of J 0 .