Congestion Pricing on Highways in Chicago, Illinois

Abstract

Traffic congestion causes losses of $7.3 billion per year in the six-county Chicago, Illinois, area. Many efforts are under way to improve existing infrastructure and manage travel demand to reduce the burdens of congestion. In 2008, the Chicago Travel Options Study, a stated preference survey, was conducted to assess whether two types of road pricing would manage travel demand. The survey employed a split sample approach: half of the respondents completed stated preference experiments that tested the likelihood of using managed lanes on Chicago area highways, and the other half completed experiments that tested peak period toll increases. The paper finds that Chicago travelers appear to favor managed lanes over increasing or placing tolls on toll-ways and expressways. The survey asked a set of questions to gauge attitudes toward tolling, public transit, and environmental concerns. The paper examines how individuals' opinions on these three topics vary by demographics and trip characteristics and presents the results of a K-means cluster analysis that shows that around 20% of the respondents have a strong willingness to pay tolls and to change their behavior to benefit transit and the environment. A group of respondents similar in size is open to managed lanes as a means to reduce congestion but is less likely to change behavior for environmental reasons. The paper benchmarks Chicago area travelers' opinions against those of travelers from other parts of the United States and shows that they have a higher willingness to pay tolls and to use toll roads but have similar environmental attitudes.