This study aims to investigate attendees’ trips to venues before special events considering pre-event activities. We focus on how pre-event activities change attendees’ departure-time choices and affect traffic congestion near a venue. By describing attendees’ pre-event utility and the attractiveness of the venue, a bottleneck model is proposed to model attendees’ departure times with heterogeneous pre-event utility. Attendees’ heterogeneity in pre-event utility is depicted by a continuous distribution of pre-event utility sensitivity, which changes with the attractiveness (e.g., the overall price level, facility, or service levels) of the venue. Different distributions are adopted to depict the attendees’ pre-event utility sensitivity and are further used to analyse the equilibrium at the bottleneck. The conditions to eliminate the queue at the bottleneck are determined, which are related to the distribution of the pre-event utility sensitivity of the attendees. We further analyse the impact of the venue's attractiveness to attendees on the distribution of attendees’ pre-event utility sensitivity. The optimal choice of the overall price level and facility or service level is determined to maximise the profit of the venue and the total trip utilities of all attendees. Finally, numerical examples are conducted to illustrate the equilibrium at the bottleneck and examine the no-queue condition and the conditions to maximise total trip utility and venues’ profit.

本研究旨在调查与会者在考虑活动前活动的特殊活动之前的场馆旅行。我们关注会前活动如何改变与会者的出发时间选择并影响会场附近的交通拥堵。通过描述与会者的会前效用和场地的吸引力，提出了一个瓶颈模型来模拟具有异构会前效用的与会者的离开时间。与会者在活动前效用中的异质性通过活动前效用敏感性的连续分布来描述，其随着场地的吸引力（例如，总体价格水平、设施或服务水平）而变化。采用不同的分布来描述与会者的事前效用敏感性，并进一步用于分析瓶颈处的均衡。确定消除瓶颈处排队的条件，这与与会者的事前效用敏感性分布有关。我们进一步分析了场地对与会者的吸引力对与会者活动前效用敏感性分布的影响。确定总体价格水平和设施或服务水平的最佳选择，以最大化场地的利润和所有与会者的总旅行效用。最后，通过数值示例来说明瓶颈处的均衡，并检查无排队条件和最大化总行程效用和场馆利润的条件。对与会者的吸引力对与会者的活动前效用敏感性的分布。确定总体价格水平和设施或服务水平的最佳选择，以最大化场地的利润和所有与会者的总旅行效用。最后，通过数值示例来说明瓶颈处的均衡，并检查无排队条件和最大化总行程效用和场馆利润的条件。对与会者的吸引力对与会者的活动前效用敏感性的分布。确定总体价格水平和设施或服务水平的最佳选择，以最大化场地的利润和所有与会者的总旅行效用。最后，通过数值示例来说明瓶颈处的均衡，并检查无排队条件和最大化总行程效用和场馆利润的条件。