PRICING AND TRANSPORTATION CAPACITY

Both consumer behavior in taking trips and the rules for optimizing the facilities on which these trips are taken are similar to the corresponding phenomena of relevance to any other commodity. In traveling, consumers act as if the price they pay for a trip is its direct money cost plus the time required times the value of travel time. Using travel facilities efficiently requires that consumers be charged tolls that force them to take into account the costs their trips impose on other travelers. Optimizing travel facilities requires that the sum of the direct resource costs and the value of consumer-supplied travel time be minimized. Failure to charge appropriate tolls yields welfare losses that are of substantial size on heavily congested facilities. Facilities that operate under the constraint that efficient tolls cannot be charged are developed for optimizing facilities. The implications of these rules for expressway travel are roughly quantified.

• Record URL:
  • http://onlinepubs.trb.org/Onlinepubs/sr/sr153/153-021.pdf
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/0360859X
• Supplemental Notes:
  • Presented at the 7th Summer Mtg. of TRB in cooperation with Florida DOT, Jacksonville, Fla., Aug. 5-7, 1974. Distribution, posting, or copying of this PDF is strictly prohibited without written permission of the Transportation Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences. Unless otherwise indicated, all materials in this PDF are copyrighted by the National Academy of Sciences. Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board (TRB)

  Washington, DC   
• Authors:
  • Mohring, Herbert
• Conference:
  • 7th Summer Meeting of the Transportation Research Board
  • Location: Jacksonville Florida, United States
  • Date: 1974-8-5 to 1974-8-7
• Publication Date: 1975

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: pp 183-195
• Monograph Title: Better use of existing transportation facilities
• Serial:
  • Transportation Research Board Special Report
  • Issue Number: 153
  • Publisher: Transportation Research Board
  • ISSN: 0360-859X

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Consumers; Costs; Economics; Expressways; Freeways; Highway capacity; Present value; Prices; Tolls; Traffic congestion; Transportation; Travel; Travel time
• Uncontrolled Terms: Value
• Old TRIS Terms: Freeway capacity
• Subject Areas: Economics; Society; Transportation (General);

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00099511
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: Nov 5 1975 12:00AM