To investigate the impact of different route choice criteria on the operational efficiency of road networks, three criteria based on mean travel time, travel time budget, and mean-excess travel time are established, assuming that OD (origin-destination) demand follows a Log-normal distribution and link capacities follow a Beta distribution. Traffic assignment variation inequality models are constructed according to those criteria, and algorithms are developed to solve them. From the perspective of traffic turnover, a calculation method for road network operating efficiency is proposed. The influence of three route choice criteria, degree of link capacity degradation, demand structure, demand quantity, and travel time reliability on road network operating efficiency are analyzed through case studies. The results show that: 1) Road network operational efficiency is highest under the mean travel time (MTT) criterion and lowest under the mean-excess travel time (METT) criterion; 2) Operational efficiency decreases notably as link capacity degradation increases; 3) There exists a specific demand structure and volume that maximizes operational efficiency under each criterion when the degree of link capacity degradation and demand mean-variance ratio are fixed; 4) For travel time budget (TTB) and METT route choice criteria, operational efficiency decreases significantly as travel time reliability increases.