{"ID":2891526,"CreatedAt":"2026-06-01T04:54:23.091178241Z","UpdatedAt":"2026-06-01T04:54:23.091178241Z","DeletedAt":null,"paper_url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.17939","arxiv_id":"2507.17939","title":"Dynamic access pricing control for fair and stable resource sharing","abstract":"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.","short_abstract":"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 env...","url_abs":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.17939","url_pdf":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2507.17939v2","authors":"[\"Christopher King\",\"Homayoun Hamedmoghadam\",\"Christos G. Cassandras\",\"Fabian R. Wirth\",\"Robert N. Shorten\"]","published":"2025-07-23T21:13:18Z","proceeding":"math.OC","tasks":"[\"math.OC\"]","methods":"[]","has_code":false}