Estimating Congestion Cost for Ring Road of Delhi

Abstract

The study uses relevance of three empirical elements vis-a-vis speed-flow relationship, generalised cost and demand curve in constructing cost curves to estimate congestion cost, marginal external congestion cost (MECC), congestion tax in peak and non peak hours for the inner ring road of Delhi. The research takes an existing model (Prud’homme and Bocarejo, 2005) as starting point and develops cost models for the study area. The application differs from the original model in that it captures costs at the link level rather than at zonal level and computes post charge quantity of road usage by varying elasticity of demand from -0.27 to -0.7. While considering individual links as a homogenous section the results do not show any coherence and thus not a plausible option for analysis of the present study. The link wise analysis seems to be a likely option to predict road pricing at entry and exit links in peak hours as a long term measure in mitigating traffic congestion. The study also predicts elastic behaviour at an individual link level and negative externality burden that motorist imposes on the society. The main result is a tabulation of the MECC’s and congestion charging for the six sections of the ring road of Delhi. It shows interesting differences between sections in terms of not only the averages but also between average and marginal cost values during peak and non peak hours confirming the importance of the approach.