Impacts of Time-of-Day Pricing: Findings from Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Initiative

This paper discusses the key findings from a major research project that assessed the impacts of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’s Time of Day Pricing Initiative on the behavior of car users. The data show that 7.4% of passenger trips changed behavior because of the time of day pricing initiative, and that demand is inelastic to tolls with elasticities in the range of -0.11 to -0.24. Passenger car users responded to time of day pricing by implementing multidimensional strategies, involving several behavioral responses such as changes in facility usage, changes in time of travel, changes in the productivity of car trips, and changes in mode/occupancy. Individuals who changed behavior reported 3.23 different behavioral changes in average. The behavioral response most frequently cited was to shift mode and maintain the original time of travel, instead of changing time of travel and maintaining the use of the passenger car. The users reported limited flexibility to arrive early or late to their destination for their work trips, with averages of 20.4 and 12.3 minutes respectively. The limited time of travel flexibility suggests the need for comprehensive policies, possibly involving incentives or regulations to foster employers’ participation in staggered, or flexible time, work hour programs. Comprehensive approaches involving such programs, combined with time of day pricing, are bound to be more effective in balancing car traffic during the day.

• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Holguin-Veras, Jose
  • Wang, Qian
  • Xu, Ning
  • Ozbay, Kaan
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 88th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2009-1-11 to 2009-1-15
• Date: 2009

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: DVD
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 27p
• Monograph Title: TRB 88th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers DVD

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Flexible hours; Periods of the day; Road pricing; Systems analysis; Tolls; Traffic flow; Travel behavior; Travel demand; Travel time; Variable tolls
• Identifier Terms: Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
• Subject Areas: Highways; Planning and Forecasting; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01128676
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 09-1015
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: May 19 2009 7:48AM