Dynamic access pricing control for fair and stable resource sharing

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: King, Christopher, Hamedmoghadam, Homayoun, Cassandras, Christos G., Wirth, Fabian R., Shorten, Robert N.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author King, Christopher
Hamedmoghadam, Homayoun
Cassandras, Christos G.
Wirth, Fabian R.
Shorten, Robert N.
author_facet King, Christopher
Hamedmoghadam, Homayoun
Cassandras, Christos G.
Wirth, Fabian R.
Shorten, Robert N.
contents We consider the use of pricing as a regulatory mechanism when an unknown number of autonomous agents compete for access to a shared resource (possibly limited in volume or capacity). In standard dynamic pricing control systems, an increasing price is used to balance supply and demand for a resource in a constrained environment. A major drawback of dynamic pricing is that it is socially regressive, i.e., unfair, as such systems favour price-insensitive (unresponsive) traffic and control the demand at the expense of price-sensitive (responsive) traffic. We tackle this fundamental issue by proposing a new form of pricing that strikes a balance between using price as a control mechanism to manage demand for a resource and ensuring fair access to the resource for both price-sensitive and insensitive traffic. Our system gives rise to a switched non-linear ODE model, the stability of which is equivalent to ensuring the fairness properties of the pricing control system. Simulations illustrate this stability-fairness tradeoff and with the results demonstrating the effectiveness of the overall design.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_17939
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Dynamic access pricing control for fair and stable resource sharing
King, Christopher
Hamedmoghadam, Homayoun
Cassandras, Christos G.
Wirth, Fabian R.
Shorten, Robert N.
Optimization and Control
We consider the use of pricing as a regulatory mechanism when an unknown number of autonomous agents compete for access to a shared resource (possibly limited in volume or capacity). In standard dynamic pricing control systems, an increasing price is used to balance supply and demand for a resource in a constrained environment. A major drawback of dynamic pricing is that it is socially regressive, i.e., unfair, as such systems favour price-insensitive (unresponsive) traffic and control the demand at the expense of price-sensitive (responsive) traffic. We tackle this fundamental issue by proposing a new form of pricing that strikes a balance between using price as a control mechanism to manage demand for a resource and ensuring fair access to the resource for both price-sensitive and insensitive traffic. Our system gives rise to a switched non-linear ODE model, the stability of which is equivalent to ensuring the fairness properties of the pricing control system. Simulations illustrate this stability-fairness tradeoff and with the results demonstrating the effectiveness of the overall design.
title Dynamic access pricing control for fair and stable resource sharing
topic Optimization and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.17939