In November 2024, the paper ‘A generalised rationally inattentive route choice with non-uniform marginal information costs’ by Professor Bo Zhou of Mathematics and Statistics School in collaboration with Professor Ronghui Liu of the Institute of Transport Studies, University of Leeds was accepted as a podium presentation paper at the 25th International Symposium on Transportation and Traffic Theory (ISTTT25), and was published in a special issue of ISTTT25 in the international journal Transportation Research Part B.

This paper investigates route choice under the scope of rational inattention theory. The Rational Inattention theory, founded by Nobel Prize-winning economist Christopher A. Sims, explains the viscous choice behaviour of economic agents with a unified analytical framework and overcomes the non-reality problem of the complete rationality hypothesis of neoclassical macroeconomics. The paper extends the theory of rational inattention by developing a model of rationally inattention travel route choice through the introduction of a new concept of background information. The model represents the closed-form solution of optimal rationally inattention choice behaviour, which makes up for the lack of closed-form solution of optimal rationally inattention choice behaviour in existing studies. In addition, the paper bridges the gap between optimal rationally inattention choice behaviour and multinomial Logit models, and shows that the limited information acquisition ability of actors is one of the possible sources of random perturbations in classical random utility models.

International Symposium on Transportation and Traffic Theory is the world’s top theoretical conference in the field of transport. It was initiated by 14 renowned scholars, including Professor Robert Herman, one of the proponents of the Big Bang theory, and Professor Ilya Prigogine, a Nobel Laureate. Since its inception in Michigan, USA in 1959, it has been held 24 times around the world (triennial until 2005, then biennial). This conference (ISTTT25) contains only 36 podium presentation papers and 24 poster presentation papers, some of which are recommended for publication in three journals, Transportation Research Part B/C and Transportation Science.

Transportation Research Part B is an international top journal in the field of transport management, with SCI & SSCI double search, impact factor of 5.8 in 2023, JCR partition Q1, CAS partition I, ABS 4-star journal (the only journal in the field of transport management awarded 4-star), FMS A class It is a four-star journal of the Association of British Business Schools ABS (the only four-star journal in the field of transport management) and FMS Class A. This journal and Transportation Science are the two most recognised international journals in this field.

Link to the paper:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191261524001176