A note of network equilibrium and noncooperative games

Rosenthal has shown that a user-optimized transportation network is equivalent to a pure Strategy Nash equilibrium when the network flows are discrete. Noting that most network equilibrium theorists take flows to be continuous, we extend this result to the nondiscrete case. We prove that a continuous flow, user-optimized network is a pure-strategy Nash equilibrium in a game with a continuum of pure strategies. Our “game”, however, differs from Rosenthal's in its players, strategies, and payoffs. For instance, the players in our model are not the motorists, but the origin-destination pairs. Some possible applications and extensions of our results are discussed.