Managing bottleneck congestion with tradable credits

The authors demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of a tradable credit system in managing the morning commute congestion with identical and nonidentical commuters. The credit system consists of a time-varying credit charged at the bottleneck and an initial credit distribution to the commuters, where the credits are universal in terms of time. Credits are tradable between the commuters and the credit price is determined by a competitive market. Under the assumption that late-arrival is not allowed, the authors prove that an optimal credit charging scheme, which completely eliminates the bottleneck queue, always exists despite how commuters vary in their value-of-time (VOT). The optimal charge rate is strictly increasing and convex with time, which therefore drives the commuters to depart in the increasing order of their VOT. The optimal credit charging scheme is pareto-improving, but may cause undesirable welfare distribution among the commuters. This study shows that a combination of an initial credit distribution and an optimal credit charging scheme can simultaneously achieve system optimum and certain forms of equality (e.g., “numerical” or “proportional” equality), and that the commuters in the middle VOT bracket will receive the most credits under the proportionally equitable credit distribution.

• Record URL:
  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trb.2013.06.016
• Record URL:
  http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S019126151300115X
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/01912615
• Supplemental Notes:
  • Abstract reprinted with permission from Elsevier.
• Authors:
  • Xiao, Feng
  • Qian, Zhen (Sean)
  • Zhang, H Michael
• Publication Date: 2013-10

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Print
• Features: Appendices; Figures; References;
• Pagination: pp 1-14
• Serial:
  • Transportation Research Part B: Methodological
  • Volume: 56
  • Issue Number: 0
  • Publisher: Elsevier
  • ISSN: 0191-2615
  • Serial URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/01912615

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Bottlenecks; Commuters; Congestion pricing; Emissions trading; Equity (Justice); Value of time
• Subject Areas: Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Planning and Forecasting; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning; I73: Traffic Control;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01497244
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Oct 21 2013 1:04PM