We study a market mechanism that sets edge prices to incentivize strategic agents to efficiently share limited network capacity. In this market, agents form coalitions, with each coalition sharing a unit capacity of a selected route and making payments to cover edge prices. Our focus is on the existence and computation of market equilibrium, where challenges arise from the interdependence between coalition formation among strategic agents with heterogeneous preferences and route selection that induces a network flow under integral capacity constraints. To address this interplay between coalition formation and network capacity utilization, we introduce a novel approach based on combinatorial auction theory and network flow theory. We establish sufficient conditions on the network topology and agents' preferences that guarantee both the existence and polynomial-time computation of a market equilibrium. Additionally, we identify a particular market equilibrium that maximizes utilities for all agents and is equivalent to the classical Vickrey-Clarke-Groves mechanism. Furthermore, we extend our results to multi-period settings and general networks, showing that when the sufficient conditions are not met, an equilibrium may still exist but requires more complex, path-based pricing mechanisms that set differentiated prices based on agents' preference parameters.

翻译：本文研究一种通过设定边价格激励策略性主体高效共享有限网络容量的市场机制。在该市场中，主体形成联盟，每个联盟共享选定路径的单位容量，并通过支付覆盖边价格。我们重点关注市场均衡的存在性与计算问题，其挑战源于具有异质偏好的策略性主体之间的联盟形成与在整数容量约束下引致网络流的路由选择之间的相互依赖关系。为解决联盟形成与网络容量利用之间的交互作用，我们提出一种基于组合拍卖理论和网络流理论的新方法。我们建立了关于网络拓扑和主体偏好的充分条件，这些条件保证了市场均衡的存在性及其多项式时间可计算性。此外，我们识别出一种能使所有主体效用最大化的特殊市场均衡，该均衡等价于经典的Vickrey-Clarke-Groves机制。进一步地，我们将结果拓展至多周期场景和一般网络，证明当充分条件不满足时，均衡仍可能存在，但需要更复杂的基于路径的定价机制，该机制根据主体偏好参数设定差异化价格。