The authors consider an auction of slots to run trains through a railway network. In contrast to the classical setting for combinatorial auctions, there is not only competition for slots, but slots can mutually exclude each other, such that general conflict constraints on bids arise. This turns the winner determination problem associated with such an auction into a complex combinatorial optimisation problem. It also raises a number of auction design questions, in particular, on incentive compatibility. The authors propose a single-shot second price auction for railway slots, the Vickrey Track Auction. They show that this auction is incentive compatible, as rational bidders are always motivated to bid their true valuation, and that it produces efficient allocations, even in the presence of constraints on allocations. These properties are, however, lost when rules on the submission of bids such as, lowest bids, are imposed. The results carry over to generalised Vickrey auctions with combinatorial constraints.
Vickrey auctions for railway tracks
2008
7 Seiten, 7 Tabellen, 8 Quellen
Report
English
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