Using reputation instead of tolls in repeated selfish routing with incomplete information

Abstract

We study the application of reputation as an instigator of beneficial user behavior in selfish routing and when the network users rely on the network operator for information on the network traffic. Instead of the use of tolls or artificial delays, the network operator takes advantage of the users' insufficient information, in order to manipulate them through the information he himself provides. The issue that arises then is what can the operator's gain be, without compromising by too much the trust users put on the information provided, i.e., by maintaining a reputation for (at least some) trustworthiness. Our main contribution is the modeling of such a system as a repeated game of incomplete information in the case of single-commodity general networks. This allows us to apply known folk-like theorems to get bounds on the price of anarchy that are better in the worst-case (if that is possible at all) than the well-known price of anarchy bounds in selfish routing without information manipulation. © Springer-Verlag 2013.