Development of Traffic-Based Congestion Pricing and Its Application to Automated Vehicles

Abstract

Improved traffic management techniques are needed to reduce congestion on road networks, especially as “driving” is made easier, through self-driving vehicles. In this paper, reactive congestion pricing varies toll rates based on recent congestion levels, and automated vehicles are added to the conventional traffic mix for evaluation of evolving travel conditions. As expected, drivers with higher values of travel time (VOTT) are more likely to use the tolled route than drivers with lower VOTT, and tolled-route speeds rose (about 4%) while speeds on non-tolled road segments fell (about 15%). Thanks to traveler sorting, net benefits exceeded $600 per hour in all scenarios, using a very small (toy) network. Toll revenues can be distributed uniformly among travelers (resulting in credit-based congestion pricing) or invested in improving bottlenecks and alternative modes. Rising shares of automated vehicles (from 0% to 50% and 100%) also improved outcomes.