Charles Noussair and Liang Qiao (Nankai University) have published the paper “Congestion Information and Efficiency: An Experiment” in the July 2026 issue of Management Science. The work reported in the paper uses a laboratory experiment to study the effects of the ability for users to access historical data in traffic, restaurant, and retailing contexts. While at first glance, the availability of information can be viewed as a means to reduce congestion, the scientific support for this notion is weak. They investigate, using a laboratory experiment, whether an intermediate level of information provision might be best. They show that providing all users with information is counterproductive in the short run. In the long run, users’ behavior adjusts so that providing some or all individuals with information leads to more efficient outcomes than when no information is made available.
Charles Noussair