EFFICIENT CONGESTION TOLLS IN THE PRESENCE OF UNPRICED CONGESTION: A CASE WITH NON-IDENTICAL ROAD USERS

A deterministic user-equilibrium route choice model is used to simulate the behaviour of drivers in response to toll charges. The objective of the simulation is to derive the socially optimal tolls in the context of non-identical road users, where drivers in different income classes are assumed to have different trade-off between paying a price versus saving a minute of travel time. The non-identical user treatment is a departure from traditional analysis, which treats road users as identical. Welfare maximising tolls were determined under three pricing regimes: first-best (when all roads can be subject to pricing), second best (when only a portion of the network can be priced), and no pricing. Two types of network were modelled; the simple two-route network and the general network case. The simulations reveal significantly different traffic diversions, and consequently different optimal toll patterns in the case of non-identical road users. In terms of welfare implications, the results indicate that the lower-income groups are the most affected by pricing. When all routes are subject to marginal cost pricing, low income drivers are more worst off. On the other hand, the higher income groups are the likely winners, particularly when pricing is only applied on a portion of the urban road network. (a) For the covering entry of this conference, please see ITRD E200461.

Language

  • English

Media Info

  • Features: References;
  • Pagination: p. 773-87

Subject/Index Terms

Filing Info

  • Accession Number: 00796379
  • Record Type: Publication
  • Source Agency: ARRB
  • ISBN: 0-7307-2496-4
  • Files: ITRD, ATRI
  • Created Date: Aug 2 2000 12:00AM